The US's dependence on oil is counterintuitive.

[toobfreak]

You need a better education. Solar power is endless, as long as the sun continues to shine, and it's doesn't cost anything.

Nothing except the cost of making all of the panels, repairing and maintaining them, converting their electricity to AC, storing it in batteries, phase aligning it with the grid, and transmitting it. Yep, doesn't cost a thing.

Ditto the wind. This is the part that oil companies hate.

Yep, wind is endless, except when it stops blowing and the sun goes behind a cloud or sets. Yep, endless. Meanwhile, there are literally thousands of products essential to industry, machinery, pharmaceuticals, make up, consumer goods, food, etc., that all come from oil byproducts you cannot make with wind or solar.

Seems like you just need an education.

 

[EdwinAMartin]

Nothing except the cost of making all of the panels, repairing and maintaining them, converting their electricity to AC, storing it in batteries, phase aligning it with the grid, and transmitting it. Yep, doesn't cost a thing.


Yep, wind is endless, except when it stops blowing and the sun goes behind a cloud or sets. Yep, endless. Meanwhile, there are literally thousands of products essential to industry, machinery, pharmaceuticals, make up, consumer goods, food, etc., that all come from oil byproducts you cannot make with wind or solar.

Seems like you just need an education.

But but those solar panels and windmills all fly themselves to thier sites and don't need trucks n stuff, too, right?

 

[toobfreak]

But but those solar panels and windmills all fly themselves to thier sites and don't need trucks n stuff, too, right?

Those windmills cost a fortune to make, are terribly expensive to replace, look horrible and kill birds left and right. No one wants a wind farm in their backyard.

 

[EdwinAMartin]

Those windmills cost a fortune to make, are terribly expensive to replace, look horrible and kill birds left and right. No one wants a wind farm in their backyard.

For solar to be effective it would have to be pit in deserts and cover a whole of square miles, and to reach the east coast cities it would lose most of its energy anyway. It's a ridiculous scheme. Windmills break down frequently, pretty much a joke also.

 

[Dorian Mode]

They are powering those vehicles with coal fired electric plants. Is that the solution to this problem you want? We certainly have the coal for it.

Every time you convert energy from one form to another you lose a large portion of it to entropy and heat. Burning coal to produce electricity for EVs is not very smart.

Anyway, EVs are not out problem anymore, data generation is. We barely have enough energy to power all the data centers that support our advanced society now, and energy needs will rise exponentially. We need to start thinking about a next generation computing system not based on simple electrical switches and instead based on something more powerful and less energy hungry. Stuff like photonic computing.