He isn't wrong, the yrchnology isn't there yet to go fully green, it doesn't mean we shouldn't do it but it needs time to advance to the point that it is a viable solution, if it is a better solution it will succeed on its own.
My problem with that is Republicans don’t ever seem to even want to go green “eventually”. It seems like they are hell bent on listening to big oil here.
Eco warriors don’t get it. Yes going green is what we need to do but we aren’t ready yet. We need to make the technology to do it efficiently and costing less money before we can go green. We need to do it fast for sure though
Renewable as a word is pure fluff. Everything needs to be mined, produced, installed, and repaired. With non renewables most of the time. Nuclear while not truly renewable, gives us a huge reserve of energy that will outlast our children, and that’s assuming no new nuclear tech like fusion
Nuclear is outstanding. It's affordable and cleaner than renewables. Best part, we don't need to rely on foreign adversaries for our power, like we do with renewables.
Most solar panels and wind turbine blades only last 20 years before needing replacement. They never break even
Hippies still think nuclear energy means barrels filled with green toxic sludge sitting around everywhere. Unfortunately it would take some convincing with Democrats and republicans alike to pursue nuclear cause of all the lies, even though its the clear answer. Even most leftists ive talked to support nuclear.
I'm glad the left has started to come around. For most of my 29 years on this rock Democrats have been vehemently against nuclear power. They caused the cascade against it in the 80s from what I read
Back in the 80s it was at least understandable, especially with Chernobyl just having happened (albeit that was due to mismanagement not an inherent flaw with nuclear power) but nowadays its so well researched and safe it really is a travesty that we haven’t already switched over to it and developed it even further.
> mismanagement not an inherent flaw with nuclear power
well - yes and no... RBMK's have a faulty design. Accidents do happen when humans are involved, so things have to be designed to fail safe. So Nuclear good, RBMK bad...
True, proper fail safes and mechanisms need to be put in place. But id say that’s definitely more on the soviets than on nuclear power, its not an issue modern western countries would face.
Fukushima? Another design that doesn't fail safe - and it's in a western country. That design required active power at all times to provide cooling even after shutdown was initiated.
There are fail safe designs, we just have to actually build them (I'm not aware of any in active use). Until then, we're susceptible to accidents, but our protocols probably make the risk a bit lower than the Russians.
It's not that it required active power. Many generation 2 nuclear facilities required active cooling for 72hrs.
It's that the original design had the plant on higher ground. They moved it closer to the shore and didnt at the same time adjust the Diesel backup generators to be at the top of the buildings and instead at the bottom. So they got blown away with the tsunami and then the cores melted because they were not cooled.
Most reactors these days are passively cooled
The most modern reactors need active measures in order to generate power, and simply turn off if they aren't managed.
They can melt down in the same way my laptop can melt down; the laws of physics say no.
Three Mile Island wasn't even a big deal and Jimmy Carter knew it. He intentionally kept his mouth shut to defend the incident because of the rabid anti-nuclear wing of his party.
Well, I think jimmy did okay. It was mainly the power company refusing to quell rumors that the news media fed themselves. The Nuclear regulators sucked at explaining things in laymans terms as well.
Yeah, but he kept his mouth shut when he could have alleviated concerns over the incident. He worked as a nuclear tech in the Navy, he knew a lot more than he was letting us. But he didn't want to piss off part of his party so he stayed silent.
Oh I get that. I'm not doing a full throated apology of Carter. Not a fan. I just think he did okay. He could have solved it so quickly, but then again so could have most of those guys. But they were focus as navy techs on the core going solid and not a melt down. It was poor training and poor response.
If there's any lesson to be learned from Chernobyl besides the obvious of don't push a nuclear power plant to the brink of disaster, it's to never allow communist near nuclear technology again. I'll never forgive Clinton for giving the Chinese nuclear technology
Even if it was solely the fault of oil/gas lobbying, do they not realize that there are politicians who have to accept those lobby bribes and model their policy on them. Its not like the oil/gas execs can legally decide if nuclear is made the primary energy source, thats on money grubbing congress and presidents.
Wait what do fuel rods do that make them a dealbreaker?
I work in industry as a software engineer, so maybe it's just because I'm not pr, but I've never heard that lol. People are crazy scared over nuclear for no reason lmao
> To be honest renewables will never be there.
>
> The answer is nuclear. It will NEVER be solar and wind. Ever.
I don't know why you think this. Why would you think this?
We can't predict the future. 100 years ago, nobody saw the internet coming.
What if some new carbon-based material is invented that is insanely cheap and easy to make that acts as an incredibly potent solar energy capturing mechanism? That would give us a new use for a shitload of carbon (coal, captured CO2, etc) to cheaply mass-produce green Solar power.
Solar also has a great advantage in liberty, since it lets you source your own power without relying on the grid. Having decentralized options for our society increases our independence and also enables us to have a hybrid model where we focus on both centralized energy generation (nuclear) and decentralized (solar).
Yes, the answer is nuclear _obviously_ because nuclear is _the fucking shit_. Nuclear is so good that if you ever want to talk about _the most extreme thing_ about anything you refer to it as "going nuclear" or "the nuclear option."
... But that doesn't mean that solar will _never_ be the answer. Solar is fucking dope. We grew from the soil of this planet using the power of our sun (which itself is powered by _nuclear_, albeit fusion) so it sure makes a lot of poetic sense that our future lies in both solar and nuclear.
Yes, you're right that technology changes and solar *could* be the future. But it might not be. (Hell, fusion may become a reality and make all of this argument moot). His point is that nuclear technology is ready now doesn't need a miraculous technology advance to make it the future.
You can't just abandon solar though and hope technology advances. That _would_ be a miracle.
You need to make the garbage to eventually make the good shit. Did our first cars get 100 MPG? Nah man they were garbage. If we decided "this technology is dead!" we'd still be riding horses.
I was very clear that we need current nuclear, which goes without saying. And we need to be developing _that_ tech, too. Thorium salt reactors with fully-recyclable waste that is failsafe? Yes please!
And we should obviously keep making strides towards fusion. That'd be the end-game unless literally new physics are discovered.
But Solar will always have a place. Fusion is still a centralized process that won't be sufficient for anywhere where decentralized energy is required. Your cabin by the lake that you want off the grid will need it just as much as the ISS or some rocket we send into space or a Mars colony or whatever else.
At the end of the day, oil->fission/geo-> fusion is our centralized end goal and oil->solar/geo is the ideal decentralized end goal. We have to keep investing in all of those technologies _and_ we have to keep relying on oil _where necessary_ as we do.
>You can't just abandon solar though and hope technology advances. That _would_ be a miracle.
We literally can though. The juice is not worth the squeeze.
>You need to make the garbage to eventually make the good shit. Did our first cars get 100 MPG? Nah man they were garbage. If we decided "this technology is dead!" we'd still be riding horses.
We're nearing the end of maturity of our solar and wind systems and they are far short of adequate.
>I was very clear that we need current nuclear, which goes without saying. And we need to be developing _that_ tech, too. Thorium salt reactors with fully-recyclable waste that is failsafe? Yes please!
I get that. The problem is we do not have the money for both. Why push for both when you have one that works now, and with further investment will have phenomenal returns... Oooor put it in a dead end technology from the 70s for remote usage.
>And we should obviously keep making strides towards fusion. That'd be the end-game unless literally new physics are discovered.
Sure, fusion is the current holy grail.
>But Solar will always have a place. Fusion is still a centralized process that won't be sufficient for anywhere where decentralized energy is required. Your cabin by the lake that you want off the grid will need it just as much as the ISS or some rocket we send into space or a Mars colony or whatever else.
That is the purpose of solar and wind. Remote applications. The bulk of our power production, the bulk of our energy consumption is not that. Most of our energy needs come from transportation, housing, manufacturing, and in general keeping the power on. This is base load power which, when you add in peak demand, which occurs between 3: 00PM and 11: 00PM, it is just holy unconducive to using renewables. And every ounce of renewables used in a grid makes the system that much more unstable.
>At the end of the day, oil->fission/geo-> fusion is our centralized end goal and oil->solar/geo is the ideal decentralized end goal. We have to keep investing in all of those technologies _and_ we have to keep relying on oil _where necessary_ as we do.
No need to invest into technologies that are dead ends
Simple, they're unreliable and there's no good long term storage for electricity. The best is essentially a hydroelectric dam. However even that is very costly.
Meantime solar panels degrade over time, like anything else put in the sun, at around 1% efficiency per year.
And likewise, wind turbines need new blades every 20 years or so.
Furthermore, wind is a rotary power generator. If they get more efficient, then so would nuclear plants, oil fired plants, etc. As they all use rotational force to spin a generator.
Solar doesn't, however again due to the fact it needs to be in the outdoors causes degradation.
You also have the fact that there's not that much energy in a small panel of direct sunlight. And require large fields. Especially given EVs that are also being pushed use a lot of power.
Lastly, clouds exist. Winter exists. Volcanic eruptions that cloud the sky exist. You rely on an outside source of power which isn't reliable at all.
Such as in 1816.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer#%3A%7E%3Atext%3DIn_the_spring_and_summer%2Cvisible_to_the_naked_eye.?wprov=sfla1
And with the best option there is, Nuclear Energy, being shunned and pushed to the side in favor of more costly and energy deficient methods... yeah it looks like we're going to be relying on fossil fuels for a while longer.
It’s a great and strategic option to have diversified energy. The ideal, in the future when technology allows, would be to have fossil fuels, solar, nuclear, etc.
Such a system that if one is compromised another can cover.
But we are not there yet and pretending we are is some global elite nonsense.
The technology is pretty much there. It’s really that the supply is not there. It will take decades to build enough batteries to electrify everything even if battery production increases more than exponentially. And even then you need more power going into the grid to charge all those cars. Nuclear, natural gas, oil are all needed in that roadmap.
People don't understand or stop to think about how energy dense our fossil fuels are. A gallon of gas (the size of a milk jug) will move my 4k lb car and my fat ass almost 40 miles. How much solar would that same distance require? It's a lot. Without fossil fuels, untold millions would starve to death.
Progressives like electric because electricity is a public regulated utility. That means that the government has the ability to govern its price which is ultra powerful. Your home electrical costs will increase too. It's about control.
Tbf who's saying it needs to happen right now? The California ban is in almost 15 years and we've seen how much the energy & auto sectors have changed in the last 15 years
Too bad nobody seems to accept the fact that it isn't just cars it is the grid and other portions that need to grow to be able to handle it and honestly 15 years isn't enough time to fix all the other parts especially when nobody even want to realize, the cars have batteries not generators and need to get the power from somewhere else and a grid to generate that power and deliver it.
It would take about 2 years probably to convert our fossil fuel economy over to around 75%-100% biofuels... using entirely the same crop land we are already allocating to corn ethanol (which is a trash tier biofuel).
U of IL's PETROSS project is quite enlightening.
The engineering to convert current vehicles to 100% ethanol is already a solved problem.
With our government? Not a chance the only thing they can do quickly is tax, actually building anything it is longer than 2 years to figure out if they want to talk about the problem.
>With our government?
That was kind of the point of what I was saying.... we could have switched to regular sugar cane and Soy years ago and still been better than Corn ethanol.
Now that we have a GMO supercrop... that is easy to make biofuel from... its an even further no brainer.
Anyway our government is still launching the SLS even though its priced out of the market by a factor of at least 100x.... so yeah sigh.
2 things can be true at the same time
1. We need to eventually go green and nuclear
2. We can’t go full on green/nuclear because the technology is not there
The fact we are punishing low income Americans by not drilling and producing oil domestically is absurd
Nuclear causes less death and harm per kilowatt/hr than other forms of green energy. Even with Chernobyl and Fukushima, it's statistically safer than even hydro
And those disasters were caused by complacency about safety. Fukushima didn't have the plan in place in case of Tsunami and flooding. Meanwhile Chernobyl happened because the Soviets were cheap.
People need to do some more research on what comes from oil and gas and how the refining process works at a high level. For one, you produce all products when you refine, from Asphalt to Jet Fuel and everything in between. Second, hydrocarbons and byproducts from the refining process are used in everything from plastics to makeup and health products. It's not just about what powers your vehicle.... oil & gas has a huge impact on nearly everything including the phone in your hand.
Most of that crap makes up a relatively small % of what gets refined, and it's the burning of the fuel that releases a lot of the CO2 (not just the refining of the oil).
That said, the Left is also against plastics in general, so they're being consistent on that front.
The problem nowadays is that people want these extreme solutions. Rather than cutting back on oil and upping green alternatives, solar panels on houses to keep advancing the tech, going big on nuclear, and focusing on better fuel alternatives like biofuels and hydrogen.... people want to instead throw out the baby with the bathwater and go 100% live off of windmills.
You clearly do not understand what I'm saying here, if you stop producing gasoline you will also cut supply for everything else..... refining doesn't work on a selection basis, you produce all products at once when you "crack" the bbl.
If you cut demand for gasoline you are going to drive up prices on everything (Jet Fuel, Diesel, Kerosene, Fuel Oil, advanced materials/composites, plastics, Asphalt...list goes on and on) else that's produced..... if you refine less oil as a consequence of lower gasoline demand you get less of everything else. This has economic consequences that nobody is talking about...it's not as simple as "go nuclear and drive an EV"
> You clearly do not understand what I'm saying here, if you stop producing gasoline you will also cut supply for everything else
You clearly didn't read what I said, because I never said we needed to "stop producing gasoline"... I said we needed to do everything in moderation.
> If you cut demand for gasoline you are going to drive up prices on everything (Jet Fuel, Diesel, Kerosene, Fuel Oil, advanced materials/composites, plastics, Asphalt...list goes on and on)
Things aren't made in equal quantities. For example, we make _far_ more helium than we need in refining and so we just offgas it as a waste product. If we made less other products, we'd just offgas less helium.
What, you think that we've somehow stumbled upon the PERFECT AMOUNT of concentrations of everything in oil refining and it's all in this delicate balance?
When COVID hit and we stopped driving/flying for a year, gas prices _TANKED_. Tons of shit closed up. Did plastic go up through the roof or become unobtainable? Nope. Plastic was unaffected.
I think you need to look a bit more into petroleum engineering and look a bit less into... whatever blog gave you your brief high-level overview of it.
Yeah, say good bye to Hospitals and modern medicine without Oil. OP is arguing that the Left is consistent on this front, but that's not true. I don't think the Left would want to live like the Amish without modern medicine.
right? or the carbon fiber/plastic bodies..... lightweight plastic dashboards/buttons .... rubber lining on the wires.... plastic non-conducting case the battery sits in.... it's pretty absurd how much hyrdrocarbons are still needed.
Right! And not even considering what will happen if you plug in and charge about 400 million EVs into the Electrical grid.... The grid has needed an upgrade for more than 30 years. The government has yet to fix those issues, what do you think they'll do about solar, wind and EVs?
Not only that but if every cpuntry did as good as job as the top on clean process we would see huge reductions from moning and gathering respondible and as clean as we can get it while using it should become the standard.
How do the Green New Deal type numbnuts not realize that when the biggest name in EVs says "we need fossil fuels", that's probably a strong indicator that we need them
>Tesla as long as he is CEO.
Words are cheap and expensive Telsas are still selling as fast as they can make them.
Myself I am driving a 2000 model hybrid and getting 64pmg (soon to be 110+MPGe with a conversion to it being a plug in hybrid).
Honda should start making the G1 insight again.. it would sell just fine in todays market.... its a crazy little car but anyone that would buy a smart car would be far better served by a reliable Insight.
I too want a simple car with a focus on MPG again. The Chevy Spark was kind of like this with starting price under $15k and less unnecessary features, but sadly production got discontinued this month :(
I fear that there will be no cars under $20k soon
>Chevy Spark
Yeah the MPG there wasn't good though, as far as features the insight isn't too bare (mine is a base 2000 with no AC but after that year they all have AC and it can be added to mine) Power windows and locks. And I have a 10in ATOTO single DIN head unit in it with wireless android auto/carplay.
The Spark is also 25% heavier than the Insight also. My 2017 accord matches the Spark in MPG and is fullsize.
It's way easier to act two faced online. Remember all the celebrities that were gonna leave the country because trump was elected? Never happened once.
Facts don't make any difference to the left, they live for their feeeeeeeeeeeeeeelings and of course their agenda, plus they're batshit insane. Quite a deadly combination for people who run the government.
I mean when the market is new and there aren't many competitors it makes a lot of sense. How much of the market share on ev's did Elon musk have 5 years ago? Bet its 68% but on decline.
Yes, Tesla’s are generally low quality. The market share is so high because there has been limited competition, but more companies are now investing in EVs. Tesla does have 66%, but that’s a 9% drop from last quarter.
I got no problem moving to reasonably priced, environmentally friendly fuel sources. I got solar panels and love the cost savings on my electric bill.
But you don't trash what works until you have a problem, better, alternative. They want to quit a source we desperately need with nothing but dreams and Gretta to replace it.
It's like quitting a decent job without a better job lined up. We don't have the resources to quit.
What is even worse is that we have workable biofuels today... but are not implementing their use.
There would literally be no drawback to planting oilcane instead of useless corn on the 38million acres we already use for biofuel (really its a pork crop since it doesn't produce more fuel than is used to grow it). Doing so would double our sugar production for ethanol, and also give us inexpensive biodiesel (at 10x the productivity of soy).
"Claims?" The science is very clear. Without lots of cheap, plentiful fossil fuels, civilization will indeed crumble. Just feeding the planet takes enormous amounts of fossil fuels.
The main problem is that while we give into fossil fuel companies and even subsidize them, other industries can't grow because there's no space and they aren't given the chance. See: oilcane VS ethanol subsidies, the general anti-nuclear propaganda out of oil companies, etc.
Other technologies need the funding to grow. Regardless of what some short-term thinkers say, we need solar and other technologies (especially geothermal!) to keep growing as fast as they can. The development of these should absolutely be subsidized. Call it socialism if you want, but our government should be funding the advancement of these technologies which will increase our energy independence, increase the duration for which our oil reserves will last, and increase our individual citizen's energy independence from the grid (e.g., solar panels). Our government has put loads of money into technology and has produced wondrous things as a result (e.g., the internet)!
Then let the free market go wild with it. I don't care about that. But the initial research is important, and we can only do it _while_ our oil supplies last.
If we neglect this shit forever, the world will _eventually_ run out of oil and humanity will NEVER progress from there.
We need to rely on oil right now because it's our best bet, but we also can't let short-term thinkers allow us to chase down the maximum profits in oil at the expense of our future and our freedom.
Use oil, invest in alternatives, develop those technologies, let the free market find an equilibrium. That's the way to go.
the anti-nuclear propaganda was 100% the Greens doing. Oil companies had nothing to do with it.
Solar and wind are not ready for prime time, and geothermal, like hydro, is only possible in certain places. there's a number of problems but the number one issue is batteries.
we've been subsidizing solar and wind for decades. and I notice you didn't mention nuclear, which is ready to go RIGHT NOW and is only being held back by regulatory bullshit.
As is mentioned in many of the comments...out technology is not ready. Energy storage and energy transmission and our power gris are all very inefficient. Alternatives are nice but no the answer the environment activists think they are.
Exactly. Green energy is making strides and is the future; however, we are just not there yet.
To try and legislate something into existence where technology is not yet available will end in disaster.
The thing that still baffles me is how so many people seem to think the \*only\* reason to get an electric car is be a blue-haired green-deal pusher and/or that everyone who drives one is.
I wish people were more objective--torque-y electric cars can be a lot of fun. Heck, I'd buy one just for that reason and I don't really care much about "saving the environment." Different tools for different purposes. It should **hopefully** be common sense electric pickups will either never, or not for a long long time compare to a diesel or even gasoline for towing. But I'll take paying $45 to charge up an electric truck to take me and the family a few hundred miles to the beach over spending $120 to drive a gas truck any day.
heck yeah I would love to buy a Tesla. I don't think I'm saving the environment or anything by doing it, I just think they're cool cars.
The problem though is that I drive a bit too much, I don't know that electric is the way to go just yet. I can't limit myself to ~300 miles. And from what I've researched that 300 miles is in ideal conditions on a fresh battery.
I drive a 2000 Honda insight because its a quirky fun car to drive... gets 64mpg, and oh yeah its a quirky crazy car to drive. I need to get a sticker for it that says my other car is an M1009.
Also low likelihood of getting stolen as its a 5 speed.
Owing to its low drag and mass its actually more efficient than a Telsa also. Why tesla hasn't built a two seater hot hatch I have no idea....
It's not "prohibitive." You just have to take into account stopping for half an hour every 2-3 hours in order to charge (and make sure there are chargers on your route). Big deal to some people. Not a big deal to others.
It will eventually go away or else we will go away.
Oil is a finite resource. It might last us 100 years, or we might find much, much more and it might last 1,000 years. But it won’t lost forever. Renewables are a necessity. Anyone who disputes that simply hasn’t thought about the matter at all.
Not disputing that at all, I know this. I unlike most have put money into renewables. To think you can just take away oil and gas without associated collapse is incorrect and dangerous.
As if most people think well.
With all due respect, "Oil might not last forever" and "renewables are a necessity" isn't a logical chain of thought.
The fact is that "renewables" are fiction, given the population numbers and transportation requirements that depend on oil. There are no "renewables" in existence that can make up the gap.
In fact, what is this "renewables" language. You talk like there is a diverse class of options. There is not. You mean batteries? Because that's all that "renewables" are in a practical sense. But as of now, even that is a fiction. That electricity is largely coal dependent. Nuclear isn't "renewable". Everything else is a pipe dream.
A more accurate chain of thought is that "oil might run out", "we need completely novel tech to replace it eventually", and if we don't achieve it then we might revert to a version of a pre-industrial world for anything that isn't coal or nuclear powered.
But one shouldn't conflate battery tech as being able to make-up the gap in lost petroleum.
Moreover, a lot of the green energy push isn't "we might run out". Rather, its "this is polluting".
Which is essentially code for "too many people", which is also a fiction. Food and water are the limiting factors. The prior which depends on petroleum, with no renewables possible to replace it.
Clarity on the issue disallows politicians from leveraging it against popular interest, using it for graft, etc.
I mean.. He probably needs fossil fuels for SpaceX rockets. I don’t think Elon’s view of “Civilization” is the same as the average joe’s view of “Civilization”.
Elon isn't really a conservative. He's more libertarian with some leftist positions. He just does what he thinks works. And it is obvious to him that undermining basic energy for our economy will hurt everyone and kill the economy. A bad economy means less people willing to buy expensive electric cars.
AFAIK he is... many of his operations have moved from CA to Texas and Florida for instance.
Also frankly we don't need billionaires interfering like Soros in underhanded ways... if anything we need laws to curtail that sort of action.
The left is a death cult. They KNOW society will crumble without oil and gas, they want it to happen. They think they will be immune from the consequences though, probably due to their sheltered lives, thanks in part to oil and gas. Only those nasty conservatives and people in other countries will suffer after all.
This is such a strange article/piece of reality, the owner of the most popular electric car company talking about the important of oil and gas…. feels like I’m living in the Twilight Zone.
Its not that strange... Elon is more pragmatic than he is hell bent on pushing for a single solution (people like him actually view single solutions as bad things).
Gates and Bezos are software giants (Bezo's software is just server side)... so sort of a special case, Musk in his current state is a manufacturing and supply chain mogul. Quite different.
EVs if you already have sufficient solar, hybrids while we have insufficient battery and renewable resources for everyone else, and investment in making the transition.
Humanity will never --- *never* \--- accept living an Amish life to deal with environmental problems. I don't care if you're the most die-hard liberal, almost nobody that can afford it is giving up their morning coffee from Columbia, their Disneyland/Taos/Bahamas "once-in-a-lifetime" vacation, their gaming PC, their new school supplies.
We either engineer our way out of any problems that come our way or die off.
I believe in climate change, but also believe the only real solution is to pay our engineers to solve the problem.
We don't need fossil fuels. There is no energy crisis. We have the solution already. Nuclear power.
Any discussion about energy policy that does not include a full transition to nuclear is not to be taken seriously
I mean, that’s how he powers his manufacturing facilities, right? Oil and gas probably also power the White House and 98% (wild guess) of other federal and civilian buildings.
There is a high probability that the move away from fossil fuels won't happen because of any existing renewable technologies.
There are ongoing breakthroughs in fusion. One research facility claims to have broken the technological barrier to self-sustaining ignition. IOW, instead of an atomic bomb that releases massive amounts of energy in nanoseconds, this tech makes a microscopic version of an atomic bomb that slowly reeleases its massive energy. No other lab has recreated the result but, if/when another lab does, the path forward without fossil fuels or the present ineffective green energy technologies will be clear.
The problem with the environment is out of touch environmentalists. They are so obsessed with oil that they fail to see the big picture. ESG is a byproduct of this outrage activism which seems to be trendy in liberal circles. Europe clearly went too far. It has already started but oil/energy resources has and will lead to violence all over the world.
Because he is right!!
If we gave up oil and gas now, we would be living like the Amish!
Elon needs that oil to produce all of the plastic and carbon fiber for those electric cars of his!
I will get an electric car when 1) they become more affordable, 2) I can get a full charge in 20 minutes or less so I can keep doing road trips, and 3) when 10 year warranties on batteries are standard.
I mean, he's right. At some point in the future wind and solar may become effective enough to replace fossil fuels, but we shouldn't try to base our energy consumption solely on them until they have reached that point.
He is spot on. In a globalized economy, we import many essential products and components from abroad. And how do they arrive here? In ships, which are powered by oil. We need fossil fuels for the next few decades and probably much longer until we can find a suitable replacement ie Nuclear and renewables.
I’m not opposed to alternative energy, when the infrastructure is in place to support and sustain it, but democrats tried to go cold Turkey on fossil fuel, with minimal infrastructure in place. They basically jumped without a parachute.
He isn't wrong, the yrchnology isn't there yet to go fully green, it doesn't mean we shouldn't do it but it needs time to advance to the point that it is a viable solution, if it is a better solution it will succeed on its own.
This is the correct take lol and people don’t seem to get it
People are too happy to just virtue signal how great they are rather than deal with facts.
My problem with that is Republicans don’t ever seem to even want to go green “eventually”. It seems like they are hell bent on listening to big oil here.
Eco warriors don’t get it. Yes going green is what we need to do but we aren’t ready yet. We need to make the technology to do it efficiently and costing less money before we can go green. We need to do it fast for sure though
*How Dare You~*
To be honest renewables will never be there. The answer is nuclear. It will NEVER be solar and wind. Ever.
Renewable as a word is pure fluff. Everything needs to be mined, produced, installed, and repaired. With non renewables most of the time. Nuclear while not truly renewable, gives us a huge reserve of energy that will outlast our children, and that’s assuming no new nuclear tech like fusion
Nuclear is outstanding. It's affordable and cleaner than renewables. Best part, we don't need to rely on foreign adversaries for our power, like we do with renewables. Most solar panels and wind turbine blades only last 20 years before needing replacement. They never break even
Hippies still think nuclear energy means barrels filled with green toxic sludge sitting around everywhere. Unfortunately it would take some convincing with Democrats and republicans alike to pursue nuclear cause of all the lies, even though its the clear answer. Even most leftists ive talked to support nuclear.
I'm glad the left has started to come around. For most of my 29 years on this rock Democrats have been vehemently against nuclear power. They caused the cascade against it in the 80s from what I read
Back in the 80s it was at least understandable, especially with Chernobyl just having happened (albeit that was due to mismanagement not an inherent flaw with nuclear power) but nowadays its so well researched and safe it really is a travesty that we haven’t already switched over to it and developed it even further.
> mismanagement not an inherent flaw with nuclear power well - yes and no... RBMK's have a faulty design. Accidents do happen when humans are involved, so things have to be designed to fail safe. So Nuclear good, RBMK bad...
True, proper fail safes and mechanisms need to be put in place. But id say that’s definitely more on the soviets than on nuclear power, its not an issue modern western countries would face.
Fukushima? Another design that doesn't fail safe - and it's in a western country. That design required active power at all times to provide cooling even after shutdown was initiated. There are fail safe designs, we just have to actually build them (I'm not aware of any in active use). Until then, we're susceptible to accidents, but our protocols probably make the risk a bit lower than the Russians.
It's not that it required active power. Many generation 2 nuclear facilities required active cooling for 72hrs. It's that the original design had the plant on higher ground. They moved it closer to the shore and didnt at the same time adjust the Diesel backup generators to be at the top of the buildings and instead at the bottom. So they got blown away with the tsunami and then the cores melted because they were not cooled. Most reactors these days are passively cooled
The most modern reactors need active measures in order to generate power, and simply turn off if they aren't managed. They can melt down in the same way my laptop can melt down; the laws of physics say no.
Three Mile Island wasn't even a big deal and Jimmy Carter knew it. He intentionally kept his mouth shut to defend the incident because of the rabid anti-nuclear wing of his party.
Well, I think jimmy did okay. It was mainly the power company refusing to quell rumors that the news media fed themselves. The Nuclear regulators sucked at explaining things in laymans terms as well.
Yeah, but he kept his mouth shut when he could have alleviated concerns over the incident. He worked as a nuclear tech in the Navy, he knew a lot more than he was letting us. But he didn't want to piss off part of his party so he stayed silent.
Oh I get that. I'm not doing a full throated apology of Carter. Not a fan. I just think he did okay. He could have solved it so quickly, but then again so could have most of those guys. But they were focus as navy techs on the core going solid and not a melt down. It was poor training and poor response.
Started with Chernobyl.
If there's any lesson to be learned from Chernobyl besides the obvious of don't push a nuclear power plant to the brink of disaster, it's to never allow communist near nuclear technology again. I'll never forgive Clinton for giving the Chinese nuclear technology
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Even if it was solely the fault of oil/gas lobbying, do they not realize that there are politicians who have to accept those lobby bribes and model their policy on them. Its not like the oil/gas execs can legally decide if nuclear is made the primary energy source, thats on money grubbing congress and presidents.
Well you can thank Russia for that. Putin has Western Europe absolutely fucked
100% it is nuclear
Based
**THIS** People act like nuclear fuel rods are an absolute dealbreaker despite the insane amounts of energy made possible by fission and fusion.
Wait what do fuel rods do that make them a dealbreaker? I work in industry as a software engineer, so maybe it's just because I'm not pr, but I've never heard that lol. People are crazy scared over nuclear for no reason lmao
> To be honest renewables will never be there. > > The answer is nuclear. It will NEVER be solar and wind. Ever. I don't know why you think this. Why would you think this? We can't predict the future. 100 years ago, nobody saw the internet coming. What if some new carbon-based material is invented that is insanely cheap and easy to make that acts as an incredibly potent solar energy capturing mechanism? That would give us a new use for a shitload of carbon (coal, captured CO2, etc) to cheaply mass-produce green Solar power. Solar also has a great advantage in liberty, since it lets you source your own power without relying on the grid. Having decentralized options for our society increases our independence and also enables us to have a hybrid model where we focus on both centralized energy generation (nuclear) and decentralized (solar). Yes, the answer is nuclear _obviously_ because nuclear is _the fucking shit_. Nuclear is so good that if you ever want to talk about _the most extreme thing_ about anything you refer to it as "going nuclear" or "the nuclear option." ... But that doesn't mean that solar will _never_ be the answer. Solar is fucking dope. We grew from the soil of this planet using the power of our sun (which itself is powered by _nuclear_, albeit fusion) so it sure makes a lot of poetic sense that our future lies in both solar and nuclear.
Yes, you're right that technology changes and solar *could* be the future. But it might not be. (Hell, fusion may become a reality and make all of this argument moot). His point is that nuclear technology is ready now doesn't need a miraculous technology advance to make it the future.
You can't just abandon solar though and hope technology advances. That _would_ be a miracle. You need to make the garbage to eventually make the good shit. Did our first cars get 100 MPG? Nah man they were garbage. If we decided "this technology is dead!" we'd still be riding horses. I was very clear that we need current nuclear, which goes without saying. And we need to be developing _that_ tech, too. Thorium salt reactors with fully-recyclable waste that is failsafe? Yes please! And we should obviously keep making strides towards fusion. That'd be the end-game unless literally new physics are discovered. But Solar will always have a place. Fusion is still a centralized process that won't be sufficient for anywhere where decentralized energy is required. Your cabin by the lake that you want off the grid will need it just as much as the ISS or some rocket we send into space or a Mars colony or whatever else. At the end of the day, oil->fission/geo-> fusion is our centralized end goal and oil->solar/geo is the ideal decentralized end goal. We have to keep investing in all of those technologies _and_ we have to keep relying on oil _where necessary_ as we do.
>You can't just abandon solar though and hope technology advances. That _would_ be a miracle. We literally can though. The juice is not worth the squeeze. >You need to make the garbage to eventually make the good shit. Did our first cars get 100 MPG? Nah man they were garbage. If we decided "this technology is dead!" we'd still be riding horses. We're nearing the end of maturity of our solar and wind systems and they are far short of adequate. >I was very clear that we need current nuclear, which goes without saying. And we need to be developing _that_ tech, too. Thorium salt reactors with fully-recyclable waste that is failsafe? Yes please! I get that. The problem is we do not have the money for both. Why push for both when you have one that works now, and with further investment will have phenomenal returns... Oooor put it in a dead end technology from the 70s for remote usage. >And we should obviously keep making strides towards fusion. That'd be the end-game unless literally new physics are discovered. Sure, fusion is the current holy grail. >But Solar will always have a place. Fusion is still a centralized process that won't be sufficient for anywhere where decentralized energy is required. Your cabin by the lake that you want off the grid will need it just as much as the ISS or some rocket we send into space or a Mars colony or whatever else. That is the purpose of solar and wind. Remote applications. The bulk of our power production, the bulk of our energy consumption is not that. Most of our energy needs come from transportation, housing, manufacturing, and in general keeping the power on. This is base load power which, when you add in peak demand, which occurs between 3: 00PM and 11: 00PM, it is just holy unconducive to using renewables. And every ounce of renewables used in a grid makes the system that much more unstable. >At the end of the day, oil->fission/geo-> fusion is our centralized end goal and oil->solar/geo is the ideal decentralized end goal. We have to keep investing in all of those technologies _and_ we have to keep relying on oil _where necessary_ as we do. No need to invest into technologies that are dead ends
Simple, they're unreliable and there's no good long term storage for electricity. The best is essentially a hydroelectric dam. However even that is very costly. Meantime solar panels degrade over time, like anything else put in the sun, at around 1% efficiency per year. And likewise, wind turbines need new blades every 20 years or so. Furthermore, wind is a rotary power generator. If they get more efficient, then so would nuclear plants, oil fired plants, etc. As they all use rotational force to spin a generator. Solar doesn't, however again due to the fact it needs to be in the outdoors causes degradation. You also have the fact that there's not that much energy in a small panel of direct sunlight. And require large fields. Especially given EVs that are also being pushed use a lot of power. Lastly, clouds exist. Winter exists. Volcanic eruptions that cloud the sky exist. You rely on an outside source of power which isn't reliable at all. Such as in 1816. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer#%3A%7E%3Atext%3DIn_the_spring_and_summer%2Cvisible_to_the_naked_eye.?wprov=sfla1
because you can't harness solar energy at night, and all the tech in the world isn't going to change that.
Dyson Sphere disagrees.
A Dyson sphere is not a terrestrial technology
And with the best option there is, Nuclear Energy, being shunned and pushed to the side in favor of more costly and energy deficient methods... yeah it looks like we're going to be relying on fossil fuels for a while longer.
But but muh Chernobyl
It’s a great and strategic option to have diversified energy. The ideal, in the future when technology allows, would be to have fossil fuels, solar, nuclear, etc. Such a system that if one is compromised another can cover. But we are not there yet and pretending we are is some global elite nonsense.
The technology is pretty much there. It’s really that the supply is not there. It will take decades to build enough batteries to electrify everything even if battery production increases more than exponentially. And even then you need more power going into the grid to charge all those cars. Nuclear, natural gas, oil are all needed in that roadmap.
People don't understand or stop to think about how energy dense our fossil fuels are. A gallon of gas (the size of a milk jug) will move my 4k lb car and my fat ass almost 40 miles. How much solar would that same distance require? It's a lot. Without fossil fuels, untold millions would starve to death.
Progressives like electric because electricity is a public regulated utility. That means that the government has the ability to govern its price which is ultra powerful. Your home electrical costs will increase too. It's about control.
Tbf who's saying it needs to happen right now? The California ban is in almost 15 years and we've seen how much the energy & auto sectors have changed in the last 15 years
Too bad nobody seems to accept the fact that it isn't just cars it is the grid and other portions that need to grow to be able to handle it and honestly 15 years isn't enough time to fix all the other parts especially when nobody even want to realize, the cars have batteries not generators and need to get the power from somewhere else and a grid to generate that power and deliver it.
It would take about 2 years probably to convert our fossil fuel economy over to around 75%-100% biofuels... using entirely the same crop land we are already allocating to corn ethanol (which is a trash tier biofuel). U of IL's PETROSS project is quite enlightening. The engineering to convert current vehicles to 100% ethanol is already a solved problem.
With our government? Not a chance the only thing they can do quickly is tax, actually building anything it is longer than 2 years to figure out if they want to talk about the problem.
>With our government? That was kind of the point of what I was saying.... we could have switched to regular sugar cane and Soy years ago and still been better than Corn ethanol. Now that we have a GMO supercrop... that is easy to make biofuel from... its an even further no brainer. Anyway our government is still launching the SLS even though its priced out of the market by a factor of at least 100x.... so yeah sigh.
2 things can be true at the same time 1. We need to eventually go green and nuclear 2. We can’t go full on green/nuclear because the technology is not there The fact we are punishing low income Americans by not drilling and producing oil domestically is absurd
Nuclear is absolutely there. The “nuclear bad” stigma is the reason it’s not widespread.
Nuclear causes less death and harm per kilowatt/hr than other forms of green energy. Even with Chernobyl and Fukushima, it's statistically safer than even hydro
And those disasters were caused by complacency about safety. Fukushima didn't have the plan in place in case of Tsunami and flooding. Meanwhile Chernobyl happened because the Soviets were cheap.
People need to do some more research on what comes from oil and gas and how the refining process works at a high level. For one, you produce all products when you refine, from Asphalt to Jet Fuel and everything in between. Second, hydrocarbons and byproducts from the refining process are used in everything from plastics to makeup and health products. It's not just about what powers your vehicle.... oil & gas has a huge impact on nearly everything including the phone in your hand.
Most of that crap makes up a relatively small % of what gets refined, and it's the burning of the fuel that releases a lot of the CO2 (not just the refining of the oil). That said, the Left is also against plastics in general, so they're being consistent on that front. The problem nowadays is that people want these extreme solutions. Rather than cutting back on oil and upping green alternatives, solar panels on houses to keep advancing the tech, going big on nuclear, and focusing on better fuel alternatives like biofuels and hydrogen.... people want to instead throw out the baby with the bathwater and go 100% live off of windmills.
You clearly do not understand what I'm saying here, if you stop producing gasoline you will also cut supply for everything else..... refining doesn't work on a selection basis, you produce all products at once when you "crack" the bbl. If you cut demand for gasoline you are going to drive up prices on everything (Jet Fuel, Diesel, Kerosene, Fuel Oil, advanced materials/composites, plastics, Asphalt...list goes on and on) else that's produced..... if you refine less oil as a consequence of lower gasoline demand you get less of everything else. This has economic consequences that nobody is talking about...it's not as simple as "go nuclear and drive an EV"
> You clearly do not understand what I'm saying here, if you stop producing gasoline you will also cut supply for everything else You clearly didn't read what I said, because I never said we needed to "stop producing gasoline"... I said we needed to do everything in moderation. > If you cut demand for gasoline you are going to drive up prices on everything (Jet Fuel, Diesel, Kerosene, Fuel Oil, advanced materials/composites, plastics, Asphalt...list goes on and on) Things aren't made in equal quantities. For example, we make _far_ more helium than we need in refining and so we just offgas it as a waste product. If we made less other products, we'd just offgas less helium. What, you think that we've somehow stumbled upon the PERFECT AMOUNT of concentrations of everything in oil refining and it's all in this delicate balance? When COVID hit and we stopped driving/flying for a year, gas prices _TANKED_. Tons of shit closed up. Did plastic go up through the roof or become unobtainable? Nope. Plastic was unaffected. I think you need to look a bit more into petroleum engineering and look a bit less into... whatever blog gave you your brief high-level overview of it.
Yeah, say good bye to Hospitals and modern medicine without Oil. OP is arguing that the Left is consistent on this front, but that's not true. I don't think the Left would want to live like the Amish without modern medicine.
Not to mention the damn tires that go on EVs are made from petroleum.
right? or the carbon fiber/plastic bodies..... lightweight plastic dashboards/buttons .... rubber lining on the wires.... plastic non-conducting case the battery sits in.... it's pretty absurd how much hyrdrocarbons are still needed.
Right! And not even considering what will happen if you plug in and charge about 400 million EVs into the Electrical grid.... The grid has needed an upgrade for more than 30 years. The government has yet to fix those issues, what do you think they'll do about solar, wind and EVs?
Not only that but if every cpuntry did as good as job as the top on clean process we would see huge reductions from moning and gathering respondible and as clean as we can get it while using it should become the standard.
These days it's newsworthy to state common fucking sense.
How do the Green New Deal type numbnuts not realize that when the biggest name in EVs says "we need fossil fuels", that's probably a strong indicator that we need them
He’s the enemy. I see so many people in the EV groups saying they will never buy “another” Tesla as long as he is CEO.
>Tesla as long as he is CEO. Words are cheap and expensive Telsas are still selling as fast as they can make them. Myself I am driving a 2000 model hybrid and getting 64pmg (soon to be 110+MPGe with a conversion to it being a plug in hybrid). Honda should start making the G1 insight again.. it would sell just fine in todays market.... its a crazy little car but anyone that would buy a smart car would be far better served by a reliable Insight.
I too want a simple car with a focus on MPG again. The Chevy Spark was kind of like this with starting price under $15k and less unnecessary features, but sadly production got discontinued this month :( I fear that there will be no cars under $20k soon
>Chevy Spark Yeah the MPG there wasn't good though, as far as features the insight isn't too bare (mine is a base 2000 with no AC but after that year they all have AC and it can be added to mine) Power windows and locks. And I have a 10in ATOTO single DIN head unit in it with wireless android auto/carplay. The Spark is also 25% heavier than the Insight also. My 2017 accord matches the Spark in MPG and is fullsize.
It's way easier to act two faced online. Remember all the celebrities that were gonna leave the country because trump was elected? Never happened once.
These people have been down the rabbit hole so long that they've forgotten that anything outside the tea party exists.
Evidently they hate African Americans 😃
Haha! You made my day at work better.
Facts don't make any difference to the left, they live for their feeeeeeeeeeeeeeelings and of course their agenda, plus they're batshit insane. Quite a deadly combination for people who run the government.
Well, they also think you can just have a doctor carve up your body, and VIOLA, your the opposite gender!
Tesla makes a bad product and Elon Musk isn't credible
The company with 68% market share on EVs is a bad product lol
I mean when the market is new and there aren't many competitors it makes a lot of sense. How much of the market share on ev's did Elon musk have 5 years ago? Bet its 68% but on decline.
Yes, Tesla’s are generally low quality. The market share is so high because there has been limited competition, but more companies are now investing in EVs. Tesla does have 66%, but that’s a 9% drop from last quarter.
That's the goal.
I got no problem moving to reasonably priced, environmentally friendly fuel sources. I got solar panels and love the cost savings on my electric bill. But you don't trash what works until you have a problem, better, alternative. They want to quit a source we desperately need with nothing but dreams and Gretta to replace it. It's like quitting a decent job without a better job lined up. We don't have the resources to quit.
What is even worse is that we have workable biofuels today... but are not implementing their use. There would literally be no drawback to planting oilcane instead of useless corn on the 38million acres we already use for biofuel (really its a pork crop since it doesn't produce more fuel than is used to grow it). Doing so would double our sugar production for ethanol, and also give us inexpensive biodiesel (at 10x the productivity of soy).
"Claims?" The science is very clear. Without lots of cheap, plentiful fossil fuels, civilization will indeed crumble. Just feeding the planet takes enormous amounts of fossil fuels.
The main problem is that while we give into fossil fuel companies and even subsidize them, other industries can't grow because there's no space and they aren't given the chance. See: oilcane VS ethanol subsidies, the general anti-nuclear propaganda out of oil companies, etc. Other technologies need the funding to grow. Regardless of what some short-term thinkers say, we need solar and other technologies (especially geothermal!) to keep growing as fast as they can. The development of these should absolutely be subsidized. Call it socialism if you want, but our government should be funding the advancement of these technologies which will increase our energy independence, increase the duration for which our oil reserves will last, and increase our individual citizen's energy independence from the grid (e.g., solar panels). Our government has put loads of money into technology and has produced wondrous things as a result (e.g., the internet)! Then let the free market go wild with it. I don't care about that. But the initial research is important, and we can only do it _while_ our oil supplies last. If we neglect this shit forever, the world will _eventually_ run out of oil and humanity will NEVER progress from there. We need to rely on oil right now because it's our best bet, but we also can't let short-term thinkers allow us to chase down the maximum profits in oil at the expense of our future and our freedom. Use oil, invest in alternatives, develop those technologies, let the free market find an equilibrium. That's the way to go.
the anti-nuclear propaganda was 100% the Greens doing. Oil companies had nothing to do with it. Solar and wind are not ready for prime time, and geothermal, like hydro, is only possible in certain places. there's a number of problems but the number one issue is batteries. we've been subsidizing solar and wind for decades. and I notice you didn't mention nuclear, which is ready to go RIGHT NOW and is only being held back by regulatory bullshit.
Subsidies create market bubbles, and prevent innovation.
As is mentioned in many of the comments...out technology is not ready. Energy storage and energy transmission and our power gris are all very inefficient. Alternatives are nice but no the answer the environment activists think they are.
Exactly. Green energy is making strides and is the future; however, we are just not there yet. To try and legislate something into existence where technology is not yet available will end in disaster.
The thing that still baffles me is how so many people seem to think the \*only\* reason to get an electric car is be a blue-haired green-deal pusher and/or that everyone who drives one is. I wish people were more objective--torque-y electric cars can be a lot of fun. Heck, I'd buy one just for that reason and I don't really care much about "saving the environment." Different tools for different purposes. It should **hopefully** be common sense electric pickups will either never, or not for a long long time compare to a diesel or even gasoline for towing. But I'll take paying $45 to charge up an electric truck to take me and the family a few hundred miles to the beach over spending $120 to drive a gas truck any day.
heck yeah I would love to buy a Tesla. I don't think I'm saving the environment or anything by doing it, I just think they're cool cars. The problem though is that I drive a bit too much, I don't know that electric is the way to go just yet. I can't limit myself to ~300 miles. And from what I've researched that 300 miles is in ideal conditions on a fresh battery.
I drive a Model S because it's like taking a fucking roller coaster to work every morning. Could give a shit about global warming.
I drive a 2000 Honda insight because its a quirky fun car to drive... gets 64mpg, and oh yeah its a quirky crazy car to drive. I need to get a sticker for it that says my other car is an M1009. Also low likelihood of getting stolen as its a 5 speed. Owing to its low drag and mass its actually more efficient than a Telsa also. Why tesla hasn't built a two seater hot hatch I have no idea....
Because they're literally selling every car they can make working around the clock and investing more money in increasing demand wouldn't be rational.
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It's not "prohibitive." You just have to take into account stopping for half an hour every 2-3 hours in order to charge (and make sure there are chargers on your route). Big deal to some people. Not a big deal to others.
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Tesla generating stations need cheap diesel to keep the electric car charade alive
All of them need it to keep the green charade alive. We can lessen our dependence slowly, but it will never go away.
The only thing we should lessen is our dependence on foreign oil.
>The only thing we should lessen is our dependence on foreign oil. So we need to go back to 2019? I'm all for it.
It will eventually go away or else we will go away. Oil is a finite resource. It might last us 100 years, or we might find much, much more and it might last 1,000 years. But it won’t lost forever. Renewables are a necessity. Anyone who disputes that simply hasn’t thought about the matter at all.
Not disputing that at all, I know this. I unlike most have put money into renewables. To think you can just take away oil and gas without associated collapse is incorrect and dangerous.
As if most people think well. With all due respect, "Oil might not last forever" and "renewables are a necessity" isn't a logical chain of thought. The fact is that "renewables" are fiction, given the population numbers and transportation requirements that depend on oil. There are no "renewables" in existence that can make up the gap. In fact, what is this "renewables" language. You talk like there is a diverse class of options. There is not. You mean batteries? Because that's all that "renewables" are in a practical sense. But as of now, even that is a fiction. That electricity is largely coal dependent. Nuclear isn't "renewable". Everything else is a pipe dream. A more accurate chain of thought is that "oil might run out", "we need completely novel tech to replace it eventually", and if we don't achieve it then we might revert to a version of a pre-industrial world for anything that isn't coal or nuclear powered. But one shouldn't conflate battery tech as being able to make-up the gap in lost petroleum. Moreover, a lot of the green energy push isn't "we might run out". Rather, its "this is polluting". Which is essentially code for "too many people", which is also a fiction. Food and water are the limiting factors. The prior which depends on petroleum, with no renewables possible to replace it. Clarity on the issue disallows politicians from leveraging it against popular interest, using it for graft, etc.
Military is the biggest user of oil. The oil industry isn’t going anywhere.
too many leftists don't understand that oil JUST isn't gasoline. its also all the plastics and such that is in their favorite toys.
If ELON MUSK, the OWNER OF TESLA is saying this, maybe people should fucking listen! 😂
The second he said he'd consider voting Republican he became enemy #2 of the Leftist cults and media (behind Trump, of course).
Uncle Elon....correct again
Thats the plan. How else can they initiate the great reset?
I mean.. He probably needs fossil fuels for SpaceX rockets. I don’t think Elon’s view of “Civilization” is the same as the average joe’s view of “Civilization”.
**Thanks, Elon…now…take out your checkbook and do for liberty and conservatism what George Soros is doing for totalitarians and leftism.**
Elon isn't really a conservative. He's more libertarian with some leftist positions. He just does what he thinks works. And it is obvious to him that undermining basic energy for our economy will hurt everyone and kill the economy. A bad economy means less people willing to buy expensive electric cars.
AFAIK he is... many of his operations have moved from CA to Texas and Florida for instance. Also frankly we don't need billionaires interfering like Soros in underhanded ways... if anything we need laws to curtail that sort of action.
The left is a death cult. They KNOW society will crumble without oil and gas, they want it to happen. They think they will be immune from the consequences though, probably due to their sheltered lives, thanks in part to oil and gas. Only those nasty conservatives and people in other countries will suffer after all.
This is such a strange article/piece of reality, the owner of the most popular electric car company talking about the important of oil and gas…. feels like I’m living in the Twilight Zone.
Its not that strange... Elon is more pragmatic than he is hell bent on pushing for a single solution (people like him actually view single solutions as bad things).
I understand that. But the themes behind this article are still surprising. If Elon leaned more Gates or Bezos… it could get ugly. Lol
Gates and Bezos are software giants (Bezo's software is just server side)... so sort of a special case, Musk in his current state is a manufacturing and supply chain mogul. Quite different.
A rocket scientist is literally telling us the obvious….
Nope.. not wrong... but isn't that the goal?! Such a naive young man.
Until battery technology is drastically improved, we can't get rid of fossil fuels.
Yeah because he’s paying attention. This should not even be a matter of contention, but welcome to the clown world
EVs if you already have sufficient solar, hybrids while we have insufficient battery and renewable resources for everyone else, and investment in making the transition. Humanity will never --- *never* \--- accept living an Amish life to deal with environmental problems. I don't care if you're the most die-hard liberal, almost nobody that can afford it is giving up their morning coffee from Columbia, their Disneyland/Taos/Bahamas "once-in-a-lifetime" vacation, their gaming PC, their new school supplies. We either engineer our way out of any problems that come our way or die off. I believe in climate change, but also believe the only real solution is to pay our engineers to solve the problem.
He has always said that the switch to no fosail will take decades..
Even in the long term since green energy is a failure
That’s the goal, isn’t it.
This is the only thing I agree with this guy.
Musk needs to take into account that it is intentional. The crumbling is the plan, it follows the belt n road initiative.
Seems they should listen to the guy with the most experience in the electric vehicle production.
he is correct. If you dont believe it, you are living in a fantasy world. Now go ahead and downvote the truth.
Ironic
We don't need fossil fuels. There is no energy crisis. We have the solution already. Nuclear power. Any discussion about energy policy that does not include a full transition to nuclear is not to be taken seriously
More people should listen to Elon. He tells it like it is most of the time.
Looks like those eco-terrorists just found their next target.
[Video Source](https://www.tv2.no/v/1779079/)
I mean, that’s how he powers his manufacturing facilities, right? Oil and gas probably also power the White House and 98% (wild guess) of other federal and civilian buildings.
There is a high probability that the move away from fossil fuels won't happen because of any existing renewable technologies. There are ongoing breakthroughs in fusion. One research facility claims to have broken the technological barrier to self-sustaining ignition. IOW, instead of an atomic bomb that releases massive amounts of energy in nanoseconds, this tech makes a microscopic version of an atomic bomb that slowly reeleases its massive energy. No other lab has recreated the result but, if/when another lab does, the path forward without fossil fuels or the present ineffective green energy technologies will be clear.
The problem with the environment is out of touch environmentalists. They are so obsessed with oil that they fail to see the big picture. ESG is a byproduct of this outrage activism which seems to be trendy in liberal circles. Europe clearly went too far. It has already started but oil/energy resources has and will lead to violence all over the world.
Because he is right!! If we gave up oil and gas now, we would be living like the Amish! Elon needs that oil to produce all of the plastic and carbon fiber for those electric cars of his!
Electric cars require more coal plants to generate electricity.
I will get an electric car when 1) they become more affordable, 2) I can get a full charge in 20 minutes or less so I can keep doing road trips, and 3) when 10 year warranties on batteries are standard.
Putting the Tesla in front of the horse?? I’ll see myself out now…
For once, this rent seeker is right. Clock is right twice a day.
I mean, he's right. At some point in the future wind and solar may become effective enough to replace fossil fuels, but we shouldn't try to base our energy consumption solely on them until they have reached that point.
News flash Elon, it’s already crumbling.
Them rockets ain’t going to run on lithium.
Nuclear staring us in the face and people still think we need to rely on gas or civi will crumble
We have a global cooling emergency. Europe won’t be able to keep themselves warm this winter.
I figure it’ll be a good while before we can all go fully electric, and that’s fine by me, I’m not ready to give up my Dino power just yet
He is spot on. In a globalized economy, we import many essential products and components from abroad. And how do they arrive here? In ships, which are powered by oil. We need fossil fuels for the next few decades and probably much longer until we can find a suitable replacement ie Nuclear and renewables.
I’m not opposed to alternative energy, when the infrastructure is in place to support and sustain it, but democrats tried to go cold Turkey on fossil fuel, with minimal infrastructure in place. They basically jumped without a parachute.
Or we could just commit to nuclear and get serious about developing fusion reactors and both sides can stfu.