[ExI] Wind, solar could provide 99.9% of ALL POWER by 2030

[spike]

>... On Behalf Of spike

>...My notion is that if our Detroits go SLOWER (evolution-forbid) it draws
attention to that which is easy to ignore ... spike
_______________________________________________

I may have found a problem in my own line of reasoning.

So what if things work out exactly as I envision?  What if... society
recognizes the Red Queen effect in the remaining productive oil wells and
fracking, where we need to run faster and faster just to stay where we are,
and so we start to get serious about alternatives: we build nukes, we
install ground-based solar, we build enormous wind farms, we manage to not
get into wars over dwindling fossil fuels, we do all things needed to
transition to renewables, in a period of about 30 years.  

OK, best case, what if we manage to do that?  Then we have a generation
which is pouring heart and soul into just trying to equal what we always
took for granted.  We had these grand visions of orbiting space stations and
moon colonies and all that stuff that never came to pass, but the now
generation would not have the luxury of grand visions.  It would have only
small visions of struggling to break even.  If they are ambitious and
successful, their world will be a lot like their grandfather's world, only
not as good in some important ways.  The energy is scarcer, they need to
think carefully about how they live their lives.  They don't really have the
option of the wild careless stuff we used to do, like drag racing our
Detroits and all the wild dissipations our generation enjoyed.

Of course some things will be crazy better: their virtual worlds and such,
their computer gaming.

My vision for the future is coping with gradually tightening energy sources
and doing cool stuff anyway, replacing fossil fuels with renewables and
such, but there might be a serious flaw in that line of reasoning.  What if
the now generation has only small visions to dream, only break-even as a
goal?  Will that work?  Will they take up the burden of struggling to
maintain what we were just given?

spike