If wind turbines and solar panels are sufficiently well made to outlast the time it takes for their output to repay the cost of construction then they serve to cap the cost of energy, as they have no fuel cost, only a maintenance cost. This would be even more impactful were they to be built with zero or near zero interest rate as government policy. With zero interest rate financing there might well be a positive EROEI after ten years. From a financial point of view they would be huge generators of free cash after they had repaid the cost of fabrication and installation.

Then part of that surplus could be used, conceptually, to invest in carbon negative processes, but it also would make the country possessing such infrastructure very competitive against countries still using 'cheap' fossil carbon energy - totally aside from considerations about contributions to saving the ecosystem. After the EU, the UK or the USA had built out their own energy infrastructure sufficiently the same production lines could continue to be used to provide the same equipment to countries unable to build such equipment - both energy generating and carbon sequestering processes. Continue until the possibility of a new ice age appears.


"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."