Alternative Energy Challenges
October 31, 2012
Alternative energy depends heavily on engineered equipment and infrastructure for capture or conversion. However, the full supply chain for alternative energy, from raw materials to manufacturing, is still very dependent on fossil fuel energy. The various obstacles to alternative energy compound the fundamental challenge of how to supplant a fossil fuel–based supply chain with one driven by alternative energy forms themselves.
This is a chapter from The ENERGY Reader: Overdevelopment and the Delusion of Endless Growth (2012).
See also David Fridley’s 2016 book-length treatment of this topic, Our Renewable Future: Laying the Path for One Hundred Percent Clean Energy.