I think you are touching on something important in your edit, which is that diversity of energy source is important for long term grid stability. Solar+battery storage is looking really good right now and I completely agree we need to get on that asap. But there’s no magic bullet, no one technology that negates the need for any other. Headlines inherently reduce complex issues into bite sized information, but it’s important for science literacy to remember that things are complex and nuanced! We need wind and solar and hydroelectric and energy storage and nuclear and more.
The tricky point here is that fossil fuels were a silver bullet for a long time! There is so much energy in those chemical bonds and they just bubbled out of the ground, so why wouldn’t we use that for everything?
Trying to get people to understand nuance and using the right tool for the job is a lot trickier since most people inherently resist complexity as a solution for replacing a simple technology.
I think you are touching on something important in your edit, which is that diversity of energy source is important for long term grid stability. Solar+battery storage is looking really good right now and I completely agree we need to get on that asap. But there’s no magic bullet, no one technology that negates the need for any other. Headlines inherently reduce complex issues into bite sized information, but it’s important for science literacy to remember that things are complex and nuanced! We need wind and solar and hydroelectric and energy storage and nuclear and more.
The tricky point here is that fossil fuels were a silver bullet for a long time! There is so much energy in those chemical bonds and they just bubbled out of the ground, so why wouldn’t we use that for everything?
Trying to get people to understand nuance and using the right tool for the job is a lot trickier since most people inherently resist complexity as a solution for replacing a simple technology.