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.
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Agree. But in the next five years of so alternatives will get cheaper. But it will be incremental.
The real energy revolution that will make the 21st century successful is the one that delivers energy for 1/4-1/10 the cost of current cheapest coal and natural gas.
That will come from some form of nuclear. in the near term thorium lftr designs will have betas out in five years and production in 10 years.
I don’t even begin to understand fusion well enough to predict a due date for that technology.
“I don’t even begin to understand fusion well enough to predict a due date for that technology.”
Neither do I but with rumblings out of Lockheed Martin and Boeing filling a patent recently we may get a better idea in the near future.