Fair enough we can't now however.

Whether we will or not... is unknown.  Be it 2030 or 2200.

Building solar plants now that will have to be completely torn down and replaced whenever we do figure it out (if we do) is just... unebelievably wastefull... and probably worse for the enviroment.

Afterall, that construction equipment runs on gasoline, as well the demolition equipment... and the matierals used to make the solar panels... are they recylclable?  I'm not sure... not all matierals are... and some that are only are so if that's kept in mind when built.

They're very rare so i'd be wasteful to use them up if they aren't.

Of course... we'd also need new battery technology as well... since we don't have enough resources on the planet to support enough batteries to support reneweble energies for cars... let alone all the other uses such matierals and batteries have and are needed for.

Not just a refining... but an outright all new battery.

Not sure what if anything would be the solution for cars.  At best one could hope for natural gas cars.  Which obviously still would have lots of emissions.

Eh.... unconvincingly at best.

He mentioned what worked best in a lab... which is somewhat irrelevent considering there is lots of stuff we've been able to do in labs for decades that aren't possible to do now.

High efficiency solar cells of efficiencies in the range of 35% are being used in the real world for concentrator cells. The only reason they are used everywhere is because they are expensive to make, but with concentrator cells you use mirrors to capture tens of square metres of sunlight and focus it on a soalr cell of a few square cms. This is not a lab thing.

Used average spots as a substitute without doing the math with how much would be lost via energy transfer.

Ignored where solar roof panels would go since you'd have to force property owners to use and maintain them.

Force? I see no need to force. Australia's got a very good feed in tariff system set up, which is achieving above expectations.

Ignored that (6 (kW·h/m2)/day) is the average oritented towards the sun... and does not take into account tilting or even things like clouds.

That does take into account tilting. I'm currently looking for the final version of an assignment i did, which was considering large scale solar in Africa to power Europe, which used NASA data for insolation (ie the most accurate data there is) and took into account transmission losses.

For example... England gets like half of that.  Russia and Canada worse then that... not sure how you sell the idea of Solar and wind power in countries like that with ample energy and no decent renewable options.  Espeically when global warming actually benefits those countries.

England stands to lose more from Global warming than most other countries "There is some speculation that global warming could, via a shutdown or slowdown of the thermohaline circulation, trigger localised cooling in the North Atlantic and lead to cooling, or lesser warming, in that region. This would particularly affect the areas of the British Isles and theNordic countries that are warmed by the North Atlantic drift."

As for how I sell it there, plain answer is, I don't. I don't really see any need for the world to switch to 100% renewables any time soon. I only was talking about 100% because the OP was. Regardless, the majority of the world has sufficient solar insolation - transmission losses from the sunny parts of USA to the northernmost parts aren't really that bad, and you can supplment that with some wind, hydro and a bit of fossil fuel use up North. If you can only think of Britain, Russia and Canada as countries that can't switch to solar, I would be perfectly happy with those three continueing to use fossil fuels and the rest of the world switch to renewables.

Not to mention the security risks required to have giant long distance transmission lines.  Take for example, solar panels in the mid west providing a large amount of power the entire urban east coast in the US.  Think what one lucky hacker or terrorist could do... or one tornado for that matter.

Ahh, yes. You want to have your cake and eat it too. Solar is not only too disperse to be useful, but too concentrated to be secure. Imagine what a hacker/terrorist/tornado/tsunami could do to a coal (or nuclear) plant.

Ignores the rare supply of mateirals that makes solar panels. (and some parts of wind turbines)  Extremely expensive.

1) What part of concentrator cells are you not getting?

2) Solar cells of efficiencies of 27.4% can be made from purified sand. All other ingredients in them are in the parts/million range.

3) Wind turbines with rare materials? Could you please point out which of these components is made from a rare material.

4) As for cost

Note that these figures don't take into account the cost of dealing with the problems of global warming. Regardless, hydro for the win. Wind also is extremely competitive. As for solar, it is currently more expensive, yes. But fortunately, people like me (I'm a very small cog in a very big machine, but I'm doing my bit) are putting in a lot of thought and effort into reducing this cost. Infact, moar graphs.

(Note the log scale btw)

Also, the rare matierals needed to make batteries that can handle the energy for cars and such.  Apparently not enough in the entire world to make cars 100% electric.

Indeed, and that's why we need to drive less, and drive smaller cars. Again, the only reason the link in the OP was talking about 100% was to strawman renewables. The only reason I continued to talk about 100% was to prove that even that incredible goal was nowhere near as hard to reach as the link in the OP implied. Likely, mainstream adoption of electric cars will have to wait till the boffins create a room temperature superconductor.

In otherwords... he's ignoring a ton of real world factors.

All covered now

And don't get ?  You think Russia will be willing to go from me started with Russiaenergy exporter to heavy energy importer?

Willing doesn't even come into it. If no-one buys their products, they can't continue selling them. Thus, due to no willingness on their behalf, they have stopped being energy exporters. As for wether they would then start importing energy, I frankly don't care. As I have already said, we don't need 100% renewables in order to save this planet.

I'd say MacKay isn't the one who came up with the conclusion before the data... it was the Bachelors student who's career will revolve around the popularity of said energies.

You've got cause and effect mixed up. I majored in renewable energy after I had reviewed enough evidence to see that renewables are needed, and are feasible. If literature and common sense implied either that renewables were not feasible, or that they were not needed, I would currently be doing honours in mechatronics, building robots or some shit.

Again, the only reason I was doing calculations for creating all the world's power in Algeria is because I was pointing out the flaws in the OP's link's version of such a scheme. Powering the entirety of Europe from a single plant is not my plan, the only person I have seen proposing such a plan is the guy in the OP.  Therefore the 'non partisan' book is strawmanning, which is one of my biggest pet peeves.

As I have already said, actual plans for widespread uptake of renewables mean that there will be much less centralised power generation than the current situation. Currently, all the power for a country comes from a handful of power plants. Under a scheme with significant amounts of renewable energy generation, the power generation will be much more spread out - there will be a very significant amount from roof mounted systems, which are about as spread out as it is possible to be. There will be some hydro plants, which are small by comparison to coal plants. There will be some wind farms, most of the existing ones are smaller than existing coal plants. You are right that there would likely end up being a significant amount of electricity being transported from Africa to Europe, most likely along the lines of Morocco -> Gibraltar -> Spain and Tunisia -> Italy, but that is no more vulnerable than our current electricity transmission network.

As for convincing the nations with the sun that huge injections of foreign development are worth the small amount of desert that they will take up.

"Last week Prince Hassan bin Talal of Jordan presented details of the scheme - named Desertec - to the European Parliament. 'Countries with deserts, countries with high energy demand, and countries with technology competence must co-operate,' he told MEPs.

The project has been developed by the Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Corporation and is supported by engineers and politicians in Europe as well as Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Jordan and other nations in the Middle East and Africa." - http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/dec/02/renewableenergy.solarpower

Done.

I don't honestly expect you to read any of this. Everything I have said in this response has been posted above, and you did not read it then. I have put a lot of effort into providing sources for everything I have said, whereas you are merely posting off your opinion, and I get the feeling you aren't even taking the time to read what I write. If you do actually get around to reading this sentance, please start your next reply with. 'Yes, I have actually been reading what you are writing.' If you do not do this, I shall not be wasting any more time attempting to talk to you.

And with regards the 'expensive gears and blades, that are full of high failure rates' again, this has already been answered, but I shall answer it again. The graph in my previous post, that compares the costs of different means of energy generation. The way these are calculated is by finding the total cost of the system (well, the Net Present Value of the costs), and finding the total amount of energy it produces over its lifetime. Then, the former is divided by the latter.

Expensive gears/blades are taken into account in that graph above.

The high failure rate, if true, is taken into account in that graph above.

I also love that i asked what RARE components there are in wind turbines and you responded by listing two EXPENSIVE components there are in wind turbines. I repeat, what parts of a wind turbine are RARE? What parts of a wind turbine would be difficult to find the materials to make if adoption of wind energy were dramatically increased?

What happens if a terrorist takes down the long term transference or slip a virus in the solar plant that is providng gheir energy.?

I think that the simplest answer is to look at the economy of his country, and those who have a much less regulated economy over a similar timeframe. The proof is in the pudding.

Again, the only reason I was doing calculations for creating all the world's power in Algeria is because I was pointing out the flaws in the OP's link's version of such a scheme. Powering the entirety of Europe from a single plant is not my plan, the only person I have seen proposing such a plan is the guy in the OP.  Therefore the 'non partisan' book is strawmanning, which is one of my biggest pet peeves.

As I have already said, actual plans for widespread uptake of renewables mean that there will be much less centralised power generation than the current situation. Currently, all the power for a country comes from a handful of power plants. Under a scheme with significant amounts of renewable energy generation, the power generation will be much more spread out - there will be a very significant amount from roof mounted systems, which are about as spread out as it is possible to be. There will be some hydro plants, which are small by comparison to coal plants. There will be some wind farms, most of the existing ones are smaller than existing coal plants. You are right that there would likely end up being a significant amount of electricity being transported from Africa to Europe, most likely along the lines of Morocco -> Gibraltar -> Spain and Tunisia -> Italy, but that is no more vulnerable than our current electricity transmission network.

As for convincing the nations with the sun that huge injections of foreign development are worth the small amount of desert that they will take up.

"Last week Prince Hassan bin Talal of Jordan presented details of the scheme - named Desertec - to the European Parliament. 'Countries with deserts, countries with high energy demand, and countries with technology competence must co-operate,' he told MEPs.

The project has been developed by the Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Corporation and is supported by engineers and politicians in Europe as well as Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Jordan and other nations in the Middle East and Africa." - http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/dec/02/renewableenergy.solarpower

Done.

I don't honestly expect you to read any of this. Everything I have said in this response has been posted above, and you did not read it then. I have put a lot of effort into providing sources for everything I have said, whereas you are merely posting off your opinion, and I get the feeling you aren't even taking the time to read what I write. If you do actually get around to reading this sentance, please start your next reply with. 'Yes, I have actually been reading what you are writing.' If you do not do this, I shall not be wasting any more time attempting to talk to you.

And with regards the 'expensive gears and blades, that are full of high failure rates' again, this has already been answered, but I shall answer it again. The graph in my previous post, that compares the costs of different means of energy generation. The way these are calculated is by finding the total cost of the system (well, the Net Present Value of the costs), and finding the total amount of energy it produces over its lifetime. Then, the former is divided by the latter.

Expensive gears/blades are taken into account in that graph above.

The high failure rate, if true, is taken into account in that graph above.

I also love that i asked what RARE components there are in wind turbines and you responded by listing two EXPENSIVE components there are in wind turbines. I repeat, what parts of a wind turbine are RARE? What parts of a wind turbine would be difficult to find the materials to make if adoption of wind energy were dramatically increased?