eli5: Why do we not run heavily on solar energy as a society or at least in sunny places?
In: 8
There’s the science reasons, hard to store energy, hard to transport to not sunny places, not as efficient.. and then there’s the society/economic/political reasons.. They’re kind of ugly (nimby), they compete with existing fuel industries, they’re expensive to install, unwilling to commit to the infrastructure investment…
**Current US usage**
Natural gas: 31.8%
Petroleum (crude oil and natural gas plant liquids): 28%
Coal: 17.8%
Renewable energy: 12.7%
Nuclear electric power: 9.6%”
[https://www.americangeosciences.org/critical-issues/faq/what-are-major-sources-and-users-energy-united-states](https://www.americangeosciences.org/critical-issues/faq/what-are-major-sources-and-users-energy-united-states)
The big question is, would a massive shift to solar energy ultimately be a good thing? And if so at what cost?
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