Sustainable electricity supply in the world by 2050 for economic growth and automotive fuel

Abstract

Over the next 40 years, the combustion of fossil fuels for generation of electricity and vehicle transportation will be significantly reduced. In addition to the business-as-usual growth in electric energy demand for the growing world population, new electricity-intensive industries, such as battery electric vehicles and hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles will result in further growth in world consumption of electric energy. Planning for a sustainable supply of electric energy in the diverse economies of the world should be carried out with appropriate technology for selecting the appropriate large-scale energy resources based on their specific energy. Analysis of appropriate technology for the available large-scale energy resources with diminished use of fossil-fuel combustion shows that sustainable electricity supply can be achieved with equal contributions of renewable energy resources for large numbers of small-scale distributed applications and nuclear energy resources for the smaller number of large-scale centralised applications.