WOW, the hummer is that heavy!
Interestingly, the first commercial aircraft, fully electrical powered is out: https://www.popularmechanics.com/flight/a41453056/eviation-electric-aircraft/
True, Lithium can become a problem. That's why I think we will see hybrid systems, electrical engines powered by smaller batteries with hydrogen being the large 'battery'.
And am pretty sure we will see other types of large 'batteries' come into existence over time.
Regarding becoming independent: I think for any nation in the world it's impossible to become independent from other nations. This also counts for the USA. Over time, we will need base materials that can't be found within our own territories. And fossil fuel usage will be pushed away completely in time. How long this will still take, who knows, but in my opinion this will not take more than 1 or 2 generations.
It's hard to say. Clearly there is a lot of energy coming from the sun and in the mantle but converting the power is never going to be 100% efficient. The fossil fuels are so much closer to a usable form and it took millions of years of pressure to provide that energy in a near usable form. To do all that work that has already been done to get that amount of power out is tough.
Maybe it's tough, but do you think we'll be able to find oil and gas in let's say 100 years from now? Or 200?
Projections are all over the place on that but I would lump oil and natural gas into the same basket and I would say yeah because when you look are refinement techniques for mining gold, copper, silver....etc. They keep working the same land just with improved techniques a lot of times so places where it didn't seem viable they could likely tap into that.
Let's say 100 years is pushing it even adding in biofuels....etc I feel that overtime more and more people switch to LED lighting in their houses, Solar panels on their roofs as that becomes more efficient but the main driver has to be that it costs the customer less and saves them money in the long run and the free market steers them in that direction.
I like the concept of the Plugin Hybrid but only if the gas engine is powerful enough to act on it's own. That way if part of the system fails or isn't available it will still be operational. And especially the premise that a plugin hybrid could have solar panels that were efficient enough to charge the battery on it's own even if it was out in the sun for 8 hours. I have an Audi that has a solar panel on the roof but it only helps keep fans running on the interior once the car is shut off to keep the interior cooler instead of getting super heated in the sun.
I guess these guys are onto something 🙃 The car is in production. Expensive at first, but need to start from somewhere. And they did this in a fairly short time. https://lightyear.one/
And what about this one? I love it so much research done already is now finding its ways to practical usage. https://vita.solarteameindhoven.nl/
When we get it right, I mean we find very efficient solar energy collectors and converters, and we find ways to have sufficient power when solar isnt available in eg hydrogen or fuel cells, energy will become available in abundance driving the cost of energy down and in a sunny weather and possibly even likely scenario, to almost zero $. With such cheap energy, we will be able to grow food everywhere, even in deserts and on our oceans. That will give enough food for everyone on planet earth. Its that what I for see as a possibility and its for that reason I like to see a transition away from fossil fulls as soon as possible. Since fossil fuels will not provide these possibilities, I’m afraid. Well, we simply dont have an unlimited supply of fossil fuels. Ok, also our sun will find its end someday, but thats gonna be a bit more than a century or two😆 Added to that, other renewable energy forms I do like to be further developed, including wind in combination with maybe hydro, large basins pumped full with water on wind, a basin as energy storage. Hydro energy available when the wind is not there. Or when the sun is not near us, during our nights, or when Thor messes with us big time 😂