It’s 2023, we are witnessing a huge shift towards clean energy and tons of money and research is being poured into renewables.
But it’s got me thinking, if we did this 20-30 years ago would all the new technology we see today be pretty standard by 2023? Or has there been some big innovations in recent years that would’ve only had been possible in recent times?
A couple examples
Batteries, we are still yet to fully utilise these for energy grid storage and electric vehicles are only now just getting up to the range that a petrol car can do. Would that have been possible in the past considering the first commercial lithium ion battery was released in the 90s?Solid state batteries seem to be like a real boost for renewables yet they are still to be properly used.
Solar panels, wind turbines and other power generation technology. Would they be stock standard or was their efficiency and cost just not possible to overcome until recent times?
Airplanes and other long haul transport, biofuels are what seems to the most likely alternative unless batteries get much better. But these seem to be much later down the track.
In: 403
To some extent, yes. And even before we had the options we knew we needed them. Thing is, fossil fuels had already taken off and made nations rich and made oil company tycoons all over the world. Those folks have fought HARD to stifle progress in green energy as it would lose them money.
I’m taking this approach because top comment dealt with most of the history of the tech development. I wanted to give an example of why. It’s important to know these things, how a handful of greedy people can actually kill a planet and the living things on it. It’s important to remember because it’s wrong and awful.
We even had EVs ahead of ICE.. I could list off a few names from the last 100 years that indirectly did so much damage id be hard pressed to find a conventional weapon that could come close. Humanity is sick, but you’re asking the right questions.
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