Unfortunately, that appears to be part of the bias I’d expected in myself—since timtyler mentioned fusion, biofuels, and coal; I was thinking about refuting his arguments instead of laying out the best view of probable futures that I could.
The case for wind, solar, and other renewables failing to take up petroleum’s slack before it’s too late is not as overwhelmingly probable as fusion’s, but it takes the same form—they form roughly 0.3% of current world power generation, and even if the current exponential growth curve is somehow sustainable indefinitely they won’t replace current capacity until the late 21st century.
With the large-scale petroleum supply curve, that leaves a large gap between 2015 and 2060 where we’re somehow continuing to build renewable energy infrastructure with a steadily diminishing total supply of energy. I expect impoverished people to loot energy infrastructure for scrap metal to sell for food faster than other impoverished people can keep building it.
Unfortunately, that appears to be part of the bias I’d expected in myself—since timtyler mentioned fusion, biofuels, and coal; I was thinking about refuting his arguments instead of laying out the best view of probable futures that I could.
The case for wind, solar, and other renewables failing to take up petroleum’s slack before it’s too late is not as overwhelmingly probable as fusion’s, but it takes the same form—they form roughly 0.3% of current world power generation, and even if the current exponential growth curve is somehow sustainable indefinitely they won’t replace current capacity until the late 21st century.
With the large-scale petroleum supply curve, that leaves a large gap between 2015 and 2060 where we’re somehow continuing to build renewable energy infrastructure with a steadily diminishing total supply of energy. I expect impoverished people to loot energy infrastructure for scrap metal to sell for food faster than other impoverished people can keep building it.