Alternative Energy Sources Face Technological and Economic Challenges

The transition to a low-carbon economy will likely be much more challenging than optimists have claimed, according to a new working paper by Ioannis Kessides and David C. Wade. Key requirements for sustainable energy-supply infrastructure include: abundance of the energy resource, a small carbon footprint and the ability to be scaled up to meet a large, absolute increase in the global demand for energy. Coal-fired generation meets the criteria of abundance of the energy source and scalability, but it carries a very large carbon footprint. 

Although renewable energy and nuclear power meet both the criteria of longevity and climate friendliness, their abilities vary in delivering energy at a scale needed to meet huge global energy demand. The low density of renewable resources to generate electricity, as well as the current intermittency of many renewables, means they have limited ability to achieve high rates of growth. A significant increase in global nuclear power deployment, meanwhile, could carry serious risks related to proliferation, safety and waste disposal. And, unlike renewable sources of energy, nuclear power is an unforgiving technology, because human lapses and errors can have catastrophic, irreversible ecological and social impacts. 

By World Bank