However, on one front they're incredibly bad. Renewables are usually just that : a piece of infrastructure that needs to be built and needs no fuel beyond it's environment.

In other words it's capital investment taking out operational expenses. It's capital investment reducing the size of the economy.

Or to put it very bluntly : it's free electricity for the rich, by making electricity for the poor more expensive (because the rich and companies will no longer share the burder of maintaining the electricity grid).

To add insult to injury, solar also doesn't require people, and wind only a bit more. All of them are far below what fossil fuels require on a per megawatt basis.

At least we can laugh a bit at the fact that this only cements the position of the very top of the wealthiest of our society: even though your landlord and your bank probably don't realize it, it will cost them income, indirectly, not just you.

And for added bonus points, we are judging renewables by how they affect the environment at minimal capacities. Now that's great and all, but renewables make electricity free.

Now here's fossil fuels: sun -> earth -> plants -> animals ... -> goto plants and loop a few 100 times -> get buried -> become coal/oil/gas/...

Here's renewables: sun -> earth -> technology XOR plants.

Currently that's 0.1% technology 99.9% plants.

So, tell me, what happens when the inevitable Jevon's paradox happens ? When we waste electricity like there's no tomorrow, and have a "renewables" everywhere. They'll still be renewable, of course. But it'll be 99.9% technology 0.1% plants. And no worries, I bet we'll have a few choice spots for the ultra-rich that are left green. Clinton's "public" library-style places. But not for you and me, as we can't own any of this.

And of course, when do we do this ? When we're about 50% through reasonably extractable fossil fuels. So how polluted is the world going to be with renewables ? Why exactly as polluted as without, as all available fossil fuels will be burned, and we weren't going to burn anymore than that, for obvious reasons.

So it could easily turn out that renewables do one thing, and one thing only: give humans a reason to claim every last square centimeter of the planet surface, with the potential exception of the poles (although just deprioritizing them could work too).

I mean, I like renewables in concept. But economically and from the perspective of inequality, they're disastrous. I'm not convinced that they're any good from an ecological standpoint either.

But yeah, they'll make the center of cities somewhat more livable for a decade or two, maybe more, while driving more people out. Generally making things more comfortable. And as SV'ers on a "barely livable" wage of 200k per year, that's all that really matters, isn't it ?