The World Could Phase Out Fossil Fuels within a Decade

Opinions, Policy

April 19, 2016

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by Anthony Cuthbertson (Newsweek) … Fossil fuels, the biggest contributor to greenhouse gases, have been steadily losing ground to clean energy solutions, such as wind and solar, in developed nations. This has been helped by significant cost reductions in technologies—solar dropped in cost by around two-thirds between 2009 and 2014. However, a separate study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) earlier this year found that only new taxes on carbon emissions will cause society to shift its reliance from fossil fuels.

According to Benjamin Sovacool, director of the Sussex Energy Group at the University of Sussex and lead author of the study, the need to switch to renewable energy sources is of “paramount importance.” In technical terms, it could be achieved swiftly with strong intervention from governments and industry.

Despite the potential for such a relatively quick transition, the research claims that the practicalities of actually achieving it mean it would never happen that fast in reality. They also suggest that fossil fuels will never fully be replaced as a source of power.

The study concludes: “Given these attributes of complexity, timing, and causality, most energy transitions have been, and will likely continue to be, path dependent rather than revolutionary, cumulative rather than fully substitutive.

“Older sources of energy—such as muscle power, animate power, wood power, and steam power—still remain in use throughout the world today, they have not entirely been replaced by fossil, nuclear, and modern renewable energy.” READ MORE and MORE (Science Daily) and MORE (Phys.Org) and MORE (Market Watch) Abstract (Energy Research & Social Science) and MORE (New York Times)

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