what about oil
this post was submitted on 03 Dec 2023
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Woah there, we've got to liberate countries for some reason
The USA could "liberate" them for their supply of wind. Scotland had better watch out.
On a practical level, that will probably not happen for a long time. My understanding is that most high performance lubrication is petroleum-based, even if only in part. We'd have to find alternative sources for those lubricants before we could completely drop oil.
We have natural oils and we are good enough in organic chemistry to turn that into what we need. The amounts needed are so small that it basically does not matter.
I'm not being pedantic, but do you have examples of natural oils that we could use as viable replacements? I would seriously love to learn about them.
I'll believe it when it actually happens. Until then it is platitudes as usual.
Without major reforms to how politicians can get money this is just a bunch of rich people jerking off. We will never be free of coal and oil when our politicians are all sold in the dollar store.
If the alternatives are cheaper then it will change. Coal is mostly used to produce electricity, so when solar and wind can compete they will start lobbying as well against coal as a competitor. Combined with citizens working towards and end of it, that can really change something. That is also true for things like evs and oil, gas heating and heat pumps and so forth.
Except money is not the only factor. Solar and Wind may be cheaper, but they are paid for upfront while oil and gas are effectively subscription based. Nations and companies like having the ability to cut off and sanction poorer country’s power grid for instance, since even just the threat of it can keep them from doing anything too radical. While it may be a factor in politics, i really don’t see OPEC and the executives of major oil companies letting go of that power lightly.
No date was given for when the existing plants would have to go...
Unless legislation is passed, it's bullshit.
The reality is that the US has shut down a large chunk of its coal-burning power plants as uneconomic already.
This is largely an agreement to 'do what is cheap' which is the kind of thing which happens with relatively little government intervention (though some intervention can speed the process up)
This is just the international commitment: internally the US was committed to passing off by 2035.
Which is fucking insane. We should be off coal by 2024.