General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: The total area of solar panels it would take to power the world, Europe, and Germany [View all]brett_jv
(1,245 posts)As of now, the world has reached 'historic global peak oil production'. Coal and Uranium are not far behind.
Unfortunately, though, due to the one-time historical bonanza of near-free energy in the form of fossil fuels and discovery of how to split the atom, we have wildly exceeded our planets carrying capacity.
As such, there will be no solar, or wind, or nuclear 'miracle' that will allow 'business as usual' to continue. It's not (just) because of evil 'oil companies', it's because of physics, chemistry, and human nature/greed that we are in the position we're in right now. We've lived it up, we've cast our lot with fossil fuels, and it's because we all had a particular vision of what our 'way of life' is supposed to be, and we've set about 'living it', with no regard for the long term.
Had we been more realistic, more COMMUNISTIC, more ENVIRONMENTALISTIC ... starting 50-60 years ago, when M. King Hubbert and Club of Rome began sounding the warnings ... had we truly admitted to ourselves what was coming and had we CARED enough to plan for the welfare of future generations ... had we acted as a global community instead of a bunch of Ayn Randian's ... we MAYBE (depending on how we implemented it) could've avoided the fate that is now on our immediate horizon for hundreds of years, maybe even a millennium.
But we didn't.
Greed, comfort, and consumption, along w/a total lack of respect for the natural world and the obviously inherent limits to the resources of a finite planet ruled the day ... and now, we are staring at a situation where all but 1 Billion (2 billion at MOST) humans will almost certainly be dead by 2100, and those left alive will enjoy nothing even remotely like the standard of living the WE have in this world.
And barring a miracle like Fusion suddenly working, there ain't a f***ing thing any of us can do about it. Solar Energy will NEVER be the solution we're hoping for, because we needed to make it a worldwide focus about 50 years ago ... it's WAY too friggin late now. We would've needed to start transitioning all our ships, all our planes, all our tractors, and of course all our cars (or better yet, cut out 'personal autos' altogether) ... onto electricity as their power source many decades ago ... and we didn't.
The sheer amount of energy and cost that would involved in converting our WORLD infrastructure over to ANY source of electricity (and Solar is the MOST expensive form in the short-to-mid term) before we start really running out of fossil fuels ... is more than what can be provided BY those fossil fuels. And that's not even counting the power we need to continue 'life as we know it'.
There will be no 'lets power the whole world with solar' solution. Again, barring a miracle (which is NOT presently on the horizon), there will likely be no 'solution' of any kind to the looming 'Long Emergency' that's in our future. Only 6-7 billion people dying off, because we FAILED to plan for the future. It's too late now. The die is cast. Glad I'm almost 50, that's all I can say ...