Refineries are not immune to storms either. At least solar panels are 99% Aluminum, glass, and silicon, which you can melt down to make more solar panels.
We’ll always have refineries though. And that’s ok. We want hydrogen, methanol, ammonia, plastics, among many other things. But we can just as easily feed them with waste biomass, farmed biomass (not corn- switchgrass or poplar or mesquite or hemp, etc). Chevron holds a patent to make gasoline from biomass and the break even price point is $12/gal. We’re not far off. And with subsidies or taxes we’d be there now (had the clean power plan survived for example).
Refineries are not immune to storms either. At least solar panels are 99% Aluminum, glass, and silicon, which you can melt down to make more solar panels.
We’ll always have refineries though. And that’s ok. We want hydrogen, methanol, ammonia, plastics, among many other things. But we can just as easily feed them with waste biomass, farmed biomass (not corn- switchgrass or poplar or mesquite or hemp, etc). Chevron holds a patent to make gasoline from biomass and the break even price point is $12/gal. We’re not far off. And with subsidies or taxes we’d be there now (had the clean power plan survived for example).