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If left alone, companies and people will resolve just about everything.  IMHO, coal and oil should have already been replaced for electricity generation, heating, and new vehicles, at least in the country, by clean natural gas.  Forget climate change and global warming - it's economics.  BTW, if you really want clean, inexpensive, and a cleaner environment, study "breeder reactors".


At one time, IBM was the world's leader in business machines (typewriters, et. Al.).  If they had insisted on sticking with typewriters, they would not exist today.  Then later, they were the world's leader in mainframe computers and after that PCs.  Again, if they stayed with the status quo, they would not exist today.  Instead, they have continually re-invented themselves and have remained a part of the DOW since (AFAIK) 1979.


As consumers, once the price of an EV gets a little closer to the price of a gasoline powered car, the economics may force our hands.  Depending on electricity costs in your area, charging an EV is probably much less per mile than gasoline.  Add to that the maintenance costs and the EV should cost less to own and operate.  Of course, if you drive long distances, that would not be the case with today's technology.  In the past 10 years I've had no need for a car with a range over 80 miles (160 round trip) and I'm driving (wasting) a Mercedes E350.


Of course, if your electricity is produced using coal and you replace your gasoline (cleaner than coal) with electricity - probably a sum loss.


Other fuels mostly make no sense whatever.  Hydrogen has been proven to be the best internal combustion fuel of all for emissions.  However, it takes more energy to produce hydrogen than it provides - sum loss.


In other words, there are many tradeoffs.  I remember the coal bin in my grandmother's house.  The "coal man" would open a trap door on the side of the house and shovel coal into the bin.  The basement would fill with coal dust.  Then to get heat, she would go to the basement and shovel coal into the furnace.  It was a big day when the furnace was replaced with a gas furnace.  Stink gone, coal dust gone, heat you could easily regulate, and so on.


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