Archive:000/Energy/solutions

These are some possible solutions to the energy crisis - everything ranging from tangible to pie-in-the-sky.

#Consuming less	Viable but requires both personal and systemic changes
#Renewables + energy storage	Requires innovations
Nuclear fission breeder reactors	Requires innovations
Nuclear fusion	Requires massive & unlikelyiunlikely in the near future innovations
Fossil fuels with direct air carbon capture	Unlikely to be viable
Fossil fuels using only the hydrogen component	Unlikely to be viable[ELABORATION needed]

Consuming less

Probably at least 2/3 of global energy usage could be avoided, without losing much quality of life. Note that the biggest changes would need to happen in "first world" countries, especially for people middle-class and richer. No one should make the global poor consume less.

Energy in manufacturing could be reduced by

• (systemic change) ending planned obsolescence,
• (systemic change) having right to repair, and
• (personal change) promoting frugalism.
• We can still have nice things, we just wouldn't replace them as often.

Energy in transportation could be reduced by

• (systemic change) public transit
• (systemic change) walkability
• (systemic change) more people working from home
• (personal change) carpooling
• (personal change) choosing to walk, bike, or not travel as much

Energy in construction could be reduced by

• (systemic change) shopping malls not redoing their interiors as often
• (personal change) only doing essential home renovations, not cosmetic ones^{[ELABORATION needed]} (...)( Here's one an example of bad: Landlords redoing floors/countertops/walls every time a tenant moves out (in hopes to find a higher-class tenant who will pay more), even though most tenants [couldn't care less / just want a place that's liveable]. It's especially bad when already-poor tenants get billed for "damages" that no one would really mind except the landlord. )

Energy in agriculture could be reduced by

• (systemic change) grocery stores avoiding food waste
• (personal change) people avoiding food waste, and being willing to eat day-old food from bakeries etc
• (personal change) choosing plant-based food often

The more difficult domains are home heating and cooling. Other home-energy-usage (misc electricity) is not that significant as far as global energy usage is concerned.

It's tempting to get ideological about what matters more: personal vs systemic changes(...)( The folks who say "personal changes don't matter" are typically only looking at low-impact personal changes. The ones listed above are high-impact. ). But in all likelihood, the potential impact is about 50/50 from each.

Most energy currently comes from fossil fuels, because other energy sources have a hard time scaling up. The less energy we need, the easier it is to mitigate climate change.

Renewables + energy storage

Most energy would come from rooftop solar. In very dense cities, rooftops wouldn't be enough, so there would also need to be some solar farms and/or wind power in the surrounding area. Hydro and geothermal electricity would also be used wherever geographically viable(...)( which is not the majority of the world, sadly ). Nuclear consumption wouldn't increase much(...)( , because uranium-235 is too scarce. See other solutions that involve breeder reactors to make use of the more abundant uranium-238 and thorium-232 ).

This requires some key innovations:

• solar/challenge 1
• energy storage that doesn't involve too many rare metals or rare geography