Answer: The time required to produce enough solar panels, windmills, hydro dams, and nuclear plants to satisfy our current (hydrocarbon-based) energy needs.
My post yesterday made me think a bit about if we are capable of building a non-hydrocarbon economy within the next 30 years (roughly the time at which oil and gas will be really, really scarce). I assumed that we would aim to replace our current 13TW (from hydrocarbon sources) needs with other energy sources. I also (unrealistically) assumed that there will be no demand increase over that period of time just to keep things simple. And, remember, I’m not a mathematician and these really are ‘hand-wavy’ assumptions.
Annual increase in installed capacity for different non-hydrocarbon energy sources,
- Wind - increased by 20GW in 2006 (source)
- Solar- increased by 3.8GW in 2007 (souce)
- Hydro - increased by 16GW in 2005 (source)
- Biomass - ?
- Geothermal - ?
- Nuclear - increased by 8.9GW in 2002 (source)
If we currently consume about 13TW of energy from hydrocarbon sources then, to completely replace hydrocarbons as an energy source, it would take,
- 650 years to produce enough windmills or,
- 3,420 years to produce enough solar panels or,
- 810 years to produce enough hydro electric dams or,
- 1,460 years to produce enough nuclear power plants or,
- 265 years to fill our needs using all of the above technologies
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