Should’ve happened like, 30 years ago, but yay I guess
we’re tripling by 2030. by what factor would we need to increase to match fossil fuel production output? how close are we?
If it happened instantly, we’d need about 12x more renewables than we have now to replace all final energy consumption. Total final energy consumption is likely to go up over time though, so by 2030, we’d need more than 12x current numbers.
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Here’s the thing: growing that much will result in displacing some fossil fuel use. That’s a significant shift from what we’ve had so far, where renewables largely augmented fossil fuel use.
I know you’re right. I’m just being pessimistic.
So we’re ramming into the wall at 97kmph instead of 100, barely doing better than the business as usual forecast path of IPCC. I’m positively stoked about our future now.
That slight change is what the beginning of success looks like. It doesn’t mean that the work is done: that will take decades. But it does mean that things are starting to look like we might actually pull off an end to fossil fuels.
Success would imply we aren’t 20 years too late. At best we are mitigating, but I’m not fully convinced of pulling that off.
I could be remembering incorrectly but I recall seeing an article claiming that global oil consumption went UP a couple percent this year. Does this come from the manufacturing and installation of renewable products, you figure? If not, I don’t see an end to fossil fuels regardless of how many windmills and solar panels we produce.
Wind and solar have mostly displaced coal, rather than oil
