Fossil fuels spurred the industrial revolution, empowering innovators such as Thomas Edison, Samuel Morse, and Henry Ford to thrive. Today, the technology of fossil fuels is under siege. Renewable forms of energy are being created at cheaper costs to circumvent a major problem from fossil fuels, climate change. Renewable energy is the perfect solution to replacing fossil fuels. Renewables do not produce greenhouse gasses to provide electricity, there is no backlash from communities like nuclear energy, they are very cheap forms of energy, and they are an infinite source of energy. Fossil fuels do not fit the criteria for a sustainable and clean energy source and thus does not fit well with a clean and sustainable future. Since popular forms of renewable energy like wind and photovoltaic solar do not provide electricity through all hours of day and night, energy storage systems need to be implemented. Energy storage systems often require batteries that degrade with each charge. A gravity battery can fix this issue. As the gravity battery takes in energy it pulls up a heavy mass on a pulley and then slowly drops the mass when energy is needed. Gravity batteries should degrade slower than batteries and still be able to store and output energy. Another major problem that renewables face is how to recycle them. Solar panels are very expensive to recycle and are mostly made of glass which is a low value material. The blades on a wind turbine are often made of thermosets and fiberglass. While fiberglass would be a high value material, the thermosets cause an issue in that they are irreversibly hardened. Because of this it is nearly impossible to reform and ends up in a landfill or buried. In order for solar recycling to be productive, there needs to be more economic incentives to recycling them. For wind recycling to be more productive, either a new material needs to be made in place of a thermoset so it may be easier to recycle and reform, or easier and cheaper ways need to be produced to recycle the thermosets. If fossils fuels were to be part of a clean and sustainable energy grid, improvements in carbon capture need to be made. Fossil fuels have an advantage in that they have continued to develop throughout the industrial revolution and after. They are also easily manageable and adaptable to certain energy needs like seasonal changes. However, their production of greenhouse gasses cannot fit in a clean energy grid unless that carbon is captured and stored. There are ongoing advancements in carbon capture systems, however, there will always be emissions. Carbon capture can reduce the rate at which carbon is emitted but more efforts to offset those emissions would be needed. This also would not meet the sustainable side of it because fossil fuels are estimated to run out within the century. In order for a clean and sustainable energy grid to be viable for humanities future, renewables need to generate a vast majority of the electricity produced to meet demand, energy storage systems like gravity batteries need to be implemented, better forms of recycling renewable must be made, and fossil fuels need to be removed from energy production. These are big changes that need to happen if the world's energy production is going to play a part in a clean and sustainable future.