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Honestly I don't even think it would be as complicated as all that. Its all down to what becomes more valuable. Here is a breakdown of energy generation in the

Honestly I don't even think it would be as complicated as all that. Its all down to what becomes more valuable. Here is a breakdown of energy generation in the US: https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3 https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3 63% of power generation comes from "fossil fuels", but half of that comes from natural gas. If we focus purely on carbon emissions and ignore implications of fracking, natural gas can be considered "clean". Also assuming all renewables are zero-emission, this means roughly 30% of our power generation has the potential for carbon emissions. By simply instituting a carbon tax, or even requiring coal plants to sequester emissions would make burning coal expensive enough that other forms of power will become cheaper, and thus the market would align appropriately. These are things being talked about right now, so its not unrealistic. The coal lobby won't like this of course and will continue to push us away from that, but I believe in 50 years when Miami and New Orleans have turned into Venice and the new generation of people won't be working in coal, American conservatives, as well as other nations, will stop complaining about the coal industry so much. All that has to happen is a few percentage points in a certain direction and the machinations will start to work.

ThomPete 7y ago
You are looking at electricity generation, not energy. Electricity production is a subset of energy and that's kind of my point. We get these rosy images of how far we are with renewables when in reality once you dig into it you realize we are nowhere near anything that can replace our current primarily fossil based system. We don't appreciate how much fossil fuels are making our lives more livable and how little alternatives add to this livability. I understand the potential CO2 emission risk etc, but we are safer because we use fossil fuels, not despite of it. And we are not just talking for energy here, we are talking plastic used in more or less any industry you can think of from healthcare to textiles to toys. We are talking for greasing, we use it for fertilizers which makes it possible for us to produce the amount of food we do etc. Which means that oil will play a very very very significant part of our lives for many centuries unless of course some completely new material shows up with as much versatility and application. And now that we are drilling for the oil anyway.... I understand that this isn't what we want to hear, but that's the reality and there isn't currently much of an alternative.
- solarkraft 7y ago
  Does HN ban trolls?
  - headcanon 7y ago
    I felt the argument was in good faith.
- headcanon 7y ago
  Yes, my statement was purely scoped to emissions, and using fossil fuels for electricity generation, as well as powering vehicles. If fossil fuels weren't useful we would of course not continue using them. Hydrocarbons will of course continue to be used in various materials. However, for everything we make in plastic, there is a potential alternative. In many cases that alternative is more expensive than plastic for its specific purpose. Much of the reason plastic is cheaper is (conjecture here) because it is subsidized by fact that we use so much oil for energy. If all (or most) cars were electric, demand and production of crude would go down, and so would the economies of scale, possibly making plastic more expensive than biodegradable alternatives. People will continue to use the materials that are cheaper. However our economy is not set up to internalize the costs to the world and to its biosphere. In that sense fossil fuels are very expensive, and we are incurring a debt. At some point its going to be time to pay the piper, and the alternatives will become cheaper by comparison.
  - ThomPete 7y ago
    It's not a question of whether there is an alternative it's a question about what we are using plastics for. Plastic today is a highly versatile material it can be almost as hard as diamonds, it can be ultra precise like lego and so soft it's weaved into our textiles. You've seen the sorry substitutes for straws? They can't even make that. You won't find alternatives for that and again ex. wind and solar are subsidized without providing any of those benefits. You last comment is speculation and your conclusion even if it was true isn't the only alternative. There are many others. Some of them include us developing methods to deal with CO2 if it turned out to be a problem and you are forgetting the most important thing here. People who don't have access to cheap and plentiful energy are already incurring a debt to survive and paying the piper. There is a cost to NOT using fossil fuels, one very few are ready to make. I for one am not ready to exchange things like food security for the risk of some speculative consequences we dont even know and to the extent we know isn't something we can't deal with.

ThomPete 7y ago

You are looking at electricity generation, not energy. Electricity production is a subset of energy and that's kind of my point. We get these rosy images of how far we are with renewables when in reality once you dig into it you realize we are nowhere near anything that can replace our current primarily fossil based system. We don't appreciate how much fossil fuels are making our lives more livable and how little alternatives add to this livability. I understand the potential CO2 emission risk etc, but we are safer because we use fossil fuels, not despite of it. And we are not just talking for energy here, we are talking plastic used in more or less any industry you can think of from healthcare to textiles to toys. We are talking for greasing, we use it for fertilizers which makes it possible for us to produce the amount of food we do etc. Which means that oil will play a very very very significant part of our lives for many centuries unless of course some completely new material shows up with as much versatility and application. And now that we are drilling for the oil anyway.... I understand that this isn't what we want to hear, but that's the reality and there isn't currently much of an alternative.

solarkraft 7y ago
Does HN ban trolls?
- headcanon 7y ago
  I felt the argument was in good faith.
headcanon 7y ago
Yes, my statement was purely scoped to emissions, and using fossil fuels for electricity generation, as well as powering vehicles. If fossil fuels weren't useful we would of course not continue using them. Hydrocarbons will of course continue to be used in various materials. However, for everything we make in plastic, there is a potential alternative. In many cases that alternative is more expensive than plastic for its specific purpose. Much of the reason plastic is cheaper is (conjecture here) because it is subsidized by fact that we use so much oil for energy. If all (or most) cars were electric, demand and production of crude would go down, and so would the economies of scale, possibly making plastic more expensive than biodegradable alternatives. People will continue to use the materials that are cheaper. However our economy is not set up to internalize the costs to the world and to its biosphere. In that sense fossil fuels are very expensive, and we are incurring a debt. At some point its going to be time to pay the piper, and the alternatives will become cheaper by comparison.
- ThomPete 7y ago
  It's not a question of whether there is an alternative it's a question about what we are using plastics for. Plastic today is a highly versatile material it can be almost as hard as diamonds, it can be ultra precise like lego and so soft it's weaved into our textiles. You've seen the sorry substitutes for straws? They can't even make that. You won't find alternatives for that and again ex. wind and solar are subsidized without providing any of those benefits. You last comment is speculation and your conclusion even if it was true isn't the only alternative. There are many others. Some of them include us developing methods to deal with CO2 if it turned out to be a problem and you are forgetting the most important thing here. People who don't have access to cheap and plentiful energy are already incurring a debt to survive and paying the piper. There is a cost to NOT using fossil fuels, one very few are ready to make. I for one am not ready to exchange things like food security for the risk of some speculative consequences we dont even know and to the extent we know isn't something we can't deal with.