We must soon “run the world on renewables” but cannot, and should not try to, accomplish this entirely with electricity transmission. New, abundant, low-cost, unconventional natural gas supplies are finite; burning adds CO2 to Earth’s atmosphere. Humanity’s goal must be nothing less than: Transforming the world’s largest industry from ~80% fossil to ~100% renewable, CO2-emission-free energy sources as quickly as we prudently and profitably can. We should now carefully consider using pipeline networks, rather than the electricity grid, for solving the three salient technical problems of renewable energy (RE) at lower cost: Transmission: from diverse, stranded, remote, rich RE resources…
