Renewables’ intermittency—sometimes too much energy, sometimes too little—could be an advantage. Use excess solar/wind to produce synthetic oil, gas, and coal, enabling a 99% renewable grid and cutting fossil fuels in industry and transport.
The fossil fuel industry may resist, but economics and geopolitics favor this shift. Renewables+storage keep getting cheaper, and nations like China—leading the tech—gain energy independence.
To Conquer the Primary Energy Consumption Layer of Our Entire Civilization
New research suggests renewables+storage could economically replace all fossil fuels by 2031 by producing carbon-neutral synthetic alternatives.
byu/lughnasadh inFuturology
3 Comments
Republicans would never let that happen. They’d rather die.
No offense, but this is fantasy. US total energy production is 4.2 trillion kWh, roughly 60% fossil, 20% nuclear and 20% renewables. So US would need to build renewable capacity, energy conversion, etc., equivalent to 3 times to 60% of its total energy production in 5 years.
This is not even a question of “don’t want” it’s physically impossible to build up multiple trillions of dollars of infrastructure, large portions of it unproven (fuel conversion, materials processing, etc.) over such a short time.
I’m happy that they researcher the conclusion that this is possible with contemporary technology.