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SHRED

(28,136 posts)
Tue Dec 27, 2016, 01:40 AM Dec 2016

Technology-based not fuel-based...The future

Solar and wind are "technologies" rather than a finite "fuel" like gas and coal and as the article points out, "As such, efficiency increases and prices fall as time goes on."

We need to pay close attention that the incoming administration does not rig the tax code to create disincentives for investors in renewable energy.

Afterall, with the likes of Rex Tillerson at Secretary of State, Scott Pruitt running the Environmental Protection Agency, Rick Perry heading the Department of Energy, and a Republican dominated Congress, it is shaping up to be a very pro-petrol/chemical/coal administration and federal government despite the fact that the market forces are going in the complete opposite direction.

Wind and Solar Are Crushing Fossil Fuels
Record clean energy investment outpaces gas and coal 2 to 1.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-06/wind-and-solar-are-crushing-fossil-fuels

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SubjectiveLife78

(67 posts)
3. It's a nice way to think of it, but of course it's not correct
Tue Dec 27, 2016, 01:21 PM
Dec 2016

Solar and wind are not technologies. That's ridiculous. I get why it's said that way, but there's no reason to lie to ourselves if it's as great as we hope it is.

They're diffuse sources of energy that require technology to make them work the way we want them to. Oil and coal are concentrated sources of energy that require technology to make them work the way we want them to. Instead of mining below ground, we're mining the air above ground.

The technology has to come from somewhere. It didn't just appear the way it currently is. Whatever we do will be energy based.

eppur_se_muova

(36,319 posts)
4. Coal and oil: exhaustible. cannot be used without creating GHG. no way to change either fact.
Tue Dec 27, 2016, 07:39 PM
Dec 2016

Wind and solar: will outlast mankind. do not inherently require generation of any byproducts. not perfect yet, but perfectible.

That's more than a little difference in how we use them. "Lying to ourselves" ? Nonsense !

Response to eppur_se_muova (Reply #4)

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