How Much Electricity Will it Take to Power the World?
Learn more at www.oerproject.comHow Much Electricity Will It Take to Power the World?By Michael Zis, research by Beverly BrownGenerating enough carbon-free electricity to power the world may be the single most important thing we can do to reach net zero. What will it take to get there?
2How Much Electricity Will It Take to Power the World?By Michael Zis, research by Beverly BrownTurn on the lights, plug in your phone, open the fridge for a cold drink, and power up your computer. Everything works so instantly, with a flick of a switch or an outlet plug, that most of us don’t even think about how it happens. All these conveniences run on electricity, of course. But it takes power to generate electricity. And today that power is usually generated from fossil fuels like coal, oil, or liquefied natural gas. In fact, in 2019, two-thirds of our global electricity was obtained from these sources, which emit lots of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide. The other third came from energy sources like nuclear and renewable energy (wind, water, and solar). These sources emit far less greenhouse gases.Two thirds of global electricity comes from sources, like coal and gas, that emit greenhouse gases; the other one-third comes from low carbon sources like nuclear and hydropower plants. By Our World in Data, CC BY. Getting our electricity from cleaner sources may be the single most important thing we can do to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and get to a net-zero world. In the future, we’ll still need energy. And lots of it. But if that energy could come from a carbon-free electrical grid instead of fire-burning power plants and gas combustion engines, we’ll have taken a huge step toward solving climate change.But is this even really possible? To answer that question, we need to know how much electricity it will take to power the world. And to answer that question, we first need to understand how electricity is measured, consumed, and generated. Measuring ElectricityWatts or kilowatthours (kWh or 1000 watts) are the basic units of measurement for electricity. A watt is a unit of power. It measures the power it takes a device to function at a moment in time. A watthour is a unit of energy. It measures the amount of watts used in whole hour. Practically speaking, a lightbulb usually uses 40 or 60 watts per hour and a typical game console about 150, while clothes dryers average a whopping 2,500! Count up the number of watt-hours you use in a month, and that’s your total usage. The number usually appears on your electricity bill. In 2021, the average U.S. home used 886 kWh per month, though this varied quite a bit by state.
3How Much Electricity Will It Take to Power the World?By Michael Zis, research by Beverly BrownTo figure out how much electricity it takes to power a city, think bigger—in terms of millions or even trillions of watts. We have words to describe these amounts. A megawatt (MW) is 1,000 kilowatts or a million watts, a gigawatt (GW) is 1,000 megawatts, and a terawatt (TW) is 1,000 gigawatts.Global Energy and Electricity Consumption So how much electricity do we need to power the world? Well, the world consumed 160,000 terra-watts of energy in 2021, mostly from fossil fuels. In the future, with global population increasing and countries becoming more industrialized, the demand for electricity will grow. Annual Change in Global Primary Energy Consumption. By Our World in Data, CC BY. Slowing electricity consumption, if it happened, wouldn’t necessarily be a good thing for many people’s quality of life. Access to electricity is essential to use the internet, store perishable food, charge our phones and other devices, and cool, heat, and light our homes, offices, schools, hospitals, and factories. Right now, access to electricity is uneven; people in some regions are better supplied than others. Thankfully, though, more people have gained access to electricity in the last decade than ever before, but that growth was also uneven.
4How Much Electricity Will It Take to Power the World?By Michael Zis, research by Beverly BrownSo we should expect electricity usage will grow. But from what sources? And how?Electricity for the futureIt’s still easiest for us to produce electricity using fossil fuels. One reason is that we’ve built and subsidized an infrastructure to make fossil fuels cheap and convenient relative to other energy sources. With oil drills, coal mines, and pipelines in place, the production of fossil fuels has become comparably affordable and reliable, and the fuels are easy to ship. Another reason is that fossil fuel plants can create electricity on demand. To do so, they burn oil or coal to create heat, that heat gives rise to steam, and the steam in turn drives the turbines that generate electricity.Coal-fired power plants burn oil or coal to create heat, that heat gives rise to steam, and the steam in turn drives the turbines that generate electricity. By Kay Sohini and Climate Project, CC BY 4.0.While two-thirds of electricity is generated in this way, that amount is not fixed in stone. As the World Health Organization reported, renewable energy was the only energy source to grow during the recent Covid-19 pandemic. And some countries, such as France, Iceland, Sweden, Brazil, Paraguay, and Nepal, now get more than 75% of their electricity from nuclear or renewable energy sources. More countries will have to follow their example if we are to decarbonize the electrical grid. That means generating affordable, reliable electricity through clean, renewable resources such as nuclear energy and solar, wind, hydro (water), geothermal, biomass, and tidal power. But there isn’t enough of the necessary capacity in renewables to get to a clean-energy future just yet.
5How Much Electricity Will It Take to Power the World?By Michael Zis, research by Beverly BrownThis table compares countries’ per capita electricity use from fossil fuels, nuclear, and renewable resources. In 2021, South Africa generated most of its electricity from fossil fuel resources like coal and gas while Sweden generated most of its electricity from nuclear and renewable energy resources like hydro and wind power. By Our World in Data, CC BY.Generating the JuiceTo get there, we’ll likely need to follow an “all of the above” strategy. We’ll need to generate more electricity from all renewable sources. Each has its strengths and limitations. For this article, we’ll focus on those with the greatest potential for growth and investment: wind, solar, and nuclear technologies.Wind and Solar EnergyMost policymakers agree that we need to invest more heavily in solar and wind technologies. Both produce carbon-free energy, and both can be built almost anywhere. Wind farms, for example, are able to operate on land or on water. Onshore, farmers can use the same land for wind turbines and for farming and cattle grazing. Offshore, wind turbines can float and be easily removed without a trace. But neither our solar nor our wind capacity is anywhere near where it could be. Today only 3 percent of U.S. homes have rooftop solar, for example, compared with 30 percent of Australian homes. Given their upside and room to grow, it’s not surprising that global investment in solar and wind far exceeds that in other renewable-energy technologies.
6How Much Electricity Will It Take to Power the World?By Michael Zis, research by Beverly BrownBut wind and solar can’t do it alone. Both have an intermittency problem; that is, they produce electricity only when the wind is blowing or the sun is shining. While wind turbines and solar panels can produce surplus energy on sunny or windy days, that surplus is difficult to store for later use. That’s especially true in countries like the United States where the existing electrical grids have little excess storage capacity. Global investment in renewable energy technologies, measured in US Dollars per year. Investments in solar and wind energy have really grown relative to other renewable energy sources. By Our World in Data, CC BY. Nuclear EnergyNuclear plants don’t depend on intermittent sources like wind or sun. To generate carbon-free electricity, they use nuclear fission. In a nuclear fission reaction, an atom is split apart by force, which creates heat used to make steam to power the turbines that generate electricity. Nuclear plants can be built anywhere, and they use much less space than wind, solar, or hydro to create much more power—on average, 2 billion watts per hour. Today nuclear power provides more carbon-free energy than any other renewable source. France, for example, gets 70% of its electricity from nuclear power.The public remains wary of nuclear power, though, especially in countries where accidents—though few and far between—have occurred. Researchers are currently working on improving plant safety and the safe disposal of nuclear waste. But the public will need convincing.
7How Much Electricity Will It Take to Power the World?By Michael Zis, research by Beverly BrownImagining a More Electric FutureHow much electricity will it take to the power the world? We would need an offshore wind farm half the size of Australia to do it. Or we could meet the world’s energy demand if 50% of the world’s rooftops had solar panels. Sound farfetched? It may have been a few years ago. But as Bob Dylan once wrote, “The times they are a-changin.’” The price of onshore and solar power has plummeted in recent years, so much so that in 2020 most new wind and solar projects generated cheaper electricity than even the world’s cheapest coal-powered plants. On a smaller scale, electric heat pumps outperform most efficient gas furnaces in nearly every environment. And using induction cooking stoves is cheaper, faster, and easier than cooking with gas.That’s why there’s a movement afoot to electrify everything, vehicles, homes, commercial buildings, and industrial processes. But we would need to produce all that electricity faster and with zero emissions, which means we need to make greater investments in hydropower, solar, wind, geothermal, tidal, and nuclear energy. The future could be electric! The world will need to triple our supply of carbon-free electricity. Scientists are needed to devise new, more powerful batteries to store that electricity and improve our power grid infrastructure so that electricity can be transported over large distances. And for the public, the challenge is to see the safety and efficiency of an electric future capable of lowering the earth’s temperature and sustaining life on it.
8How Much Electricity Will It Take to Power the World?By Michael Zis, research by Beverly BrownMichael Zis and Beverly BrownMichael Zis taught at Macalester College in St. Paul, MN from 2003 to 2022, lecturing in both the Political Science and Environmental Studies Departments and representing Macalester at the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 26) in Glasgow, Scotland. Beverly Brown is a member of the Climate Project team living and working in Washington DC as a college administrator and adjunct lab instructor. She is a graduate student studying mechanical engineering and has a bachelor’s degree in astrophysics and government. She uses her interdisciplinary background to create informative and accessible science writing for broad audiences.Credit: “How Much Electricity Will It Take to Power the World?”, By Michael Zis, research by Beverly Brown / OER Project, https://www.oerproject.com/Image credits This work is licensed under CC BY 4.0 except for the following: Cover image: The Burj Khalifa soars 829 meters into the clear Arabian sky and towers over the luxuriant oasis of Dubai. © Tyson Paul / Loop Images / Universal Images Group via Getty Images.Two thirds of global electricity comes from sources, like coal and gas, that emit greenhouse gases; the other one-third comes from low carbon sources like nuclear and hydropower plants. By Our World in Data, CC BY. https://ourworldindata.org/electricity-mixAnnual Change in Global Primary Energy Consumption. By Our World in Data, CC BY. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/change-energy-consumptionCoal-fired power plants burn oil or coal to create heat, that heat gives rise to steam, and the steam in turn drives the turbines that generate electricity. By Kay Sohini and Climate Project, CC BY 4.0.This table compares countries’ per capita electricity use from fossil fuels, nuclear, and renewable resources. In 2021, South Africa generated most of its electricity from fossil fuel resources like coal and gas while Sweden generated most of its electricity from nuclear and renewable energy resources like hydro and wind power. By Our World in Data, CC BY. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-electricity-fossil-nuclear-renewables?country=OWID_WRL~CHN~IND~USA~GBR~FRA~AUS~SWE~ZAF~JPN~BRAGlobal investment in renewable energy technologies, measured in US Dollars per year. Investments in solar and wind energy have really grown relative to other renewable energy sources. By Our World in Data, CC BY. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/investment-in-renewable-energy-by-technologyOER Project aims to empower teachers by offering free and fully supported history courses for middle- and high-school students. Your account is the key to accessing our standards-aligned courses that are designed with built-in supports like leveled readings, audio recordings of texts, video transcripts, and more. Offerings include a variety of materials, from full-year, standards-based courses to shorter course extensions, all of which build upon foundational historical thinking skills in preparation for AP, college, and beyond. To learn more about The OER Project, visit www.oerproject.com