| I mean look at history and forecast graphs. E.g., https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-primary-energy?cou... Coal might be around peak just now, but it's largely been squeezed by oil and gas, not renewables. Which are at least better than increasing coal usage, but not solving the problem. Coal prices have also been strong in part due to rising oil prices making coal more viable. This does not look like an energy source that has been destroyed by renewables as we had been promised 5-10 years ago. Just continuing to claim renewables will solve everything without actually asking what went wrong with the earlier claims, and continuing to ignore nuclear which has been a proven solution to the problem for 50 years, is a huge, arrogant gamble when we are facing as massive a problem as climate change. There is also a very real possibility of just no viable shift away from fossil fuels and coal, or at least a very long tail of decades more of greenhouse gas emissions that exceed even today's record numbers. 2050 net zero is widely claimed by many big polluters, but there is a real question of whether they are willing or able to actually meet it, and apparently already signs its just kicking the can down the road. The problem with all the "stick" approaches is that nobody really wants to do them. Yes renewables are great and improving, and maybe they continue to make breakthroughs soon enough to the point most countries are willing and able to replace all fossil fuel electricity in the near future. It's crazy to make such a risky gamble though, in my opinion. I don't think there is no prospect of coal consumption going down. I think the safest and least risky path to shrinking the carbon footprint of electricity generation as fast as possible while supporting growth and additional electrical demand from decarbonizing other industry includes nuclear. |
I mean already only 40% of millenials (according to a recent report) have the prospect to own homes, let alone financial security, or having kids.
None of the devices use power if the people cannot afford to do so, and usage doesn't nominally raise unless either tech demands or population increase. By what proportion depends on into which economy you are born, but this is tangential to the point - supply will not grow without demand.
Nuclear is not safe for people, period, non stop. Solar, wind renewables are not solutions either. Fossil fuels are just status quo, and only increase the general state of fucked up ness. Electric-only vehicles are a non starter, not only because they are so late as to be primarily luxury items for the priviledged elite, but because they produce worse issues than gasoline did, namely a rise in the use of coal, massive battery waste, and massive overuse of unsustainable "sustainables".
People who are serious about using fewer resources are proponents of geothermal, or space based tech (such as e.g. a nuclear plant next to the sun), interested in plastic conservation and alternative manufacturing, and interested in modularity, reusability, over what power source they happen to be using at the time of driving.