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RE: Steemians Need To Lead The Way Out Of Greed, Gluttony, And Piggish Behavior!!!!
This will drop the price of energy to near zero levels.
I hope you’re right but I’m old enough to remember predictions from the sixties of electricity soon being so cheap that there would be no need to meter it.
Solar is heavily reliant on rare earth elements and silver, both of which have issues. Rare earth mining has major environmental problems and we’ve passed Peak Silver, with declining production.
But on the other hand we also can produce energy with windmills and water mills.
The problem is not the production but the difficulty to produce x amount when it is needed. Big batteries could slove some of these demand issue. I have read somewhere than some x company frim Musk is trying this out in the outer back of Australia.
New energy sources all he their problems but if the community really wants a solution it can be found.
The problem is that they will only search for a solution if they see that some kind of profit can be made with this solution.
Batteries have all kinds of environmental issues too, lithium and cobalt for newer ones, lead for older ones.
Sure, lots of potential for new technologies to solve energy woes. But the lots of cheap energy is just around the corner argument has been made several times in the past only to not pan out.
Maybe it will be true this time. And certainly a lot more can be done on the efficiency side of the equation, improving usage patterns of the electricity already being produced.
100%.
But it all starts in the production phase. Not only looking at energy. In the past things were made with the idea that they should last for ever. These days we are living in a throw away economy, it is almost impossible to repair things. They producer have a lifetime build in to most electrical things! It more profitable for them that we replace in stead of repair!
Here in Belgium that government is on a witch hunt for company cars, with is also a 2 cutting sword. Company cars are replaced within 4 or 5 years with a new one, which is most of the time more environmental friendly, the replacedcars will find their way on the second hand market, replacing older more environmental unfriendly cars. So in this way a company car is by itself not food for the environment but on the other side it would be worse without them!
That throw away thing is not totally true. There are things that just are simply cheaper and easier to make a new, than repair old one. For example Finnish army bottles are cheaper to just make a new one, rather than trying to wash them twice a year.
Point taken. I was more referring to electrical stuff.