Suggested Citation:
Delucchi, Mark A. and Mark Z. Jacobson (2012) Response to "A Critique of Jacobson and Delucchi's Proposals for a World Renewable Energy Supply" by Ted Trainer. Energy Policy 44, 482 - 484

Ted Trainer's “A critique of Jacobson and Delucchi's proposals for a world renewable energy supply” (hereafter T11), directed at our two Energy Policy articles “Providing all global energy with wind, water, and solar power, Part I: Technologies, energy resources, quantities and areas of infrastructure, and materials” (hereafter JD11) and “Providing all global energy with wind, water, and solar power, Part II: Reliability, system and transmission costs, and policies” (hereafter DJ11), makes two main points:

(1) that JD11 and DJ11 do “not deal effectively with the problems set by the variability of renewable energy sources,” and

(2) that the JD11/DJ11 “analysis of investment costs is inadequate.”

Neither of these criticisms is valid. We show here that T11's first main point is based on a misrepresentation of what is stated and referenced in DJ11, and that his second main point is based on mistakes and unreasonable assumptions. As a result, T11's critique does not affect our original analyses or our conclusion that it is technically, economically, and environmentally feasible to provide all global energy with wind, water, and solar power. 

We organize our response around T11's two main criticisms (variability and investment costs) and under each main criticism by T11's topic headings.

Keywords: renewable energy, wind water, solar power