By Christine Lepisto / Source: TreeHugger

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Jules Vernes’ 1865 novel From the Earth to the Moon imagined three members of a gun club shooting themselves into space, launching decades of fantasizing about manned exploration beyond our planet’s domed heavens. It wasn’t until almost a century later that it seemed a rocket to the moon “could be built later this year if somebody can be found to sign some papers”. [Ley, Willy (July 1957). Galaxy Science Fiction, p. 69] Then the space race heated up, and in another decade (July 1969) Armstrong and Aldrin took the first steps on the Moon.

What we need is a space-race towards renewable energy. The dream is widespread. The technology has become real. And we could build this thing if we can just find someone to sign the papers.

That is the conclusion one reaches based on a study just released online, in Energy and Environmental Sciences (pdf). A team led by Stanford civil and environmental engineering professor Mark Z. Jacobson has projected the growth in energy demands through 2050, and then calculated exactly how those needs can be supplied using only renewables, based on which renewable sources of energy are most feasible in the various States.

The paper is another arrow in the quiver of the Solutions Project, which offers people interactive tools to explore how an alternative energy future could become reality.

The focus of the Solutions Project in Jacobson’s words:

“The main barriers are social, political and getting industries to change. One way to overcome the barriers is to inform people about what is possible. By showing that it’s technologically and economically possible, this study could reduce the barriers to a large scale transformation.”

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