3 ms·

not a fair comparison. water does not have alternatives.

• chii 2y ago
  but it is a fair comparison - there's currently no real alternatives for fossil fuels. Renewables do not have the density required for a lot of transportation, not to mention fossil fuels like oil are the feedstock for a lot of chemicals required for modern day manufacturing. Some sources of electricity could be replaced by renewables, but not all. And certainly not as cheaply as oil or gas is.
  • meristohm 2y ago
    To what degree could we be okay using less energy?
  • oneshtein 2y ago
    Alternative to fossil fuels are synthetic fuels, for example E85 (ethanol 85%). Government can subsidize a clean local production of ethanol from air, like it did for solar panels, to boot start it.
• sanderjd 2y ago
  We also do not - yet! - have carbon-neutral alternatives for energy usage, either in amount or kind. This is why people are working both to scale up the kinds of energy use that is already carbon-neutral but which there is not yet enough of, and to figure out alternatives for things that do not already have carbon-neutral solutions.