Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

We need many more physicians too. That won't help us here but there is a unifying thread that in an increasingly complex and specialized world, it's a real bear to keep up with human talent.

Here, I'm not even putting engineers and scientists on a pedestal as holy special people. Moreso I'm treating them as normal people with very special information and I'm claiming that our problem is an exponentially exploding doubling time of human knowledge. So recruiting and training everyone in time to keep The Brain growing (and actually make practical use of it) is a serious dilemma.

It makes me wonder about the future of knowledge creation and use. Why can't A.I. satisfy many (all?) scientific and engineering needs better than people? That's not rhetorical. I'm not trying to be cute; I don't know either way. And if A.I. can't, how will it be that people can?

We need many more physicians too. 

Now you tell me,I could have set my Field & Stream,Popular Mechanics down long enough to crack some manuals instead of beers.As long as Mom & Dad could pay some University to faff my SAT's & entrance exam

Yes, oil demand likely will diminish, over time, same with coal and NG, over time.  Projections for what "over time" might mean are all over the place.

W&S are today minor contributors nationally, maybe 8% to the grid.  It takes time to replace installed capacity of coal and NG in part because the plants are paid for, one way or the other.  The capital needed to operate an existing coal plant is near zero, for however long they last.  It's fine to talk about all the new installed W&S capacity, but it needs to be put in context.  

There are two new power reactors going in near August, GA now, that could actually get finished after the usual massive cost overruns etc.  I thought they might kill it a while back, several times, but they are plowing ahead.  The economics of that don't look very good to me, but they do to someone.

Nuclear power is on the outs in Germany but France seems mostly content to stay the course while building more wind generation capacity.

Tomorrow?  Utilities are obviously highly regulated, but profit is a driver for them, as with all for profit enterprises.  You're basically saying wave a magic wand and somehow all that electricity production would be replaced overnight (or in a few years).  Profits are important in the real world where money doesn't grow on trees.

I believe what he is hinting at is that the ways,means and ability is there now to start implementing the change.But they won't as long as they can wring a profit out of what is already in place.In a way I agree,Wall Street power brokers only think long term if it benefits their billfold.I'm sure there are those wanting to facilitate things for the greater good but the lobbyists seem to have hijacked common sense on Capitol Hill

For one I can see evidence of either price fixing or flat out monopolies in Utilities.Shit they went after John D. for back in the day.The sun supposedly burns more energy in one second than has been used on earth in forever.If this is accurate I find it hard to believe that there can't be a preliminary plan in place.Perhaps moving forward these Utilities realize maybe they won't hold all the cards.So why would they be in a rush to change anything.That maybe companies making turbines,solar panels or any of the other emerging technology will.Kind of odd how my natural gas and water bills have doubled/tripled in the last 5 years.Yet we have a glut of NG available and I live less than 2 miles from the Great Lakes.I like to get kissed before I'm screwed

There are many suggestions that dirty operations should be taxed to pay for cleanup, or to subsidize cleaner operations.  Seems logical enough.

But in practice tax revenue doesn't always go where it was ostensibly supposed to go, and special-purpose taxes don't always end when their ostensible purpose has been completed.

The federal government enacted a tax on long-distance telephone calls in 1898 to help pay for the Spanish-American War.  I'm pretty sure that war had long been paid for when the tax was repealed in 2002.

After WWII, Oklahomans voted for a toll road between Tulsa and Oklahoma City.  As sold to the public, the tolls were supposed to end when the construction costs were paid off.  Construction on the Turner Turnpike (later designated part of I-44) began in 1947 and were completed in 1953.  The tolls are still in place.

In 2004, Oklahomans voted to install a state lottery--a tax on the stupid--in order to fund public education.  It was advertised as the solution to education-funding shortfalls and political wrangling over said funding.  The lottery began in 2005, and is still going strong.  Public education--even after a big increase last year--now gets significantly less funding in constant dollars than it did 15 years ago.  There are two reasons for this: revenue has not come close to equaling the predictions made by proponents of the lottery; and the state legislature has reduced its discretionary funding of education to more than equal the increase produced by the lottery.

Utilities are structured differently depending on the state and region. I'll try to explain the basics:

Texas is fully deregulated meaning the utilities own absolutely no generation nor do they earn anything on electricity sales - they are only responsible for the transmission and distribution infrastructure. Independent power producers bid their energy into a wholesale market called ERCOT, and retail energy suppliers set the prices for customers. This creates competition at both ends and incentivizes the development of the best generation technologies. It just so happens that Texas has the most wind and fastest-growing market for solar.

At the other end of the spectrum are traditional regulated utilities that are monopolies. This is primarily the case in the Southeast and Western states aside from California. Electricity prices are determined by state public utility commissions, most if not all generation is owned by the utilities, and there is now alternative for the customers.

California is a rather unique case. They have a competitive wholesale market, but in many ways they are still a monopoly. However, municipalities can create their own utilities of sorts and procure energy separately. These are called community choice aggregations or CCAs for short. With the PG&E debacle, I expect this to take off and then the utilities would also just be responsible for the transmission and distribution infrastructure like in Texas. This is already about to happen for San Diego's utility, SDGE.

New England (ISONE) and New York (NYISO) also have their own wholesale markets, and customers have the option to buy energy from other companies. However, the utility remains the default supplier. Same is true in the Mid-Atlantic and parts of the Midwest (Ohio, Northern Illinois, and parts of Indiana) with PJM.

The rest of the Midwest (MISO), and areas surrounding Texas (SPP) have their own wholesale markets, as well, but the utilities are still the only option for customers.

Here's how the US electricity generation has changed over time. As you can see, the trends are pretty clear with coal dying, nuclear declining slower, while gas has taken off for now, and renewables are growing even faster. The Other is primarily hydro (using oil for generation is basically gone except for islands like Hawaii and Puerto Rico where it's also going away).
https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.php?page=electricity_in_the_united_states. Again, the EIA is a very good source for historical data but its projections are questionable at best.