Methodology

No. Given the huge amount of data, it’s impossible to be perfect. In addition, the data will always be a moving target. But we can try to get a little closer. Building and deploying the needed renewables to combat global warming will take a lot of money, materials, and energy, and will also cause some harm to the planet’s environment. So, in order to keep costs, the necessary mining activity and environmental harm to a minimum, we must choose carefully what we build and how much is needed. This means determining what we need.

We don’t really know. A few factors impacting estimates of future needs include new power technologies (i.e., hydrogen), improvements in existing power technologies (i.e., better solar panels), more efficient systems (i.e., better grid efficiency and insulated homes), changes in population (immigration/emigration, lower or higher birthrates, pandemics), and changes in power needs (less need for heat in the winter, more need for A/C in the summer). These are just the unknowns we know about. There are probably lots of “unknown unknowns”.

The main types of renewable energy Counting the Kilowatts is counting:

• Solar (from portable panels to large arrays)
• Wind (from large turbines to small windmills)
• Hydro (Micro-hydro on up to large dams)
• Geothermal
• Methane (other biogas?)
• Hydrogen
• Nuclear* 

And lots of experimental and unusual ideas when applicable: plastic fuel, organic, radio waves, graphene, CO2 fuel, flammable ice, microwave, and probably much more to come!