Haven't we been moving away from oil for at least 40 years, since the U.S. oil crisis in the 1970's? Carter put solar energy in the White House. Are we on the 100 plan to move away from oil?
Not quite. Carter's White House solar panels were thermal.
“a generation from now, this solar heater can either be a curiosity, a museum piece, an example of a road not taken, or it can be a small part of one of the greatest and most exciting adventures ever undertaken by the American people; harnessing the power of the Sun to enrich our lives as we move away from our crippling dependence on foreign oil.”
During Reagan's administration, the panels were moved to Unity College in Maine where they heated water on the campus.
I think we're running into the weeds. The point is that we've been trying to move off oil for 40 years. At this rate it's going to be a very long time before the job is done.
In fact, we might run out of oil before we actually replace it.
In the 70's and early 80's economical small Japanese cars were bought in droves. Replacing the giant US gas gusslers of the 60's and 70's.
90's, 2000's oil got cheap again (or was in supply at least) and what was the hottest car model?, gigantic gas gussling SUV's?
We move away from high prices. That is all.
And what the government has been moving away from since the 70's is dependence on foreign oil. A small part of which is renewables and efficiency. But larger part has been domestic production nukes and natural gas (which US has lots of).
No, consumption fell in the 1970s and 1980s, but rose again after that, until the 2008 crisis, when it did fall again. But it is higher than the time of the oil shock.
I think you missed the rhetorical question. The world has been trying to move away from fossil fuels since at least the 1970's. We've spent billions (trillions?) on research, tax credits, ethanol in gas, etc and it seems like we've barely moved the needle. WTF?
It's interesting to read about a new super efficient solar cell on HN every few months, but at some point shouldn't we try to figure out what'll it really take to solve our energy problem?
