| > This isn’t some hypothetical, this is current investment being made under known terms. Not sure what you mean here. Is it that private sector investments into gas? If so, it can't be said that it's a good investment. Plenty of bad investments happen, even in so called 'efficient' markets. At the end of the day, making a gas plant is a bet that we'll need more power than renewables can provide 1 - 2 decades from now. > terminal and pipeline being built today will crowd out renewables down the line If the energy can be had for cheaper, it will taken from renewables, though the losses may or may not be underwritten by the government. If the argument is that renewable capacity will be insufficient 2 decades from now, well it would seem we'd need to vast increase in demand for that to be the case. That's not implausible, but certainly energy demand has been shrinking in western nations due to efficiency gains. Even AI, which seems set to increase energy usage, will be subject to efficiency gains as custom silicon, more efficient nodes, photonics, and other technological advances come into play > Everyone seems to like a monoculture. I'm not talking about a monoculture. As evidenced in this thread, I've talked about a mix of energy with gas in the equation. All I'm talking about is economics. Solar panels keep on giving (well past their previously expected lifetime of 15 years), wind farms keep on giving, with very little extraction or transport required, though transmission and, for now, backup, seem to be the pain points. Personally I prefer nuclear from a conservation viewpoint – the waste and water usage problems not withstanding — as there's less land usage, and not a huge amount of extraction required. > Barring antimatter weapons, no. If we were to entertain this hypothetical, seems like there would be military budget enough to build whatever nuclear generators they need for their weapon (as they do for subs). I'm not sure on what timeline antimatter weapons enter the equation, but we could add the other hypotheticals of fusion or Dyson Spheres in the mix too |