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It's sad that the trade off is between dirty coal and natural gas. Energy policy (and the corrupt subsidies) are so short-sighted. In 5-10 years, Europe will
by nextstep 14y ago
It's sad that the trade off is between dirty coal and natural gas. Energy policy (and the corrupt subsidies) are so short-sighted. In 5-10 years, Europe will have moved a small but significant chunk of their powergrids to renewable energy sources. The best the US can hope for is a decrease in coal power as it is replaced by fracked natural gas. Hardly any forecasts expect an increase in the adoption rates for renewables.
However, Europe and whomever invests in renewable technologies will likely benefit most in the long term.
- pyre 14y agoThe US is a large place. Having just driven cross-country, I can say that there are a lot of wind farms along the I-84 + I-80 route. The issue though is that those wind farms probably still only represent a small portion of the total power usage of the country.
- po 14y agoWell, in the linked article you can see a graph showing the contribution from renewables. You can see it's even growing a bit. It's just nowhere near ready to replace coal just yet. We absolutely should be pushing them and they represent our long-term solution but the 5-10 year plan should be shutting down coal. That means you need an alternative ready to go now.
- pyre 14y agoThe real question (which I haven't researched) is if (specifically) wind power is sustainable without government 'alternative energy' subsidies.