The US was the envy of Europe with the IRA, which started to establish a huge manufacturing base for solar, batteries, etc., that would power cheap energy for the rest of the century for the US. The EU couldn't pull it together because they have only sticks, whereas the US could use carrots to cause massive investment. And it worked! We were building so many factories, mostly in highly Republican rural areas, because that's where there's a lot of people looking for manufacturing jobs. But the factories that were built, that raised wages for entire communities, they couldn't even say that it was for renewable energy, that it was a benefit of the IRA, because the propaganda is so thick that it would poison the jobs. And now, all that's going away. All the lead. All so that we can steal nasty heavy sour crude from a South American country that US oil producers don't even want.
With the Greenland invasion insanity, Europe is finally getting a small taste of what it's like to be a normal person living in the US the past decade. Fantasy, vibes, and really bad values have taken over the semblance of sanity.
The US is missing out on the biggest technological transition of the century, far bigger than AI, because the masses have been negatively polarized against cheaper energy bills through misinformation.
These things don’t happen overnight. That thing has been boiling for at least a decade.
As a non American, that’s evident…
Perhaps that's also part of the downfall: the US unlearnt the necessity to use sticks to stamp down the ugly side of capitalism.
Reading the other comments, it's really a shame we can't have a discussion about something happening in the world before it immediately becomes about the US, on topics that are barely relevant.
A house might have a typical peak power demand of 1kWH. Now? It might peak at 10. I'm making up these numbers by the way.
Everywhere that I know of, you pay for the grid through your bill.
> The sector contributed 0.25% to GDP and enabled savings on consumers' electricity bills of more than 4.6 billion euros in 2024, with an average reduction in the wholesale price of close to 20 euros per MWh.
essentially this means if there's one milliwatt of gas on the grid: everyone pays the gas price
as a result consumers see very benefit from renewables
(but the renewable generators are making out like bandits)
however the market participants have "adapted" to it
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/jan/08/two-power-s...
it works pretty well on a short-term basis but due to the way the system works there's no ability to price-in a long term signal
the government is currently consulting on a changes to introduce this mechanism (as is the EU)
UK secures record supply of offshore wind projects
robertakarobin•1h ago
timeon•1h ago
embedding-shape•1h ago
robertakarobin•1h ago
wood_spirit•34m ago
Meanwhile, not 5 km away, there are a bunch of turbines with people living around them and no problem.
So the exact slopes etc of the terrain is very important.
jacquesm•1m ago
Then they'll be forced to fix it and it will be quiet again. You can ask them if it always was that noisy, if it wasn't then that's an extra arrow in their quiver. I'm very much renewables but safety is a major concern.
Manfred•1h ago
SoftTalker•37m ago
tensor•51m ago
Tade0•44m ago
Couldn't hear anything besides the road several hundred metres away.
edent•20m ago
jacquesm•3m ago
I've lived within 500 meters of a pretty large one and the highway more than a kilometer away from where I lived was far more noisy than the turbines.