>>>>>"Transportation. The number of cars on the road worldwide is expected approximately to double from about 800 million to about 1.7 billion, as the world’s population grows and more people in developing economies are able to afford cars."

Unlikely. The old world is already very crowded. The traffic jams in major Chinese cities are so bad that the gov. are really trying to reduce the growth of automobiles in urban areas. Europe and Japan are not likely to increase the number of automobiles nor any major population growth. The affluent part of the new world is already saturated with automobiles, with ratio of 1 car per working adult. The less affluent part of the new world is also quite crowded and will unlikely to double the automobile number.

Wind, solar and biofuel to provide only 4% of the energy supply by 2040 is simply too low a projection. With coming FCV and PHEV, transportation will be more electrified and will incentivise higher penetration of RE. Tougher emission standards in the coming years will ensure a healthy growth of ZEV's, because ICEV will become more expensive to produce.

If Exxon actually foresaw the demise of demand for oil as a transportation fuel I doubt if they would report that publicly. Forecast growth in demand of 25% over 26 years is a CAGR of less than one percent which doesn't seem to be terribly optimistic from an oil company's point of view.

We are making great strides with energy efficiency.

One needs to be careful about making future energy needs predictions based on past consumption practices.

The US, for example, wastes about 60% of all energy presently. Most of that waste is in thermal electricity plants and transportation.

We we move to wind and solar and electrified transportation that waste percentage number will fall rapidly.

Unlike with coal, oil and natural gas there is no 'energy waste' with wind and solar. We pay nothing for that energy unlike fossil fuels.

EVs waste about 10% charging and 10% during operation. That's a tiny percentage of the energy wasted with ICEVs and their fuels.

Similar and better gains are being made in non-transportation energy use. Moving from 60 watt incandescents to 9.5 watt LEDs is a huge savings. Appliances are getting much more efficient. Air conditioners are becoming much more efficient.

What one family in a developed world will cut in energy use (without a lifestyle change) will free up energy for one or more families in developing countries. We might be able to absorb a 30% population increase with little or no net increase in energy use.

"Similar and better gains are being made in non-transportation energy use. Moving from 60 watt incandescents to 9.5 watt LEDs is a huge savings."

Except for Propane heat, my home energy is all electric. Our electric bill when we first moved in six years ago averaged over $100 a month. Last month it was $51. The difference is CFL's being rapidly replaced by LED's. Those daylight, Cree 9.5 watt LED's are rated as equivalent to 60 watt light output, but seem much better.

Actually that Jeavons Paradox stuff about driving/flying more as efficiency grows doesn't hold.

US fleet fuel mileage is dropping, both vehicles and planes. Both miles driven and miles flown are dropping.

My old 19"CRT TV pulled around 150 watts. My sister recently bought a 55% flat screen that pulls 80 watts. She turns on only one TV at a time.

And the iPhone/refer thing does not hold.

http://cleantechnica.com/2013/08/27/does-your-iphone-use-as-much-electricity-as-a-fridge/

Please...how much credibility do you put in a biased Oil Company Annual Report, especially EXXON? My guess is hybrids will be far less than 35% if in the mix at all. Hybrids are not practical in a world where inexpensive, light weight, battery electric cars, fueled by renewable power have a mileage range of 500 miles.

"BEVs and Plugins will be 5% of the total fleet"...the only way this will happen is if DOE's JCESR project is cancelled by a bribed Oil Republican in the White House.

see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEHs3X75IDo

Flying and driving are miserable endeavors that expose one to countless pollutants and steals time from ones life both because of the wasted time of travel and the shorter life from the toxins, not to mention the cruelty of the ASA and airlines. Once I am done with working, I am done with flying. The pain and harassment are just not worth it. I know some people like to be slaves and get whipped, but not me, and I never will. Sorry there greedy political ideologues, but that's just the way it is. So, manipulate the pain lovers if you want, but your wasting your time with me. Indeed, you have probably lost money by torturing me. It just makes me decide not to consume as you direct the sheep to consume.

"It would require a land area about the size of Wyoming to be covered with wind turbines and solar cells to generate all of our electric power requirements."

In 2010, the US used 4,143 TWh (terawatt hours) of electricity. (11,300,000 MWh per day.)

It would take 375,415 3 MW turbines with a 43% CF to produce 4,143 TWh of electricity.

The footprint of a wind turbine is typically around 0.25 acres. This includes the tower foundation, roads, and support structures.

375,415 turbines would require 93,854 acres or 147 square miles.

147 square miles is 0.004% of all US land area. 3.13 Disney Worlds. 6.5 Manhattan Islands. 39% of Los Angeles. 12% of Rhode Island. 0.7% of San Bernardino County, CA. 0.02% of Alaska.

BTW, we are now testing 7.5 MW turbines. Land area doesn’t increase much with increases in turbine size so we could cut land use in half if needed.

That is powering the US with nothing but wind, which we would not do.

Take a look at this map and you can see how much of the US we would have to cover with solar panels were we to get all our power from solar.

http://www.archi-ninja.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/surface-area-required-to-power-the-world.jpg

Of course we won't build a 100% grid. Perhaps 40% from solar. That would pretty much fit on existing rooftops and over parking lots.

It was once estimated that 100 miles by 100 miles of solar panels in the Nevada desert could provide all the nation's electricity. I don't know if that is true, but I calculated that it would cost more than $10 trillion, which IS a barrier.

@SJC,
The total electricity consumption annually in the USA is around 4000 billion kWh. At 100% capacity factor, this will required 460 GW of generation capacity. At an average of 15% capacity factor for solar PV across the US continent, this will require 3,066 GW of nameplate solar capacity. At $1/W of installed cost over existing developed roof areas, the total cost will be only 3 trilliion USD.

Of course, we will need solar energy at night too, so we must build an electrolyzer-H2-Piping-FC-CHP system for backing up this solar output. Maximum electricity demand in the USA is above 1,000 GW of power, so we must build stationary FC-CHP to supply that power. At $100/kW, the total cost of FC-CHP will be $100 billion. Adding 2 GW of electrolyzer capacity at ~$50/kW will cost 2 hundred billion USD, while building a local system of H2 piping to store the H2 may cost a few hundred billion more...So, let's round up the cost of the electrolyzer-H2-FC-CHP infrastructure at 500 billion to 700 billion USD.

The beauty of FC-CHP is that after sundown, the FC-CHP will kick in, and the waste heat will be used to heat up your hot water tank for bathing, dish washing and laundry, so you can recoup nearly 100% of the energy from the H2.

So, the cost tally is now 3.5 to 3.7 trillion USD for a fully-backed-up solar energy electricity system. If the H2 will be used for transportation and industrial purpose, then more solar PV and electrolyzers will be needed, to raise the tally to about 5 trillion USD. Too big a number?

Not, if this is divided over 20 years. Each year, 250 billion USD will only be needed. Still a big number?

Not, if you look at the following statistic:

The USA is already spending $700-1000 Billions yearly on oil, coal and gas YEARLY. According to: http://www.environmentamerica.org/reports/ame/high-cost-fossil-fuels: "The costs of continuing on our current energy path are steep. American consumers and businesses already spend roughly $700 billion to $1 trillion each year on coal, oil and natural gas, and suffer the incalculable costs of pollution from fossil fuels through damage to our health and environment. If America continues along a business-as-usual energy path, U.S. fossil fuel spending is likely to grow, totaling an estimated $23 trillion between 2010 and 2030."

By declaring WAR on GW, we can use half of the defense budget of $500 to $700 billion USD annually to build up the RE and H2 infrastructures. Thus, after some years of using US Defense Budget to spend to defend against GW, we will start accumulating hundreds of billions of USD yearly of savings from spending on Fossil fuels, and that money can be plowed into building RE and NE generators and H2 infrastructures, without requiring any further spending any money on Defense budget. All the RE and NE and H2 projects will pay for themselves for decades after that...the money spent will be like investments, not like the money spent on useless weapon systems that will be total loss. Does any B-2 or B-52 or nuclear sub or aircraft carrier bring back any revenue for the US gov.? Nope! While money spent of RE and NE facilities will generate revenues years after years...

Good arguments RP.

Yes, very large future Wind Turbines (6 to 10 MW) can either be installed over unused 'non-productive' land or over farming land with very little lost of farming areas.

Site selection is important to get up to 50% of name plate production. Other wise, you may end up with 16% to 18% thereby tripling the initial installation cost.

Yes, 25+% efficiency Solar panels can be installed on roofs, parking lots and over non productive sunny areas. TOTAL is already doing it.

The H2 pathway is a good solution for all intermittent clean energy production and will soon become a good alternative to ICEVs, PHEVs with ICE range extender and BEVs.

Time will tell if FCs or Batteries will be the most efficient technology for future LEVs.

@sd,
The following reference will show that the median capacity factor for onshore wind is 40%. For solar PV, the median capacity factor is 21%.

http://cleantechnica.com/2012/07/27/wind-turbine-net-capacity-factor-50-the-new-normal/

Wind is only necessary to supplement solar for electricity @ night or on cloudy days. We still have hydro and nuclear and geothermal sources as well to deploy. Like in a concert hall, all zero-CO2 resources must fit in harmoniously under a masterful concert director.

The good news is that we will do very well without fossil fuel energy.

The wind turbines in Murdochville QC (a small isolated, closed copper mine, mountain town) with steady good quality winds had 50% to 51% name plate production last year. It is the best (installed) site in our area.

Many sites on the Labrador, Ungava and Hudson Bay shores also have very good quality steady winds.

I fully agree with you that extreme south Chile and Argentina probably have the best very high quality winds. Due to higher wind speed, productivity per wind turbine could be surprisingly high and steady. Installing 2000+ Km high voltage transmission lines to Buenos Aires and Santiago could be costly but could be a worthwhile project, specially with the arrival of post 2020 electrified vehicles?