Jaguar I-Pace most compelling EV yet., page-93

MG.

I get that you are not anti technology. However, how do you think advances are made without some intitial investment that doesn't provide a return ?

While there has been quite a bit of money invested into renewables in the last decade that could have been invested somewhere else for a greater financial return, look at how much that investment has achieved.

Wind turbines are 3 to 4 times more powerful than they were ten years ago and they are still getting more powerful. Their uptime has almost doubled in that time at well.

A decade ago most off grid people were still using lead acid batteries with no battery management system. Because of this the batteries had very short lives. Commercial operations such as telecom facilities were replacing their batterypacks every few years as a hedge to failures.
Now, thanks to new batteries and advanced battery management, batteries are lasting multiple times longer, are much cheaper and provide way more consistent output.

Solar power. It's a bit of a guess but I would say that solar panels are a third or quarter of the price os a decade ago. And there is no doubt the quality and choice is through the roof ( pardon the pun ).

We are also at the point now where subsidies are being reduced to nothing so it is now really just investing in new plant to replace old.

Cars. Ten years ago electric cars were rubbish. Six years ago the model S Tesla was introduced and once and for all proved that a safe, large ev with range could be built. It has proven the concept over and over again in the past six years. Now we are at the point where the reasonably affordable ev is hitting the market in examples such as the Model 3, the Hyundia Kona, the new Nissan Leaf etc. There is a plethora of evs from other manufacturers coming to the market over the next two years.
In about four years time we will have the cheap ev that absolutely competes on sticker price with ICE cars.
That will be around a decade from the introduction of the S model to an ev that anyone can own.

Renewable energy has gone from a science experiment a decade ago to competing with fossil fuel now. I expect that commercial sized storage will follow a similar trajectory and given the increased investment of late by companies like Whyalla green steel, in the next decade it will be really kicking fossil to the kerb.

Ironically, large storage might help make the remaining baseload fossil more efficient as it will see more consistent loads rather than peaks and troughs. The storage will manage the peaks and troughs going forward.

So, over two decades we will have invented, developed and installed technologies to largely replace fossil fuel generation. While it will take decades to eliminate it completely, mostly the job will be done.

I reckon two decades for such a significant global shift in technology is a pretty good investment.

That investment, apart from introducing all sorts of technological benefits for other industries, will benefit mankind for the next century until the next idea comes along.