General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: How many people here want a country of low energy, low tech farms? [View all]MadHound
(34,179 posts)That is a strictly a rural endeavor and only five percent of the population lives in rural areas. The most accommodating tech is solar, we've pretty much gotten to the point with solar tech that you can provide virtually all of the energy needed by a typical household via solar, that is if your climate is suitable for solar, and your house is properly located.
But solar costs money, and for many households they can't drop down the ten to twenty thousand needed to install solar shingles, inverter, battery pack, etc. What would be ideal is if banks would allow you to tack that expense on to your home mortgage, but most of them won't, and government isn't going to be passing any low interest loans for that anytime soon.
Meanwhile, well over half the population lives non-house environments that aren't able to provide the power needed by the occupants. What would be necessary is for every building to be solar, and pool that energy. While a ranch style house can provide the energy necessary for that household, and then some, a five plus story apartment building can't do the same. Thus, you need to have an energy reserve to draw from, and that's either going to be coal/gas, or every building in this country solar powered. I prefer the latter, but economics is going to dictate the former, at least for a while.
And again, there are other factors besides economic playing into this issue. Not to mention that a lot of people are short term thinkers, which will be the death of our society.