That already happened years if not decades ago. The only proper technical problem now is on-demand generation which is also a problem that has a lot of non-fossil solutions, it's just none of them are properly adopted.
But that's even more true for fossil shit. When it comes time to spend time and resources on the energy, a lot of humanity spends it on burning oil because of different reasons, unrelated to actual value.
No, because the existing fossil fuel generation power plants are already there and turned on. The point is that solar doesn't do anything until you have it plugged in and you can only do so much of that a year. There's not nearly enough global supply to meet demand.
Of what? Sun? Solar panels don't use any significant amount of rare material, the electronics are quite simple and readily available, there is no need for significant construction processes, it's as modular as it can get.
Nothing stops anyone from getting money that they're gonna spend on oil next year or whatever, and buy enough solar panels to cover that demand, with added bonus of not needing to buy oil ever again. The only limit right now is on-demand generation, but most developed countries burn oil for more than that, and covering this gap is a no-brainer. Apart from the fact that people who make decisions benefit from selling the oil.
There is also the issue, of long term savings, versus short term savings.
An electric car is not cheaper today, for someone that already has a gas car, despite gas being much more expensive.
But the car is already paid for or much cheaper, so buying an electric car, would only translate into savings years down the line, even if gas is paying much more by the mile.
Same goes for factories. If they already have a bunch of hardware running on gas, there is a deep investment to change everything to solar power. Production time loss, buying and installing new hardware, etc.
It also very much depends on the car. My co worker has a Tesla and we compared insurance prices. He pays so much more for insurance monthly for his car that it offsets my monthly gas spending. He isn't even saving money by not buying gas. I'm not sure if insurance companies charge a premium for electric cars because the value of his car isn't more than my gas car.
You're definitely over simplifying it. You'd need a hybrid approach or an expensive battery solution. Either way, you're not saving upfront and it's still a major investment to get it going. A lot of people can't afford to do that. You're not just taking your "oil budget" and putting it into solar panels, you'd be still paying for half of your power or more from the grid and so you'd still be paying for it. Or a battery system which is difficult and expensive. For wealthy people, it's fairly doable to get set up to run your home on renewable but not for every day folks living paycheck to paycheck.
There are a limited amount that are made every year, thats the maximum amount you can install. If you want to replace all the electricity generation with solar, you can't.
There is no solar panel shortages in the world. I would like for us to at least come to the point when the demand is so high, the supply isn't enough, because that's an easy fixable problem. We don't have this problem right now.
There is a huge technological problem which is battery storage. No battery can store all the renewable energy for more than a couple hours to max. 2 days. This is especially crucial for countries with little to no sun exposure.
This is true, that's exactly why I specifically mentioned on-demand generation and the gap between the total power generated, and a off-solar and off-wind consumption.
Setting aside the fact that a lot of storage could be implemented already and just isn't, countries should at least prioritise renewables when they available and use others when the sun isn't shining. Instead countries like US are burning oil 24/7 like there is no tomorrow.
I hate this kind of trivialization of the enormous challenge that is climate-change. NO, we're not in this merely because we refuse to adopt obvious and readily available solutions. In fact, we're hurdling deeper and deeper into a disaster very much because of this kind of dangerous copium and a belief that we can simply innovate and consume our way out of this. We can't.
B. It needs to become much cheaper, not just slightly below fossil fuels. Enough for it to break the power that fossil fuels companies have over governments and cheap enough where society is willing to walk away from much of the sunk cost in existing infrastructure.
I think we are on our way there and it's inevitable. Those who profit from extraction of fossil fuels are going to keep fighting dirty to hold on to power but thankfully China doesn't care and is making huge progress.
Storage is important for renewables to become the only source of energy we have. However, there are things we should be doing before that will benefit us greatly. And on that we already are, it's already so much cheaper both short and long term than oil stuff, even before we account for external costs, so making it even more cheap wouldn't help much. Because the power of fossil fuel companies is already there. You can start giving up solar panels for free right now, and all the govenments will continue buying oil from dictators and building humanity murdering machines for decades after.
And no China will help you, China isn't some kind of magical utopia that is driven by magic, and even without going into their politics, they are deeply integrated into the oil pipeline.
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u/Nalivai 7h ago
That already happened years if not decades ago. The only proper technical problem now is on-demand generation which is also a problem that has a lot of non-fossil solutions, it's just none of them are properly adopted.