"Why hasn't the energy industry changed from oil?"
Easily answered if you have ever mowed a lawn. Fossil fuel powered mowers are cheaper, stronger, and lighter than other choices. When it comes to power plants, this equates to cheaper, smaller, and quicker to install.
"we haven't even begun the unprecedented, massive transition to a new fuel source. What's up?"
We don't have a viable "other" fuel source.
"Hemp and other plants that make really good biofuels that are environmentally friendly and would have no impact on the decreasing ozone layer, yet, they've gone widely unnoticed"
Burning biofuels produces a buttload of ash, a product we have issues getting rid of from coal, and it is wetter than coal, so it will produce all the noxiousness of coal and then some. As much as it would be nice to smell dope downwind...
"Also, you could never power a city like LA or NYC with solar technology, the cities require too much power."
You can power the entire USA from the [sunlight striking the] area of a single county in Arizona. But you cannot do it at night, or when it is occasionally cloudy. Don't short out solar, just because you don't really want to talk about it.
"To summarize and clarify my question, why are we not transitioning off oil and why are we wasting our time with dangerous, ineffective alternatives when we have effective, environmentally friendly replacements, not alternatives, in hemp and other plants that produce biofuels?"
Because they are the same problems, with different skin. Biofuels are harder on the machinery. So OK, technology can overcome this. But the effluents are same as with coal. Plants concentrate heavy metals and toxins, whether those plants be fossilized as coal, or hemp in the field.
I agree that growing stuff collects CO2, but it also further alters Earth's surface, causing us to retain heat. And hemp (for example) requires water. So we divert our waste streams to water the hemp, which won't be enough (and we don't have any more). So the hemp concentrates all the heavy metals in our waste stream, and when burned, we breathe it all back in... between us and our feed stocks.
"Do they want an energy crisis?"
They don't want to cross Religion, and tell us we are 7x overbred for how much Earth can support us. We have drained every drop of fresh water, wherever we can find it. Now we are left to consider how many steps of sterilization are acceptable before we can sell our own urine (essentially) to each other to drink. Water has to be "free", water is a "right".
The crisis is overpopulation. We just figure if we call it an energy crisis, no one will look at the real problem.
Because we haven't found a better alternative energy forms. And also most of man made technologies these days are more or less related to oil based energies.
Because oil brings War boy! The White man loves War!
It was back in the 70's when Jimmy Carter and all the people in know told all of the people in the world that we were running out of oil and serious actions needed to be taken to meet the world's new and emerging needs for more energy, and better more efficient energy. Fast forward 40 years later and... nothing. I realize oil is a $1 Trillion industry for these people like Exxon execs and stuff, but we have reached peak oil, even national geographic admitted it, yet, we haven't even begun the unprecedented, massive transition to a new fuel source. What's up? It's like they want the world to have an energy crisis of the likes no one's ever seen. We have such replacements for oil, because alternatives are no good we need to replace petroleum products as a main source of energy. Hemp and other plants that make really good biofuels that are environmentally friendly and would have no impact on the decreasing ozone layer, yet, they've gone widely unnoticed whereas pointless energies like wind, solar, and nuclear are praised as the energy of tomorrow when it's clear wind power couldn't even power Oklahoma City, by the way, Oklahoma gets A LOT of wind and there's only about a million people in Oklahoma City so wind's a bust. Solar has absolutely no plausible use for cars, and building homes run on solar power are possible, but EXTREMELY expensive relative to what you get. Also, you could never power a city like LA or NYC with solar technology, the cities require too much power. By the way, electricity is NOT a renewable resource, it's primarily made from coal mined from mountains, and yes, mountains with coal are finite as well. Next, nuclear is too dangerous. Even if we ignored the dangers and made enough reactors to power the world about 1% of them fail like the one in Japan did, so if we built them by the thousands, which we would need to power the world, probably more like hundreds of thousands, we'd have so many catastrophic failures we'd all die from radiation poisoning. To summarize and clarify my question, why are we not transitioning off oil and why are we wasting our time with dangerous, ineffective alternatives when we have effective, environmentally friendly replacements, not alternatives, in hemp and other plants that produce biofuels? Do they want an energy crisis?
