Weird Harold wrote:How quickly will they move to Solar Power Generation once the Proscriptions are voided?
The same questions apply to Geothermal.
I would suspect the answer to the first question is never, as your question implies that solar is a "natural" progression of energy source after fossil fuels. By second implication you assume human energy consumption has at any point in history gone from more dense energy sources (fossil fuels) to less dense source (solar/wind/biofuel/etc). In fact the opposite is true, throughout our history we have progressively been harnessing more and more energy dense sources. At first just our own muscle power, then animal muscle power, then wind/water, then coal, then oil, then nuclear, and in the future we're talking about fusion and antimatter. Each step is about the energy density of the material.
As for geothermal a lot of the same conditions apply, hot water is in fact less energy dense than coal (1 ton of coal has a lot more potential chemical energy than 1 ton of water at 100C). geothermal is also extremely location limited, and has massive issues with corrosion in the piping from sulfur compounds. According to http://geo-energy.org/events/2014%20Ann ... 0Final.pdf there are about 12 GW of installed geothermal capacity globally right now (about 4.4 GW in the US). For perspective the 600 coal power plants in the US can generate 314 GW. There are two orders of magnitude gap between geothermal and coal power production.
Knowing the author and his stated thoughts on nuclear power, I imagine once the proscriptions are lifted you'll see Owl giving some detailed instructions on some pretty advanced coal power plants, with an eye towards graduating as soon as possible to advanced nuclear designs.