Don't plan on hauling anything heavy in 25 years.

You're saying building nothing but "green" power sources isn't keeping up with simple population growth even? That's what I'm saying, there is no way they're going to have a majority, or even remotely close to one, of vehicles being electric without getting serious about building serious power plants.

 

I can envision continuing to use and even building more natural gas plants.

The key would be to do something for the "carbon neutral" freaks. Like plant and maintain a few (hundred?) sections of forest or other carbon sink. If trees are not appropriate find alternate crops like hemp for cloth and rope, bamboo for paper (wife has been getting bamboo tp for the past couple of years) or pot for CBD oil for the hippies..... I really don't care just suck up the CO2 with a marketable product to better incentivize growing it. Do like the auto industry and the farmers can sell carbon credits to the power plant.

One of the "discussions" coming out of the California fires is to turn the trees to charcoal that can then be ground up and used as soil amendments to help replace carbon that has been pulled out over time. Maybe even put a small electric generating plant as part of the charcoal plant. But I'm a tight wad and would want to leach out every bit of positive cash flow from the process I could.

 

Or you could not worry about the CO2, as it is a naturally occurring gas that every living thing besides plants exhales I'd put 100 to 1 that it isn't the pollutant they claim it is. The other option is getting more farmers to plant a cover crop, but not by paying them goverment subsidies, they should be doing it themselves to improve their own soil. You remember when Sulphur in diesel was supposedly causing acid rain so they made them refine it out? That sulphur is literally used as fertilizer, that's why I'm skeptical of everything the environmental nuts come up with.

 

Healthy skepticism is a good thing in my book.

I do not think that the magnitude of concern with CO2 is appropriate at this time. I believe it is over blown. However until it gets this level of fervor it is challenging to get politicians to react.

I agree with your cover crops and govt subsidies assertion. I would much prefer to keep the Govt out of everything. Them setting up the framework for a carbon trading system may be a necessary evil though.

I do believe that the earth has a built in balance system in that if the crust warms too much the volcanoes will blow. The ash will shade the earth cooling it. Just not sure I want to set folks up to go through that natural process again.

 

Trying to look outside of the echo chambers found in the US media.

Texas weather: Are frozen wind turbines to blame for power cuts?

 

If they really wanted zero emissions we'd be there now. That tech is off limits tho. Don't wanna empower the people.

The green movement aka the slush fund for the rich

 

30 years ago most of you had never heard of the internet and your phone was tethered to the wall and if it was real fancy it had buttons instead of a dial.

Now most of us carry a small device in our pockets that is many times more powerful than a super computer from 1990 (which would have filled a large room and weighed many tons by the way) that cannot only preform mathematical calculations like the computers of old but has fully wireless access to the internet, a camera that is capable of capturing footage in 4k, and can receive gps signals directly from outer freaking space, and I suppose you could even make calls on it. And that is just one of the major advancements we have made in the last 20 to 30 years.

Think about that and what it took to accomplish all of that and then try to reasonably say that they cannot feasibly replace diesel with electric in the next 20 or so years. Sure government regulation will be involved but so will societal pressure. And somewhere folks will find a way to make some big money from the change. If you brought a man from the 1920's and dropped him off in 2021 his mind would be blown. Much of what we consider normal would be inconceivable for him. Things change. They always have, and they always will as we advance in technology.

 

Ok, so what is this newly discovered, rapidly developing, promising new power generating technology? Which city, county, state, national, or international laws required people to use cell phones? Remember the dead spots, imagine charging stations being a few miles too far apart, that'll be a blast won't it. Maybe we shouldn't be making laws REQUIRING changes before the change is technologically or physically possible.

 

If you ever talk with a "green activist" and they refuse to consider that nuclear will be essential to go electric, THATs the sign that they aren't serious, ignore these people.

If you DO talk to one that beleives we need more nuclear, you'll find that they're a lot more practical about reality and have some decent reasons for going all electric even outside of the climate change stuff.

The people in the second camp are rare unfortunately

 

The laws will require companies to innovate and come up with new technologies as will social pressure. Battery tech will improve, generation capacity will be added where needed and infrastructure will be built out. It won't always be a smooth transition but it will happen.

We already have proof that the automotive segment will advance if they are forced to. Cars today are far safer and more efficient than those of old days. Technology had to advance because the government mandated it, and as we got better at it performance increases followed. Sure the first few generations of emissions cars were turds. But now we can buy 700hp cars that have cleaner air coming out of the tail pipe than is entering the air filter. That would have never happened had the government not forced the automakers to be innovative.