This has been aided by the fact that energy has been heavily politicized. Fossil fuels are 'murican and renewables are woke. It's horrifying.
This has been aided by the fact that energy has been heavily politicized. Fossil fuels are 'murican and renewables are woke. It's horrifying.
Does your hypothesis predict that Texas would be one of the most renewable-energy-heavy states in the U.S.?
That’s just economics. That doesn’t excuse what the current admin has done in terms of prioritization.
That "just" is really doing a lot of heavy lifting.
Economics is what makes this country work. If converting to renewables makes more money, that's what will happen and the people making the money will find a way to justify it politically.
Economics only make the country work when societal costs are not externalised by those that cause them. Which they have been, always, by fossil fuel companies.
Most of the benefits of cheap energy are also externalized. Why do we focus on one but not the other?
Because cheap fossil fuels's benefits will dissipate in two decades if we can move to green energy while the downsides project into whatever time remains of organized human civilization.
The benefits of fossil fuels will also be felt for centuries as well. It's what moved us into the comfortable lives we all enjoy today and lifted billions out of poverty.
The point isn't that they're wonderful, it's that they're treated as this thing that only a few have benefited from, when it's exactly the opposite.
Which makes it all the more remarkable given the century+ headstart fossil fuels had in entrenching itself in our political process and power structures.
Texas is doing something right, that’s for sure. But it’s not so clear what that thing is that the topic can be considered settled without debate.
You are ignoring the fact that the Trump administration has taken proactive steps to interfere with economics and prevent people and companies from building cheaper clean energy. They have tried to ban offshore windfarms and when that didn’t work they straight up paid Total $1billion to build fossil fuel plants instead. They spend millions to tear out already installed chargers from federal property. They illegally clawed back funding states and companies were already spending on clean energy. They eliminated tax benefits for electric cars, causing car companies to spend several billion dollars to completely reverse their production strategies.
In an ideal world where the market is perfect, maybe.
But in reality entrenched market players have access to political influence that lets them stay entrenched. They’ve spent a lot of money since the Industrial Revolution to make sure we need them.
It’s not a perfect free market. There’s no such thing. Politics has a huge influence in economics and vis versa. They’re intertwined.
It’s not a hypothesis. It’s an observation of reality. The current administration canceled massive renewable projects and has incentivized reopening coal plants, subsidized fossil fuels, and opened government land to oil drilling.
China is doing it the right way : use fossils but pouring that money into renewables. Use economic forces to cut the dependency . Everything else is just pipe dream building never happened utopian communism 2.0 .
How many degrees hotter will it get as a consequence? How many windmills will it take to make the world a degree colder?
Serious question.
The almighty buck wins at the end of the day. But how long the day is, that's political.
It's funny that environmentalists would rather see the world burn than solve all emissions problems with nuclear.
Climate change is Schroedingers extinction event. It's only bad when you can solve it with solar panels and wind. It's nothing to worry about when you can solve it with fission and eventually fusion.
> It's funny that environmentalists would rather see the world burn than solve all emissions problems with nuclear.
This criticism would hold more weight if environmentalists held a shred of power. They aren't the ones at the steering wheel.
They had enough power to close down all the nuclear power plants in Germany.
Until the incoming administration declares that safely storing nuclear waste is woke and allows their close friends or maybe even their own companies to just dump it in a desert at a premium because the bible never mentions the associated hazards.
Or it says facility inspections cause autism and transgenderism so they have to deregulate for their pals.
Or that nuclear safety itself is a symptom of low testosterone and turns the frogs gay.
...
Still better than climate change. But thanks for making my point for me.
Man, the knee-jerk downvotes for this are awful.
One can observe a problem while not advocating support for it.
It is quite true that energy decision making has been tremendously politicized, and I don't think that's good for anyone.