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Can the world economy survive without fossil fuels?

• kwhitefoot 12y ago
  Of course. It would simply reorganize. With enough energy you can create the hydrocarbons we need from water and air and of course we can grow a lot of it. Nuclear and solar power can provide as much energy as we need. The difficult part is managing the transition.
  • Lorento 12y ago
    Agreed. And the transition will be extremely slow with 500 years of coal remaining. You just have to look at how economies keep on operating when oil prices double or triple. That happens, and it doesn't bring the world to a standstill. Cities also move. For example the 15 million people city of Shenzhen (twice the size of New York) was created from nothing in only 3 decades. Nuclear has a lot of untapped potential. If the other option is starving, we'll collectively agree that the dangers of nuclear aren't quite so bad afterall. It's going to be funny for future generations to look back at the things we worried about. Climate change? Yea my granddad told me about that when I was little. They didn't have so many storms back then, and their deserts were smaller, but they were so terrified of them. It's a pity they didn't put them to good use like we do now.