Renewable
Carbon Neutral
Whale Oil
Replacing fossil fuels with what??? I am going to power my Mack truck with solar...or maybe a little diesel hybrid electric?? Yeah, that sounds like good food for the zero-information liberals to push.
If we can just perfect the flux capacitor, then we will have fusion power a la Mr. Fusion.
Oil is not a fossil fuel. Hydrogen and Carbon trapped under the earth’s crust are squeezed together to form hydrocarbons. By one estimate, we have already burned more oil that could possibly be accounted for by all the biomass ever produced by all living things ever. Further, the Russians have successfully drilled on the basis of the hydrocarbon (non-fossil-fuel) theory for decades. Finally, “Peak Oil” was in part predicated on the idea of fossils, and we know how that turned out. “Fossil Fuel” is a red herring.
The one relevant fact this guy ignores is that every time one source of energy was abandoned, it was replaced by an energy source that provided more energy at less cost.
Renewables or “green” energy does not do that.
They forgot whale oil.
Whales were very nearly extinct when oil was discovered ... or I should say when oil became commercially viable as a fuel source and kerosene replaced whale oil for lighting
Without reliable cheap electricity, there is miserable poverty. Green energy sources can never power a modern industrial grid. Given the laws of physics, solar and wind will remain niche providers at best. You can make the capital investment to build nuclear plants but in the absence of experienced trained personnel to operate them, they can’t come on line. The lack of trained personnel is especially acute in the third world where energy is badly needed.Given the choice of unreliable scarce electricity and the political instability and poverty that comes with it or the burning of fossil fuels, despite the propaganda, China and India will burn all the fossil fuel necessary to provide reliable cheap electricity.
One major difference. When coal and then oil ascended they did so because they were a cheaper better source. Alternatives are doing so more for political motives than economics.
Oil is renewable. When you need more, you drill and pump.
What is likely next is new technology for finding and extracting oil and gas.
There is more than enough oil and gas to last well into the time when we become “The Jetsons”.
Renewables is a BS PC term for anything that requires government intervention, mandates and subsidies.
fool.com is appropriately named.
“Doesn’t renewable energy’s trajectory look a lot like coal in 1850 or petroleum in 1900? Maybe it’s time to consider renewable energy’s disruptive potential rather than dismiss it as its market share grows?”
Heavily subsidized renewable energy does not constitute a viable growing replacement for fossil fuel. The density isn’t there and what is more... batteries are not renewable energy... they don’t create energy, they store energy created somewhere else by something else. Yes, you can argue that oil and gas are merely storage media for sunlight...
What are these renewables? Wind, solar and biomass... none of which are capable of replacing hydrocarbons on any scale. None, even at saturation and 100% efficiency. If they were it would already be done.
The writer forgot buffalo chips.
This is true but it glosses over some important points. We were using so much wood in the 1800s, especially when railroads came about, that railroad people and others were projecting that by the beginning of the twentieth century that the US would run out of trees. This prompted the development of coal, and better usage of wood resources by the railroads. After the switch to coal, the forests recovered, and we now have as many trees as we have ever had.
Solar seems to be very big here in MA. When I looked into the economics of it for my family what jumped out was that the pitch relied heavily on subsidies, tax credits, and taking on low-interest debt. My sense is that if you strip these artificial inducements away, few would opt for it. The technical limitations of solar haven’t changed much in 40 years. Yes, we can mass produce panels at lower cost, but there has not been the big breakthrough in conversion efficiency that would be necessary for this to make economic sense. I wonder if the entire house of cards would collapse if the subsidies suddenly vanished....
fossil fuel replacement is rejected by the wackos.
all sorts of small nuclear units could be in existence were it not for the wackos.
if the wackos were in their graves, there would be an abundance of energy