this post was submitted on 21 Sep 2025
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This guy has a strange obsession with pointing out the obvious fact that pretty much everything requires mining and fossile fuel right now, but somehow that is only a problem with renewable energy in their view.
The big reason why things are like that is that fossile fuel based processes were always much cheaper than more sustainable electricity based ones. Only once we have cheap surplus electricity from renewables that will change. For example iron processing can be done very efficiently with electricity and not only with coal.
In theory, I agree with you. Just cross-posting this so that people see this perspective and how much the infrastructure needs to change. Whether those changes will happen is the real question.
EDIT: To clarify a bit more, I rarely observe people talking about the back-end infrastructural changes, the production-side changes, that would need to happen in order to phase out fossil fuels. It's appealing to think that buying solar panels and an electric car and other shiny new consumer products can solve major environmental problems, and of course there are big business interests that would benefit greatly from people believing that to be the case, but that is not the reality. The consumer end, what we might call "domestic use" of fossil fuels, is only a small fraction of the total, and I share articles like this in order to remind people of the bigger picture and the changes that must happen in addition to any individual consumer choices if humans collectively are to phase out the use of fossil fuels. I don't mean to discourage people from making those individual changes, and I don't share all of the author's pessimism about whether the back-end infrastructural changes are possible, but I think that more people need to be taking this issue very seriously rather than simply promoting electrification or more efficient machines.