YSK that fracking is not safe. Residents living near fracking sites are significantly more likely to get cancer
YSK that fracking is not safe. Residents living near fracking sites are significantly more likely to get cancer

Proximity to fracking sites associated with risk of childhood cancer

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...
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.
we havnt tapped into geothermal like scifi does, we have the other ones though.
Then why did it take until 1859 for human population to start trending up and reach 8 billion?
I'll help you: oil. The ancient Romans had geothermal, wind, tide, solar, and hydro as well.
They had the exact same energy we do now. The difference is we have power, they didn't.
I'll help you again. You can't fertilize crops with electricity, or make plastic.
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.
I’m an educator, and I’m forbidden from taking about fracking at work ( ° ͜ʖ °)
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.
I’ll agree with we should have started 40 years ago. We knew we should have and we did have sufficient technology to take other paths.
But I’ll disagree on whether we have the technology now. There was a recent post on Lemmy that in a sunny place like Las Vegas, you could replace 97% of energy generation with renewables and batteries. Cheaper. Not just that you can but that it’s cheaper. We have the technology.
The challenge is always to bring the cost down. We do have technology to create aviation fuel from green sources. We do have several options for fueling shipping that we know how to do. Even if we’re just making ammonia or hydrogen or green diesel, that is a huge step forward that we have the technology for. The problem is we don’t yet have a compelling economic case to (especially since climate change is externalized, not counted as a cost), nor anyone with the fortitude to make it so
Nuclear.
Yeah, to flip the switch now, all at once would be incredibly disruptive. But we knew this was going to happen over 40 years ago. Shit, all elected officials in the US had to do was follow the plan that Jimmy Carter laid out.
I also seriously question the numbers saying that tidal, solar, and wind power can't provide enough to sustain the status quo. Yeah, powering a ship across the ocean can be hard... But you also have an essentially unlimited supply of wind and tidal power for a ship out on the ocean and quite a bit of solar power although it's not as reliable.
I mean it may take a little bit longer for the overall journey but you could pause and just bob up and down in the ocean to recharge the batteries in a cargo ship or move the slower speed while you recharge. That's not even exploring options like hybrid sail / battery powered ships
Right, but that visible ball isn't reliable. You have no idea when it's going to work or not.
If anyone cares, sunset is at 9:04 PM today.
It works all the fucking time. The sun doesn't turn off. You attach batteries to the solar panels that way if there are clouds you can just use what's in the batteries and if it's a sunny day and you don't need the extra energy you store it in the batteries until you do. And if it's really cloudy in your area... Get a windmill.
Terrible "externalities" for humanity are what enables "profit" for capital.