Governments are rolling out renewables at a record pace, and tripling capacity by 2030 is within reach – it's time to make Paris Agreement targets official.
Every time I see news about renewable energy expanding, I don't feel uplifted because I know how much ewaste photovolatic cells create. We should be investing more heavily in nuclear fission and retrofitting those plants for fusion later.
This isn't a binary choice. We can do both, whilst we wait for governments to sort out nuclear or fusion. I'd prefer we do what we can to reduce our emissions via renewables now, rather than doing nothing whilst waiting for some potential solution in the future.
This report makes clear that the tripling target is ambitious but achievable – though only if governments quickly turn promises into plans of action. (emphesis mine)
If you really meant this economic system, then, yeah it’s a big uphill battle.
But if you just meant the current economic factors (jobs (I know), prices (I know, groceries and housing are screwing us), and growth (again current system)), you sound like a right wing shill.
"Oh, nice!" - Companies haphazardly adding AI into everything whether you want it or not and eating up three times this energy produced for short-term shareholder gain.
Doesn't really matter. The issue is the emissions the energy used currently makes. If the energy these companies are using to make an AI app for your light bulbs or whatever is emission free then who cares?
I see what you mean, but energy isn't currently free, and as we built more headroom, crypto and AI have simply eaten up that headroom. Don't take my word for it, simply look at the statistics on how much more energy we are using than 10 years ago, and then look at corporate energy usage now on those two things. Renewables haven't kept up because large corporations keep eating more and more. In fact, governments have had to **de-**decomission a few coal plants because the energy usage was so high. Here's an article on one of them that is supporting a massive crypto farm.
Don't get me wrong, I'm absolutely 100% glad that the energy is not all coming from coal plants anymore, but also it isn't like none of it is.
And no energy is emission free. You still have to pay the environmental cost to create and maintain the equipment gathering the energy in the first place.
In short, renewables are great. Corporate overusage of energy is not, especially for incredibly selfish gain like crypto and "AI". I'm not going to cheer for the shares at corporations to be higher simply because we have renewables offsetting a tiny bit of the massive power they suck up.