| akuma587 said: There isn't really any reason to not go electric once we get better batteries. You can use any kind of energy you want in electric devices, not just fossil fuels. |
Better batteries is not a really easy task though ...
From our understanding of chemistry at this point in time we ‘Know’ what the best chemical batteries are, they’re remarkably expensive and still not good enough to (fully) replace fossil fuels. New technologies are on the horizon, but they will (likely) not be high enough quality at an affordable price range for 25 years.
Now, I know people are going to say that “The Government” should do something to create incentive for people to develop this technology faster. The reality is that the government will not be able to provide an incentive which is (nearly) as large as the market will provide for itself …
Alberta is one of the world’s top suppliers of conventional and synthetic oil products in the world. Even at the rate we’re increasing oil-sands development, we’re barely increasing our total oil production because of depletion of conventional oil deposits. Even if we take advantage of our coal deposits and begin to produce liquid fuel from coal we will still not be able to increase production at the same rate the world’s demand is increasing. Long before we have a technology to replace oil, we will see prices of $250 to $500 per barrel of oil.
Most people assume that oil production needs to increase in order to prevent the world from adopting cleaner energy sources when (in reality) the change is needed to prevent millions of people dying in their homes because they can not afford heat or electricity.
