Sounds pessimistic to me. I think we can make it there earlier. Don’t underestimate technology, the solutions to carbon sequestration and clean energy are getting exponentially better each year.
There are identical stories to write about onshore wind, offshore wind, and lithium ion batteries. This summer has seen a huge number of new storage chemistries announced from startups with skin in the game and experienced management that will close the gap for longer term storage.
The most optimistic prediction for renewables were too pessimistic. It's likely that we are still in the same situation today, and not nearly enough people are predicting the future accurately by short-changing new tech.
There probably aren't too many people on HN these days that remember computer tech in the 80s and 90s, but it had far fewer doubters, and didn't have an industry dedicated to creating a propaganda cloud about how awful computers are. And still, the internet and computers are far more advanced and penetrant into everyday life in ways almost nobody anticipated.
The renewables revolution will likely be as big. We will have more cheaper energy accessible to us than ever before. This may be enough to jump to a new stage of technological development.
