(As far as I know, there is very little that can compete with hydrocarbons other

(As far as I know, there is very little that can compete with hydrocarbons other than nuclear power (steam), and there isn’t much logical or scientific evidence to suggest there will be. So the sooner we build one safe reactor per million people, the sooner we will get away from hydrocarbons. Because it is only at that scale that nuclear energy will approach the cost of hydrocarbons, and no other technology holds anywhere near the promise. Radioactive material decays no matter what we do. The universe is full of it. And you can keep refining it forever.)