Fun fact: Shell patented tons of alternatives to fossil fuel and then shelved them.
Sauce: worked there.
Downvoted for ageism.
Because we don't need to generate the energy, therefore it's got a cost advantage, even though the true cost of it is that it contributes massively to climate problems.
That is: batteries must be charged, the plants to make biofuels must absorb solar energy for at least half a year to have energy present, the solar panels to power the grid must sit and soak up that energy, generators must be physically turned for hydro.
the only things that have pre-existing energy that we just "tap for free" are oil, coal, natural gas, and nuclear.
the best track for us to go on is to go for 3rd or 4th gen nuclear, and sodium ion batteries, imo. Solar is a close second. Hydro would be up there, but it's too disruptive ecologically.
I wouldn't attach myself to any particular battery tech - the field is innovating too rapidly.
Solar and nuclear can go hand in hand. Solar is great because the amout of potential harvestable power is massive - the trick is producing panels, connecting them to the grid, transmission, load balancing, and storage.
Wind is nice right now, as it is a relatively untapped resource. But we'll run out of windy places far faster than sunny places.
Hydro is ecologically destructive, but has an even bigger problem, which is that we have already picked a lot of the low hanging fruit. Good locations for dams are difficult to find, and we've already found most of them and dammed many of them. We would rapidly face diminishing returns. Plus, silt is always a looming problem.
Though, the real solution is to simply tax carbon.
The mix of actual reasonable answers and "everyone here despises capitalism, so I'll just blame it on conspiracies involving the rich" answers is quite interesting.
The simplest answer is that almost everyone is motivated by what they can get out of a thing, and petroleum is cheaper than the alternatives. The infrastructure is already in place, and the downsides (including climate change) are paid for by everyone, not just the producers and biggest consumers.
Because it's cheap and easy to produce. Biofuels compete with food and forests. Not sure how much waste products can cover. Either way the biodiesel is about twice the price of the regular stuff here and has a lower tax rate than regular diesel (~43% tax rate)
It has a very high energy density. First Google result approx 10x that of batteries in EVs.
All the infrastructure is already built. EVs are becoming better and better options but the grid needs to be upgraded and the generation capacity increased.
two big reasons:
we don't have replacement energy sources at scale (this is of course party caused by inflated demand eg. data centers, always-on electronics)
energy production is heavily subsidized in that so-called external costs are paid by the public instead of the companies
Until we can both reduce demand and increase supply, while also making corporations pay the cost of the pollution they produce, we're stuck with this shit.
okay so shut down AI datacenters (reduce demand)
and smuggle in the cheap chinese solar panels just sitting in storage (increase supply)
Are you 7 or a troll?
This response seems to have a strong misunderstand of how the world actually operates.
Also... Where you think the energy to make "cheap Chinese solar panels" is coming from?
Also also, the fact that you're talking about importing from one specific country makes me think... You're from a Western country where they artificially make these things limited? It's good to ask questions like this, but time to grow up. So some real research and see how you can make a genuine impact.
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