blackie said:
Sam Lowry said:
blackie said:
nein51 said:
He ended by saying pollution. This is a worthless argument. Dont preach to me or any american about pollution. It's like the teacher telling Lucy to clean up her desk while ignoring Pig Pen. Pollution is almost entirely a 2nd/3rd world problem. See also; China, India, East Asia, South America.
Nuclear energy is the correct answer. From a recent British study; a single 430 acre nuclear site produces enough power for 7% of the UK. Doing so with solar requires 130,000 acres and doing it with wind (depending on where the turbines are placed) was around 250,000 acres. 250,000 acres covers most of the state of Texas or more acreage than all of the UK combined...for 7% of the required energy.
That doesnt take into account the impact to the environment of the other solutions either.
Right now, renewable energy is not a reasonable solution. It is a really nice addition or supplement but we arent even close to making it a reality for 100% of homes and, to the best of my knowledge, there technology to do it in 5 years doesnt exist. If it existed tomorrow there's a 0% chance of being free of fossil fuels in 5 or 10 years.
Cant wait to see the solution for things like cargo/container ships, rail, trucking fleets, plastics.
It is not an all or nothing choice. But someday we will have to do something. We will run out of stuff in the ground at some point. I would guess the option for things like your last sentence would be nuclear at this point as we do with many of our Navy ships. But I suspect that if we invest in technology there will be better methods as we move later into this century. No one, including Biden, is saying this is a cold turkey change. People need to stop flying the red herring flag that it is. But if we don't start truly investing in the developing such technologies, we are really putting our future generations behind the eight ball.
There will be oil in the ground for many centuries to come. Our concern for future generations should be whether they have the means and the freedom to benefit from it.
...... or if they want to.
The younger crowd wants clean energy. Perhaps someone can figure out how to do that with oil in the future. Maybe, maybe not. I don't know your age, but I was in grade school in the late 50s, early 60s. I remember reading in our geography book at that time that the world's oil supply would be exhausted in 50 years (so round 2000). They were certainly wrong about that, so who knows about any of it. However, there is absolutely no reason to not invest in the technology to move us toward renewable clean energy. You can't stay stuck in the past forever. The public is going to demand clean energy. That is not going to change.
Innovation causes markets to change when they're ready to, government interference stifles innovation. The internal combustible engine remains viable because it is an ingenious piece of simple engineering for mass producing motor vehicle transit and hydrocarbons are the best way to stock stable energy in cost effective manner.
And just the same, even if gasoline and oil based fuels are ever phased out, petroleum products aren't going anywhere. Oil is here to stay. It's naive or glib ideologues that either don't comprehend or want to wish away that reality.