Two very different states, California and Texas, continue to blaze a trail for renewable energy.
Dr. Mark Z Jacobson on Facebook:
Multiple records set in California on Saturday May 24, 2025.
Most hours ever with 100% WindWaterSolar (WWS) : 10.33 h
Highest % of 24-h demand met with WWS: 80.2%
Most electricity going to battery charging: 44.6 GWh
Plus WWS met a peak of 155% of demand
71st straight and 112 of 144 days in 2025 with >100% WWS
According to utilities and skeptics in 2009, it was impossible to keep the grid stable with more than 20% WindWaterSolar on the grid, let alone 80%.
I wonder if Mark Jacobson has spent time with a lot of Trump voters?
I wince when people blithely mention converting “100%” RE as if it is a linear process. As Andrew Dessler pointed out, those last few percent are likely to be very difficult, if for no other reason that we’d save the hardest for last.
At 2:20 MZJ says we/re going to get rid of mining which will eliminate 11% of energy use worldwide. Has it occurred to him that all those solar panels, which wear out are made out of quartz and high quality coal which have to be mined. Where’s the copper going to come from for all the electrification?
“…getting rid of mining…” doesn’t mean eliminating all mining, obviously. Of course Jacobson doesn’t believe that getting rid of fossil fuels will eliminate the need for sand or limestone.
“Getting rid of mining” means getting rid of SOME mining.
The deniers and psychopaths jumping on statements just to malevolently disinterest them really really really need to get into psychotherapy. It’s nice to think of making my mission from now on to collect money for and fund it, but they’d never take it. Their twisted identities are too tied up in the delusions their mental illness is making them believe.
“all those solar panels, which wear out….”
Yes, solar panels “wear out” after decades of capturing free energy from the sun. Critical minerals can be extracted through established recycling processes.
Aren’t you worried about all of the steel casing pipe left in the ground after an oil or gas well is retired? Or the fact that the oil and gas itself is single use because after combustion you need to extract more?
As for copper, just as it was feared for lithium, market prices go up with demand. There are two responses to high market costs: (1) alternative materials* are used, or (2) sources which were once thought of as uneconomical (lower grades of ore or smaller amounts of copper in scrap).
__________________
*I hadn’t realized how much aluminum was used in lieu of copper in transmission wires, especially since they found the solution of adding steel core to improve tensile strength.
Damn this autocorrect. I compose carefully and yet still spend more time proofreading than composing—or decomposing—but it still manages to slip some crap past me.
I wrote “malevolently disinterpret” [damned thing changed it again] and the bot waited and changed it after I looked. And twice today it’s revised words in a way that would make a climate denying delayalist or ARF proud. Talk about malevolent.