Where I live, for most of the Winter the sky is overcast with clouds. So that somewhat limits solar panels. But I'm sure California is great place for them.
They rarely say where they actually are.
The thing that most countries - a convenient non-geo construct only because most countries have a national grid - who claim to be exceptional have in common, is a firm commitment to the idea that they are exceptional. I am reminded of that onion headline that ends 'says only nation where this regularly happens'.
I concede that it's possible you happen to live somewhere that is out of reach of a grid that in turn has potential feeds from hydro (pumped or otherwise), solar pvc, solar thermal, geothermal, tidal, wind, and so on.
But I doubt that's likely to be the case.
(That you mention California makes me assume you're somewhere in the USA.)
This guy explains it better than I can. https://www.tiktok.com/@freightfamous/video/7294648129654246...
'It can't work here, and can never work here, because ...' and then followed by some basic math mistakes wrapped up into some wild extrapolations, augmented with some demonstrably pessimistic assumptions that every piece of the stack can't ever get better, or be swapped out for something better.
That suspiciously well-prepared rando on tiktok you used as a citation - the comments attached to that thread quite rightly point out his math mistakes, around hydro generation, dam sizes, and so on.
He's also assuming that rail will never augment / replace large tracts of (currently) road transport - which is a despairingly safe claim in the USA, where rail infrastructure is just awful, but it doesn't need to be forever.
He then assumes the only way you can 'green' truck transport is to use current-tech (Lithium) batteries - this is obviously not the case, and Lithium / solid state batteries are probably NOT the answer there anyway.
He says the logging truck uses 2.5 MW (not MWh) of power per day - and then talks about '3 megawatt battery pack' - not MWh.
Essentially he's ignoring the fact that the height of technology that is transport infrastructure today is the result of a century of roads, mining/drilling, refineries, fuel distribution, engine/truck design.
He's effectively repeating that standard trope - 'green tech' at year #10 isn't as integrated as fossil tech at year #100, so it can be dismissed.
Clearly some practice has gone into reciting this rant, but it's not a compelling argument for the 'we can't get there from here' camp.
https://www.tiktok.com/@freightfamous/video/7292048160296406...
If you think BC's mountainous forests can be logged using rail lines ... I don't know what to tell you. The rest is you projecting "exceptional claims" about green technology, that amount to wishful thinking.
I have no idea about local terrain, and really, if the mill(s) are at the bottom of the hills, and there's no longer-haul trucking component to the transport from felling site to mill location that could be better served by rail, then I'll concede that point.
On the other hand, you used this guy's argument to explain why electric trucks can't possible work in this environment.
And then used this same guy's electric truck to demonstrate how they can.
Pick one.
BTW, eventually "green" energy _has_ to work, because sooner or later, fossil fuels are going to run out. I mean, the sooner we figure this out in an effective way, the better. It's literally pointless to argue against the inevitability of needing truly renewable energy.
Depends on what you mean by "run out".
In reality, it will never actually run out. It will just keep progressively increasing in cost, with progressively less profitable uses for it, which will progressively be replaced by other technologies (including renewables but also others like sustainable aviation fuel).
> Based on the average pace of world energy consumption over the last 50 years, if we were to extract the rotational energy just to supply 1% of the world's energy consumption, the rotation of the Earth would lock to the Moon in about 1000 years.
That’s a terrible assumption. First because the rate has been slowing (even before Covid), and second because the end result of that extrapolation is more energy than we could every hope to produce without building Dyson spheres around stars.
If you do similar calculations we’d cause severe problems harvesting that much energy from wind or geothermal as well.