ET, I don’t know whether this is one of the two links in the article I linked in my earlier post and I don’t have time to check right now, but it looks useful and informative:
In Support of a Physics-Based Energy Transition Planning: Sowing Our Future Energy Needs
Ugo Bardi1 & Sgouris Sgouridis, BioPhysical Economics and Resource Quality volume 2,
Article number: 14, 07 November 2017
– (From the abstract) “… A recent controversy on the viability of 100% renewable energy systems (Jacobson et al. in Proc Natl Acad Sci 112:15060–15065; Clack et al. in PNAS 114:6722–6727) brought forward the question of whether we can actually rely on renewable energy to replace conventional fossil resources. Focusing on the physical factors involved may offer us a currently underutilized method to reduce controversy showing that, in practical terms, the two parties are closer than immediately apparent. A physical perspective suggests that accelerated deployment of renewable energy sources makes attaining the Paris objectives feasible, although not without a major effort. A policy directed to increase capital investments in an early and fast expansion of the renewable energy and storage infrastructure is a crucial requirement for this purpose.”