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Yes, and you can argue that coal and oil are currently being created... very slowly... from dead trees and what not. So renewable vs non-renewable doesn't make
by otherme123 5y ago
Yes, and you can argue that coal and oil are currently being created... very slowly... from dead trees and what not. So renewable vs non-renewable doesn't make any sense anymore.
Lets make another name: "energy which source can get replenished in less than 100 years (a life time), as wood, or less, as solar, wind, waves, and can be practically harvested with current methods i.e. not fussion or matter dissolved in the sea". That's the whole phrase you should use from now on instead of "renewable".
- arcticbull 5y agoSolar isn't something that can ever be replenished. There's a fixed quantity of fuel in the sun. Once it burns out, it's gone. That provides the input energy into the process for solar, wind and wood. With breeder reactors the uranium in seawater would last us 15 million years at current nuclear power consumption levels. If that's not renewable... There's no such thing as infinitely renewable.
- otherme123 5y agoI though it was already clear that we were talking human scale. And you still talk about 4,500 million years as non-renewable, but 15 million years (plus 100% magic ocean harvesting) as renewable. At no point anybody said "infinitely renewable", and you arguing it makes that a strawman argument. Renewable is defined, like it or not, as a source that replenishes in a finite human scale (roughly, 50-100 years). Sun, waves, hydraulics and wind "replenish" everyday. Wood takes about 30 years. If you find yourself saying things like "15 millions years" or "60,000" years, it's not renewable.