My Views: I would love it if Solar, Hydro and Wind and other renewable sources of energy + Non Renewable Nuclear were to provide enough energy reliably to completely replace fossil fuels, but I know it’s not a feasible solution at least at this point. And maybe it will never be. Renewable sources of energy are highly dependent on some metal mining (some are rare metals) and I doubt if the prices of those metals would go lower as the demand for those renewable sources of energy sky rockets. i.e., It’s a non-linear equation, the price of renewables will not remain the same if we want to meet 100% of our energy needs from renewables. So, Just Stopping Oil is a pretty stupid idea concocted by people who have a much better standard of living than me.
Skip This if you must: As an Indian, I can speak for 1.4B people (I asked) when I say that, no matter how much pressure developed nations impose on India and countries like India, we will still keep using the least costliest source of energy, because we too want nice things and we too want our women to be liberated from cow dung/wood stoves and from the burden of washing clothes and utensils. So yeah, there is no way bar great scientific innovation which will phase out fossil fuels at least in the near future and perhaps ever.
PS: I don’t like fossil fuels, I don’t like the pollution or the effect it has on the environment and I wish they could be replaced by something renewable, but I just don’t like the chances of that happening.
It’s not just power either. Green energy is not good enough yet, but there are other problems.
Whole industries are built on using whatever is left after certain oil processes. You might be using something right now, that has resources that in the end would not be there without oil mining.
PVC floors use part of oil that is left over after kerosine is made for airplanes. So if we stop using fuel, we also have to figure out a replacement for that. And this is just one example. There could be thousands of things like this.
Because we have the oil and the leftovers, we use it and have very efficient technology to create products that we need. So if we stop using fuel, we have solved one problem(and I don’t believe we will be able to do this for quite some time), but there will be consequences everywhere.
Jobs will disappear, whole industries need to start over and find different ways of producing things with different, green resources. The very foundation that our society is built on will need to shift.
I believe plastic is also an oil product. Can you imagine a world with no plastic? I know it is bad for the environment, but if you want to package food safely, or medicine, what is the alternative?
It is going to take a tremendous amount of effort, innovation and money to get even close to stopping with oil, and even more to solve all the problems that will follow.