The head of the Australian energy market operator AEMO, Daniel Westerman, has rejected nuclear power as a way to replace Australia’s ageing coal-fired power stations, arguing that it is too slow and too expensive. In addition, baseload power sources are not competitive in a grid dominated by wind and solar energy anyway.
If you’re talking about an extinction level event like that which caused the death of the dinosaurs then I think we have bigger problems.
There are historical accounts of volcanic activity blocking the sky, I think in Europe, for a few years. For all we know it was the whole planet. That would definitely disrupt solar energy collection without being an extinction level event.
Diversity is a genuine factor of fossil fuel free energy generation.
Literally no sun for years would mean no crops which means everyone and all their animals would be dead
then I think we have bigger problems
Care to point them out? As I’ve said, and expect to be common knowledge on a (I would expect) scientifically leaning community, the dinosaurs weren’t killed by the meteor, their death was caused by the blacking out of the sun. You have access to energy, you can make air filters, grow food, purify water. If you don’t have energy, then you die.
Regardless, this is a deflection from the main point, that was merely an extreme example, even volcanic eruptions could cause huge disruptions if you depend too much on solar power.
You don’t need sunlight to grow crops, you just need energy; which in this scenario would require an energy source that is not the sun.
