Mark Jacobson has crafted a plan that contends that New York State can fulfill all its energy needs by 2030 sans fossil fuels or carbon emissions, simply using WWS (Wind, Water, Sun). He discusses the major obstacles and criticisms of the plan in a Scientific American interview conducted by Mark Fischetti. An excerpt:

“Question:

What are the main obstacles to such a sweeping overhaul at a state or national level?

Mark Jacobson:

The main obstacles are political and social—getting politicians onboard. There are always local zoning issues. I’m sure there will be a big push by the gas lobby and the oil lobby against this.

Question:

So then how do you sell the plan?

Mark Jacobson:

There is a huge savings in lives. The New York plan would prevent 4,000 mortalities a year in the state due to less air pollution, and a related savings of $33 billion—about 3 percent of the GDP of the state. That resonates more with people than climate change issues. We also looked at job creation; more jobs would be created than lost.

Question:

The main criticism about heavy reliance on wind and solar power is that the sources are intermittent: the wind doesn’t always blow, the sun doesn’t shine at night. Do your plans rely a lot on energy storage, which remains a tough challenge?

Mark Jacobson:

If you get the [power] transmission grid right you don’t need a whole lot of storage. By combining wind and solar and geothermal and hydroelectric, you can match the power demand. And if you oversize the grid, when you’re producing extra electricity you use it to produce hydrogen [for fuel-cell vehicles and ships as well as some district heating and industrial processes]. You can also spread the peak demand by giving financial incentives [for consumers to use power at off-peak times]. Some storage certainly would help; we have storage in the form of hydrogen and in concentrated solar power plants. There are many ways to tackle the intermittency issues.

Question:

The other concern that is usually raised about renewable energy is that it is more expensive than fossil fuels. What would electricity prices be like in New York?

Mark Jacobson:

The residential electricity cost in the U.S. on average is 13.1 cents per kilowatt-hour. In New York it’s 18.1 cents. If you look at the states that have the highest percentage of electricity generation from wind, the average electricity price increase from 2003 to 2011 was 2 cents a kilowatt-hour, whereas all the other states averaged 3.6 cents. So prices in the states that didn’t put in a lot of wind went up more.”