Wijnand says:

Dear Bryn,
Thank you for your reply.
First off let me say that just like you I care a great deal for this planet we live on. I care for my young daughter, for me and for you. I would like nothing better than for the human race to be able to provide in their energy needs in a sustainable way.

Your standpoint regarding fossil fuels is (I think?) that we should use none of it. I will gladly stand corrected if that assumption is not true. So that means nothing for energy needs and nothing for plastics, right? I think that is an unrealistic standpoint. Noble and with good intentions, but unrealistic nonetheless. I would like to try to explain why I think that. And I want to focus on the energy side if I may.

I truly wish that solar and wind power were the solutions. However when I evaluate these solutions as objectively as I can, using my professional experience (I am a mechanical engineer), I am sorry to say that I think it does not and will not work. It would be simply to expensive. Unless we invent a way to store huge amounts of energy, much much more than the current chemical battery technology can achieve. Without the large scale storage of energy (or without idling conventional power plants) as backup, wind and solar will not be able to provide the continuous electrical energy supply that the modern western economies currently completely rely on. The energy storage systems currently proposed, namely water reservoirs and chemical batteries, are simply insufficient.
If however we invent a way (hopefully soon) to store sufficient amounts of energy cost effectively, then the story changes and then I will absolutely support intermittent power generation like wind and solar. But not before.

To answer your question, yes I do consider Germany a modern economy. Furthermore, nobody objective, and especially not me, is going to deny that fact you mentioned, that “33% of their [the German] energy needs came from renewable energy”. That is true. No question. But it is an irrelevant fact for a power grid even if it was 80 percent, or 90.
The problem with a power grid is that if, at any moment in time, the amount of power consumed from it by society is higher than the amount of power put into it by the power generators, the grid collapses and all generators shut down (black out) and it won’t provide any power for days or weeks, with all the misery that entails. We cannot store energy in sufficient amounts to prevent this.
Since wind and solar are intermittent generators (they will not generate continuously nor on demand) they can never fullfill the role of constantly supplying exactly the amount of power needed to sustain the grid. Backups are needed to continuously fill the gap between what you get from wind and solar and what society takes. These backups need to be either dispatchable power generators (such as fossil or nuclear or hydro, etc.) or energy storage systems which release power into the grid to fill the gap if there is one.
And this gap can be large. For solar it is obviously 100% (at night ;-). Research shows that for wind this gap can also be very large.
“During the study period, wind generation was:
* below 20% of capacity more than half the time;
* below 10% of capacity over one third of the time;
* below 2.5% capacity for the equivalent of one day in twelve;
* below 1.25% capacity for the equivalent of just under one day a month.
https://www.johnmuirtrust.org/about/resources/594-analysis-of-uk-wind-power-generation-november-2008-to-december-2010

So the fact that renewables provided 33% percent of all the German energy needs is irrelevant. Even if they would have provided 99,9% percent of the energy it would still be irrelevant. You would still need backup.
I am not saying that, scientists from the university of Delaware and Denmark are saying that.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378775312014759

Look at their figure 3. They did a study and performed extensive simulations to see what would be needed to replace a 72 gigawatt fossil-nuclear power grid (the north west of the United States) with renewable power generators, taking into acount real weather data from that region over three years. They concluded with the need to install 260 gigawatt of renewable power generators (wind, solar, hydro) plus a large amount of current technology storage (batteries etc.). This can provide all the needed energy 99,9% of the time without any fossil/nuclear. But then still 28,3 gigawatts (39%) of the fossil-nuclear generators would be needed 0,1% of the time to prevent a total blackout 5 times every 3 years (the 5 spikes in the bottom graph of figure 3). In other words, 4 of every 10 conventional power plants running today would have to be standby in warm idling mode continuously during those three years, producing no power but otherwise staffed and operational as normal, and only swing into action once or twice a year for a day or so.

That is what would be needed for 100% renewable at this time with the current technology.
Well, 99,9% of the time renewable, 0,1% of the time we still need 40% of current power plants.
I asume that you are in favour of that conclusion. It would cut back on CO2 emissions drastically. No doubt about it.
But here is why I find it unrealistic. The cost. It sucks, I know. 😉
But the cost is something you cannot exclude from this equation. The costs for that type of energy system and the impact from those costs on especially the poor people in our society would be huge. It would mean an immense reduction in living standard for most of the population, but especially for the poorer members of society, since energy is a basic essential need everybody needs.

So I say let’s put all our efforts into research! Research into energy storage systems and new forms of power generation. And when we have the solutions, let’s then use all of our resources and finances to revolutionize the energy supply. It is too soon to spend billions/trillions on it. Let’s wait and do it right! Let’s spend all that money now on helping solve other problems, like poverty and hunger and other polution.

If you are interested, I found this article interesting, which also looks at this problem.
http://euanmearns.com/the-difficulties-of-powering-the-modern-world-with-renewables/

Kind regards,

Wijnand