The Non-Electric Energy Market

Some fossil-fuel uses are hard to replace because they deliver continuous power or heat directly where the work happens.

The first hard case is vehicle-scale portable power: tens of kilowatts available on demand, with acceptable mass, cost, lifetime, refill or recharge time, safety, and manufacturing scale.

The second hard case is local heat: a small stationary source that can supply useful heat for years without making every building depend on a much larger electric grid and storage buildout.

The point is not the exact early price guesses. The point is that replacement technologies must be evaluated by delivered behavior: power, heat, logistics, lifetime, maintenance, fuel or energy source, emissions, and deployment cost.

Centralized solar and batteries can solve part of the problem. They do not automatically solve every non-electric use case unless the full storage, distribution, and seasonal-demand problem is included.