ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the kinds and amounts of renewable energy that can make ecological living possible. It shows how quickly students have to transition to 100% renewable energy in order to avoid disastrous climate change. For photovoltaic electricity, it takes energy to process their materials and to manufacture the cells and the equipment to support them and connect them to the electrical grid. The final major difficulty for the transition to renewable energy is the lack of renewable technology for powering most transportation and agricultural equipment. Even if renewable energy can operate and grow independently of fossil fuels, the rapid transition could reduce the available energy for all other purposes, and this may conflict with the need for more available energy for population growth and to eliminate the world’s extreme poverty. Farm equipment is an energy use that may be difficult to supply with renewable.
