• JohnnyFlapHoleSeed@lemmy.world
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    22 hours ago

    The entire concept of fracking is that you drill into a fissure, then blast it full of a dangerous chemical slurry so that it eventually forces natural gas out of the fissure. Then when all the natural gas is gone, they pack up and leave with their money. The chemical slurry stays in the ground forever, leaching into water tables, public waterways, potentially contaminating soil used for live stock and agriculture.

    We literally have a visible ball of unlimited fusion energy in the fucking sky, and natural tides that can power tidal generators, but no, let’s just poison the shit out of everyone for a slightly better profit margin…

    • teawrecks@sopuli.xyz
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      41 minutes ago

      For the record, the current technology we have to capture renewable energy is not capable of supporting the civilization we have built compared to how efficient oil and natural gas are as energy-dense molecules. Only very recently has battery technology come far enough to make it worth it to move a semi-truck any reasonable distance, but cargo ships are still going to be difficult to replace and account for a huge amount of pollution, as well as commerce we depend on. So it’s not a “slightly better profit margin”, as it would range from a literal decimation of society to straight up impossible to cut out all fossil fuels today.

      But we should have started a global, methodical transition over 40 years ago, and the free market control over government and media has systematically prevented that. And THAT is unacceptable.

    • NJSpradlin@lemmy.world
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      22 hours ago

      Geothermal, wind, tide, hydro, solar… and then even nuclear. All ways to just create unlimited energy. But, because the elite enslave us to the status quo, through the jobs that keep it going… here we are.

        • NJSpradlin@lemmy.world
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          6 minutes ago

          One or two of them, or all of them individually, aren’t explicitly as competitive as existing non-renewables, sure. But together.

          Geothermal is very good option for some for reducing their electricity demand for heating and cooling their homes.

          Home solar doesn’t fully cover everyone’s electricity demand for their homes, sure, but can greatly reduce the demand for it of it doesn’t cover it outright.

              • Szyler@lemmy.world
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                12 minutes ago

                It is if you consider the cost of the redundancy required for renewable energy to serve as base load once you cut oil, gass and coal out of the supply.

                Nuclear can cover this base load until we develop better storage systems for large scale use.

                If we had just built nuclear with the modern architecture developed in the 70’s onwards we’d be able to move away from fossile fuel FAAR more easily today, without any mjor disasters from the reactor technology from the 50’s.

              • Tja@programming.dev
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                2 hours ago

                A single one maybe not, if we standardize and scale it might work. If solar and batteries keep getting cheaper, it might not be worth it, but the current problem is that new reactors are their own unique snowflakes, making it more expensive.

    • theunknownmuncher@lemmy.world
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      21 hours ago

      The cheaper energy becomes, the more of a threat it is to literally all of the world’s heirarchies of power. The people at the top that benefit most from these heirarchies and who have the most control are also the most disincentivized from finding a solution that makes energy cheaper for all.

      • Solar is already a way cheaper way to make energy. Fossil fuels for electrical energy are only profitable due to large government handouts and steep tarries on Chinese electronics such as solar panels. Economic forces always win so renewables powering most of the grid is inevitable.

        The real issue is that vehicles and aircraft need something with equivalent energy density and battery technology just isn’t that good yet and will take a long time to get that good.

        The other thing is economically it’s cheaper to run a lot of ff powered devices at a higher rate than to invest in a replacement to run at a lower rate. The roi just isn’t goof enough. Eg Almost all new heating systems are heat pumps but the economic cost of replacing a gas heater with a heat pump just isn’t worth it.