My Views: I would love it if Solar, Hydro and Wind and other renewable sources of energy + Non Renewable Nuclear were to provide enough energy reliably to completely replace fossil fuels, but I know it's not a feasible solution at least at this point. And maybe it will never be. Renewable sources of energy are highly dependent on some metal mining (some are rare metals) and I doubt if the prices of those metals would go lower as the demand for those renewable sources of energy sky rockets. i.e., It's a non-linear equation, the price of renewables will not remain the same if we want to meet 100% of our energy needs from renewables. So, Just Stopping Oil is a pretty stupid idea concocted by people who have a much better standard of living than me.
Skip This if you must: As an Indian, I can speak for 1.4B people (I asked) when I say that, no matter how much pressure developed nations impose on India and countries like India, we will still keep using the least costliest source of energy, because we too want nice things and we too want our women to be liberated from cow dung/wood stoves and from the burden of washing clothes and utensils. So yeah, there is no way bar great scientific innovation which will phase out fossil fuels at least in the near future and perhaps ever.
PS: I don't like fossil fuels, I don't like the pollution or the effect it has on the environment and I wish they could be replaced by something renewable, but I just don't like the chances of that happening.
Good on you for checking in with all those people, it must have taken a while.
Lifting the whole world off of fossil fuels is going to be hard, especially if we want to do it quickly. This isn't however a problem the capitalist and nation-state models are well equipped to solve. It should not be a question of can a given people afford the technology or if someone can turn a profit on it.
We need to do this as a species, for the species. It should be given not as charity, not because wealthy countries owe it to poor ones, but because it is right that everyone should benefit from this.
The difficulty is how to convince the politicians and their masters of this, and I don't think throwing paint on things is going to be sufficient.
We need to do this as a species
I am pretty sure climate change is/will be a disaster for India, but I am betting on the capability of Indians as well as other third world countries to develop economically and be better prepared to face the consequences of climate change. Because I know for a fact that collective action problem is not solvable.
It's not just power either. Green energy is not good enough yet, but there are other problems.
Whole industries are built on using whatever is left after certain oil processes. You might be using something right now, that has resources that in the end would not be there without oil mining.
PVC floors use part of oil that is left over after kerosine is made for airplanes. So if we stop using fuel, we also have to figure out a replacement for that. And this is just one example. There could be thousands of things like this.
Because we have the oil and the leftovers, we use it and have very efficient technology to create products that we need. So if we stop using fuel, we have solved one problem(and I don't believe we will be able to do this for quite some time), but there will be consequences everywhere.
Jobs will disappear, whole industries need to start over and find different ways of producing things with different, green resources. The very foundation that our society is built on will need to shift.
I believe plastic is also an oil product. Can you imagine a world with no plastic? I know it is bad for the environment, but if you want to package food safely, or medicine, what is the alternative?
It is going to take a tremendous amount of effort, innovation and money to get even close to stopping with oil, and even more to solve all the problems that will follow.
We're starting to be able to mass produce thin sheets of solar panels as easily as newspaper. It's time to replace coal plants and switch to renewables.
You can also put wind turbines out at sea and out of sight and add tidal generators below them. But wait there's more! You can generate power at wave level too! So now this combination generator system can send lots of power back to shore.
The question is whether it can be utilizied. Some countries do use 100% renewable energy so the answer must be yes.
If by utilised you mean effectively stored and distributed when required, then yes I agree but most countries are a long way from that.
I think you've taken a couple of anomalies for the last part and generalised across all countries.
The countries that are close to 100% renewables have unique circumstances that enable them to.
For example, Iceland has a small concentrated population with easy access to geothermal energy.
Paraguay generates a lot of its electricity from hydroelectric dams as it has suitable rivers to be able to build them on. Even so, its citizens often burn firewood for heat.