Has there been consensus on whether renewables can power our society and industry on their own? Or for that matter generate more power than we currently need to drive further progress?
For a while the amount of energy is certainly a question. If it takes 100 gigawatts to produce a solar panel, but that panel only returns 75 gigawatts over its usable lifespan (including maintenance), then that's not a good look.
Even if solar generated 1.25 watts per watt to contruct/transport/install/maintain, it still isn't enough.
Now if solar is at the point where it was generate 5 watts per 1 watt, we're in business.
Come on, knock out being disingenuous. Science experiment territory? California and Germany have so much solar generation, they're having to take active measures to deal with the supply. And solar PV manufacturing capacity is only growing each year.
That article shows a graph indicating that Gas is taking over for the lack of coal plants, and wind/solar are plateaued.
People want a high return on their energy investment to power modern society.
I'm sure solar will get better, and I encourage the fledgling consumer market and small-scale deployments to improve the tech, but it's not ready today, and the longer idealists keep peddling the idea that it IS ready, the longer we accelerate global warming.
As a fraction of our total energy consumption, they barely register.