Will war fast-track the energy transition?

Let me ask you, will YOU be stopping the use of oil & gas due to the war?
If not, please explain why you think the government would or should be acting differently.

 

I wouldn't have any problem if it was being sold for scrap, no. If it's being sold to just use more fossil fuels for someone else then I don't understand how you think that's any different than continuing to use them here.

The problem will correct itself, EVENTUALLY, eventually is not quick enough.

 

nope, but I do think we should be investing in the infrastructure, and science

 

The only proven technology that is in place now is Nuclear.

 

Agreed, but unfortunately as we are finding out, nuclear may not be the safest option to rely on for power during a war. Your enemy might try to destroy it. Power plants are often targeted.

It is possible perhaps that there could be some redesign to make sure there is no possibility of a meltdown if the nuclear reactor got destroyed while it was operating.

The radioactive waste will also have to be immediately removed off-site and stored somewhere else, where it will not be a target or near a target.

To understand this, I think we would have to have a better understanding of technology and engineering. To understand if it would be pragmatic to be able to have a design to avoid the risk of radiation leakage.

 

Liberal hot air may save us.

 

It remains a silly idea.
More Focus On The Impossible Costs Of A Fully Wind/Solar/Battery Energy System
February 01, 2022/ Francis Menton

• 
  It should be glaringly obvious that, if we are shortly going to try to convert to a “net zero” carbon emissions energy system based entirely on wind, sun and batteries, then there needs to be serious focus on the feasibility and costs of such a system.
  
  
• The particular part of such a prospective system that needs the most focus is the method of energy storage, its cost and, indeed, feasibility. That part needs focus because, as wind and solar increase their share of generation over 50% of the total, storage becomes far and away the dominant driver of the total costs.
  
  
• Moreover, there is no clear way to identify some fixed amount of storage that will be sufficient to make such a system reliable enough to power a modern economy without full backup from dispatchable sources. This also should be glaringly obvious to anyone who thinks about the problem for any amount of time.
  

READ MORE

 

I'm trying to be fair and not automatically judge the positions of the Progressive Left by the opinions expressed by Progressive Left members in this forum.

 

Valid points...

 

What people just do not understand is it is very costly and impractical to store large amounts of electric power in batteries. It is much less costly and more practical to just generate it on demand.

Stupid pro-environmental greenies waste huge amounts of money, having storage batteries for their pet projects, even though it would have been a much better use of that money to spend on more renewable power generation for other places. But they are fixated on going 100% renewable in one area. It is pure emotionalism. No logic and no look at the math.

Why? Because they are naive, emotional, and mentally lazy.

Huge waste of taxpayer money. These people can't be trusted.

Their movement deserves to be punished for their widespread stupidity and wastefulness.
People need to hold stupidity and emotionalism accountable, and call it out.

The same people who smugly claim that they are the ones who "believe in science" and the ones who actually ignore the real science. Math and logic (the basis of all science) are not their strong suites.

 

Wind and solar are intermittent. Without massive battery storage, significant fossil fuel power generation is needed for back-up.

 

We can go 80% solar and wind, but have back-up natural gas or nuclear power plants.

For some places where there are large hydroelectric dams, they can store the water up and release it only when they need the power.

Much more practical than massive batteries.

Many greenies are emotional and stubborn and reluctant to accept any plan that is not 100% of what they ideally imagine.

 

Europe, the good old USA, most folks will go for whatever energy is the cheapest, the easiest to obtain, which provides the most efficiency for vehicle and home.

 

Renewable energy that uses battery storage in the grid will be 2 or 3 (or even up to 5) times more expensive than 85% renewable sources that use no batteries.

Since we are nowhere even near 85% for the entire energy of everywhere at this point, because even that is difficult and a big challenge, batteries should just not even be considered right now.

 

I doubt it, but we shall see.

 

Well, what I meant is that is far more realistic and practical than going 100% wind and solar.

85% would be only a third as expensive as trying to go 100%.

 

I doubt we'll see even 30% renewable before another century has passed.

 

Greenies wasting what limited resources they have for green energy projects on batteries certainly isn't going to help reach that goal. That was my only point.

Plenty of them are so stupid they will read my argument in this thread and still not understand or get it through their heads.

 

Fair enough.

 

LOL. First off, Covid and the Russia/Ukraine thing have put Climate Change on the back burner. Second, both of these are showing us just how much fossil fuels are important to the world at this current point in time, which will put clean energy transition on the back burner and fossil fuels on the front burner.

 

I completely disagree. Reliance on fossil fuels has now been shown to be a national security issue. Getting rid of our reliance on them should be one of our primary goals.We are going to be dragged into war after war as the global energy supply dwindles if we do not invest heavily now in alternate forms of energy.

 

We were already energy independent before Biden came to town. Now even Biden himself sees how much we need fossil fuels in the short term. We have to become fossil fuel independent first before we can transition faster over to clean energy. Fossil fuels is what makes us energy independent.

 

Fossil fuels are very finite, and we will soon be hitting the point where it takes more energy to extract the fuel than we actually get from it. Fossil fuels gave us a good jump start to advancing our civilization, but their time is past. If you rely on them for energy independence, we will find it is a short window that we have it, and then we will have shot ourselves in the foot because our entire energy infrastructure will still be based on fossil fuels when there is not enough energy to be gained from them. What this crisis has shown is that reliance on fossil fuels is foolish in the extreme. There are better energy solutions available, and more being developed as we speak. Pushing us away from fossil fuels is one of the few things that Biden is doing right. There is not much else that I think he is doing a good job with.

 

That's all just liberal claptrap. The fact is we need fossil fuels right now more than ever. Once we become energy dependent then we can start transitioning over to cleaner fuel. Lefties did it bass ackwards by forcing us to become dependent on others for energy by attacking fossil fuels before having clean energy set up. Hence, energy inflation.

 

Energy is universal, it is not liberal or conservative. I think the way it is being done is the ONLY way it will ever get done. Without incentive, in this case paying more at the pumps, we will stay reliant on energy until a time that we really need energy but will not have it as the energy return on investment flips on us. Demand is growing higher and higher, meaning supply is going drop faster and faster. Whatever reserves we have left here in the USA will not last much longer. We will have energy independence for some years, then we will be upside down again. We need to be smarter than that.