Wind, solar power is the future: scientist

Peak Oil and Renewable Energy Transition signals declining fossil fuels and rising solar, wind, and photovoltaics; rapid growth, decarbonization, and grid integration drive a cleaner energy mix and climate resilience over the next decades.

A Nobel Prize-winning U.S. scientist says the world could soon enter an era where renewable wind and solar power will be the globe's main sources of energy.

Walter Kohn, who shared the 1998 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, told a meeting of the American Chemical Society that total oil and natural gas production, which today provides about 60 percent of global energy consumption, is expected to peak about 10 to 30 years from now, a view echoed in a fossil fuel outlook that examines long-term energy use, followed by a rapid decline, an ACS release said.

But ongoing research and development of alternative energy could lead to a new era in human history in which two renewable sources — solar and wind — will become Earth's dominant contributors of energy, Kohn said.

Global photovoltaic energy production increased by a factor of about 90 and wind energy by a factor of about 10 over the last 10 years, Kohn said, and he expects vigorous growth of these two effectively inexhaustible energies to continue.

Kohn, from the University of California, Santa Barbara, cited students on his campus who spent their own funds to convert an athletic building to total solar power, in a trend consistent with forecasts that renewables would surpass gas as a power source by 2015.

"When it comes to providing leadership by young people in the area of energy conservation and energy efficiency and global warming - they are fantastic," he said. "It is a major social commitment for our times."

Analysts project that according to the BNEF 2050 forecast wind and solar could supply half of electricity in major markets worldwide, underscoring the importance of such leadership.

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