• JohnnyFlapHoleSeed@lemmy.world
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    10 days ago

    The entire concept of fracking is that you drill into a fissure, then blast it full of a dangerous chemical slurry so that it eventually forces natural gas out of the fissure. Then when all the natural gas is gone, they pack up and leave with their money. The chemical slurry stays in the ground forever, leaching into water tables, public waterways, potentially contaminating soil used for live stock and agriculture.

    We literally have a visible ball of unlimited fusion energy in the fucking sky, and natural tides that can power tidal generators, but no, let’s just poison the shit out of everyone for a slightly better profit margin…

    • NJSpradlin@lemmy.world
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      10 days ago

      Geothermal, wind, tide, hydro, solar… and then even nuclear. All ways to just create unlimited energy. But, because the elite enslave us to the status quo, through the jobs that keep it going… here we are.

    • theunknownmuncher@lemmy.world
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      10 days ago

      The cheaper energy becomes, the more of a threat it is to literally all of the world’s heirarchies of power. The people at the top that benefit most from these heirarchies and who have the most control are also the most disincentivized from finding a solution that makes energy cheaper for all.

      • Solar is already a way cheaper way to make energy. Fossil fuels for electrical energy are only profitable due to large government handouts and steep tarries on Chinese electronics such as solar panels. Economic forces always win so renewables powering most of the grid is inevitable.

        The real issue is that vehicles and aircraft need something with equivalent energy density and battery technology just isn’t that good yet and will take a long time to get that good.

        The other thing is economically it’s cheaper to run a lot of ff powered devices at a higher rate than to invest in a replacement to run at a lower rate. The roi just isn’t goof enough. Eg Almost all new heating systems are heat pumps but the economic cost of replacing a gas heater with a heat pump just isn’t worth it.

        • AA5B@lemmy.world
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          9 days ago

          I’ve been looking at that decision. My furnace is well beyond its expected life and I’d like to replace it before it dies so it’s not an emergency. I’ve looked at heat pumps and really want to make that choice. The incentives help with the initial cost, at least for a couple more months.

          But then it comes down to gas is cheaper than electricity. If electricity is twice the cost per unit of energy, is it really sufficient for the heat pump to be twice as efficient? How can I rationalize the choice that is not only more expensive to install but more expensive to run?

          And the answer is not sinking yet more money into also doing solar. My house is mostly shaded, and I’m not killing treees just to make this mess work together

          Definitely part of the answer needs to be adjusting subsidies to bring the cost of electricity per unit of energy closer to the cost of gas, or maybe incorporating. The externalized costs would actually be sufficient

            • AA5B@lemmy.world
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              8 days ago

              At ideal conditions. As the temperature difference is greater, the efficiency goes down. So right when you need heat the most, gas is still at 90+% efficiency while heat pumps are closer to or under 200%.

              Then you have to look at capacity. It can be expensive sizing for the greater temp differences when it usually isn’t. If you have a heat pump that can be 400% efficient, do you really want to pay for quadruple the capacity so that even when it’s at 100% efficiency it still puts out enough heat? No one can afford that

    • teawrecks@sopuli.xyz
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      9 days ago

      For the record, the current technology we have to capture renewable energy is not capable of supporting the civilization we have built compared to how efficient oil and natural gas are as energy-dense molecules. Only very recently has battery technology come far enough to make it worth it to move a semi-truck any reasonable distance, but cargo ships are still going to be difficult to replace and account for a huge amount of pollution, as well as commerce we depend on. So it’s not a “slightly better profit margin”, as it would range from a literal decimation of society to straight up impossible to cut out all fossil fuels today.

      But we should have started a global, methodical transition over 40 years ago, and the free market control over government and media has systematically prevented that. And THAT is unacceptable.

        • teawrecks@sopuli.xyz
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          8 days ago

          I agree that would be more environmentally friendly, but now you also need to train and employ how many nuclear experts to keep thousands of ships running safely? And this tech has existed for a while. If this was cheaper to do, I expect they would have already done it.