> Could those billions be used to change all electrical generation facilities to not use fossil fuels?
Probably only if you're willing to invest in Nuclear.
Solar, Batteries and Wind and such are just not there yet. And may not ever be.
Probably only if you're willing to invest in Nuclear.
Solar, Batteries and Wind and such are just not there yet. And may not ever be.
What is your definition of "there"? Because green energy is already cheaper than nuclear. There is zero need for nuclear. Wind, solar, hydro and geothermal with sufficient storage can meet all our needs. Stop pushing pro nuclear FUD.
The sufficient storage part is the key.
You can massively overbuild wind, solar and hydro capacity and still have parts of each day or stretches of several days a year where these sources will provide very little of their nameplate capacity.
Geothermal is pretty reliable, but not something I'm keeping an eye on as I'm not aware of any large energy systems where this type of power generation will play a significant role.
Sure, it's easy to say. There's currently no tech available that could be deployed for grid scale storage. Batteries are needed elsewhere, pumped up hydro requires specific geography, hydrogen is too inefficient. And all of those would cost a lot to be able to deal with a multi-day energy generation slump ( e.g. a big storm).
That means a power company is losing money by not building solar wind for coal and keeping an old coal plant running.
Nat gas is probably going to hit this level this year. Certainly with reasonably accurate carbon taxes and if we removed shadow subsidies for fossil fuels.
Soon nat gas will only be useful for load balancing.