Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming by Paul Hawken

ENERGY
This section highlights the technologies and strategies
supplanting energy production from fossil fuels. What were
once fools’ errands in the energy business, particularly wind
and solar, have relentlessly defied predictions and are now
competitive with coal, gas, and oil. Renewable costs are
continuing to fall on a year-to-year basis, while oil, gas, and
coal from new sources are significantly more difficult to
extract, which will cause carbon-based fuels to rise in cost.
Canada, Finland, and four other countries have banned coal,
and more are preparing to. Political leadership is a wonderful
thing, but its absence does not slow the renewable transition.
The United States pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol in 2001,
and that act had virtually no impact on the growth of the
renewable energy industry. If you spend a year immersed in
the economic data about energy, as we did, there is only one
plausible conclusion: We are, in writer Jeremy Leggett’s
words, squarely in the middle of the greatest energy
transition in history. The era of fossil fuels is over, and the
only question now is when the new era will be fully upon us.
Economics make its arrival inevitable: Clean energy is less
expensive.

ENERGY
WIND TURBINES
RANKING AND RESULTS BY 2050 (ONSHORE) #2
84.6 GIGATONS $1.23 TRILLION $7.4 TRILLION
REDUCED CO2 NET COST NET SAVINGS
RANKING AND RESULTS BY 2050 (OFFSHORE) #22
14.1 GIGATONS $572.4 BILLION $274.6 BILLION
REDUCED CO2 NET COST NET SAVINGS

Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming by Paul Hawken