Tesla has the right idea with solar roofs but we need better options than shingles or giant panels mounted. Wind gen is amazingly good if you have a consistent supply.
When I was sailing, the sun and wind would recharge my batteries during the day. At night, wind would keep the batteries charging so I could run lights, laptops, VHF, and NMea2000 equipment.
The future isn’t this. Banning renewable energy is like banning breathing.
EDIT
Coming back after a walk, I can't stop thinking about this. When I worked at an energy tech company, me and a couple data scientists actually worked out that if, theoretically you had solar panels capable of capturing sun energy with 99% efficiency - you could power all of humanity on 1 day's worth of sunlight. (granted you had the storage capacity, we did fun things like "You saved 254,143 trees by reducing your water use" kind of stuff).
The wind farms off the coasts in the EU countries are producing massive amounts of energy at fractions of the cost. Yes, the engineering is hard. Yes, the big tall windmills are ugly (paint them, put LED lights on them, who cares). You don't need the giant big ones, a field of smaller ones works too at the same altitude (key part... wind is faster at altitude). Make a wind mill kite and send it up. There's so much energy around us. We just need to find a way to trap those electrons.
It may be short term good for them but long term fairly idiotic (for them and the US).
Could be reasonable, we need more renewable independence.
> ...while boosting support for biofuels...
And there it is, going backwards. So tired of this.
https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DE/12mo/monthly
https://ember-energy.org/countries-and-regions/germany/
https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/eu-battery-storage-...
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2025/01/03/germany-hits-62-7-ren...
https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/commodities/negativ...
https://www.heise.de/en/news/Power-generation-from-renewable...
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-08-27/how-germa... | https://archive.today/4Vk52
If you're looking for a renewables success story, Germany ain't it.
Citation? Because the EU intends to phase out Russian gas entirely by 2027. I'm not too concerned about Germany consuming non Russian LNG at this time as they continue to deploy renewables and batteries (GP said "and now reliant on Russian gas." in their comment above). Germany is now getting almost two-thirds of its power from renewables; if that isn't a success story, I don't know what is.
EU plans ban on new Russian gas contracts using trade law - https://www.ft.com/content/8b005c13-2088-47cd-aa47-9163e36ef... | https://archive.today/INqOI ("Russian gas makes up less than 19 per cent of the EU’s overall imports of the fossil fuel, down from around two-fifths when Moscow started its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.")
Import volume of natural gas from Russia in Germany from June 2021 to November 2024 - https://www.statista.com/statistics/1332783/german-gas-impor... ("As of November 2024, Germany has imported no Russian natural gas since September 2022. To compare, in August 2022, the import volume of the named commodity stood at around 953 million cubic meters. Over the period observed, the highest figure was recorded at 5.2 billion cubic meters in December 2021.")
Renewables Supplied Two-Thirds of Germany’s Power Last Year [2024] - https://e360.yale.edu/digest/germany-renewable-power-2024 - January 8th, 2025
(edit: Supermancho wrote in a deleted comment about energy demand destruction due to German de-industrialization, but I'm unsure if that energy demand should be forecasted in the future without good data about potential re-industrialization in the future creating said energy demand)
In time, it seems to me that those will drive the US economy right into a solid brick wall.
They just think that solar and wind is woke shit that liberals like and since they hate liberals they need to hate solar and wind.
This is what Google says when asked about why the panels were removed:
“President Ronald Reagan had the White House solar panels removed in 1986 as part of his administration's broader opposition to government involvement in renewable energy and a belief that the free market, not the government, should drive energy policy. While the administration cited cost as a reason for not reinstalling them during roof repairs, the decision reflected Reagan's philosophy and his administration's cuts to renewable energy funding”
Not sure about the sources though. So I guess it’s debatable
Still interesting to realize that the US govt can zigzag so much, and that it’s not necessarily progressing in a specific direction
The "economics" of a particular roof repair are simply irrelevant in this context.
also that first panel provided minimum lights and water for a house, then was installed on.the hood of a truck that got destroyed by bieng rear ended, and is now moumted on.another building providing lighting and power for small tools, chargers, etc. ie: the stuff is tough
Remember who did this in the future. Accepting them back into polite society is a horrific idea. They declared they hate everyone in the country and want to burn it down. There should be no Kumbaya, guitars and mallows around the fire.
My aunt is a conservative lobbyist. She is also a drunk. This means that she gets drunk and texts my family her real feelings all the time. She is absolutely 100% motivated by hate. That's it. She has told her sister to kill herself because she's on government benefits. She has told my mom that she should be thrown in prison for going to an anti-Trump protest. She has told her own daughter that she'd be better off dead than bisexual. Her daughter has attempted suicide twice.
She is not motivated by some actual policy outcome. She is not motivated by trying to help people just through some different mechanism than the left would use. She is not motivated by libertarian ideals. She is motivated by hate.
As another comment mentioned, this is immaterial at the rate at which solar PV and batteries are being manufactured, it just makes electricity more costly (an additional tax) until we get to the future.
https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/72h/hourly (center on US)
Outright banning solar and wind in red states and then watching as power generation companies flee to blue states as these energy sources outcompete fossil fuels in the marketplace doesn't matter. They still got to say "fuck you, libs." That's all that matters. Pointing out how this hurts their own voters won't change anything because the thing they want is not actually human flourishing. The thing they want is "fuck you, libs" and they got that already.
They can use it as a wedge issue.
Look, Republicans in Republican states, they're leaving you without jobs and giving your jobs to immigrants. See, slightly red but mostly purple States? This is what will happen to you. And the energy companies take the blame, not legislators.
Politics today is ruled by cynicism.
That's not cynicism. That's brute honesty.
California is ahead of the curve by having built renewables and batteries before this policy change, while other states will be stuck with suboptimal energy policy for at least the next half decade, increasing their cost of power. California is also the world's fourth largest economy with the energy system they have built.
https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/US-CAL-CISO/12mo/monthl...
https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/us-electricity-2025...
https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/energy-almanac/califo...
https://www.gov.ca.gov/2025/04/23/california-is-now-the-4th-...
It sounds like your broader point is that conservatives are all stupid and motivated by hatred. I kind of feel like you have plenty of your own hatred though but seem sort of blind to it.
My mother has dealt with her for her entire life.
I assure you that I am not missing some hidden trauma that complicates my aunt. What I described above is just a taste of the harm she's done to people.
Unless someone is completely incapable of rational action (which has happened to me), there’s some level of personal responsibility involved.
I wouldn’t argue that conservatives are stupid and motivated by hatred. However, many people voted for a campaign of blatant hate and an explicitly stated desire for revenge. This definitely colors your view of anyone that doesn’t think this is a bad thing.
You seem to happily ignore who started this garbage, who's responsible for the orange shit stain on the entire country, who yelled "Fuck your feelings" when anyone disagreed, who refused to wear a mask to possibly prevent infections, but is quite happy to see their idiocy forced upon anyone else.
My family would absolutely love to go no-contact with her. But if she ends up with guardianship of my other aunt once my grandparents pass then she'll be sentenced to suffer and die.
But unfortunately being a republican lobbyist means a couple things. She is extremely persuasive and she is friends with some relevant government officials.
It's all they do now. If it will make some liberal in their heads unhappy, they'll do it. They don't care how much it hurts themselves.
That's honestly why I have absolutely not one iota of sympathy for all the Republicans who's businesses are getting obliterated by the trade "policies" of the dumbass in chief. You voted for this shit. I hope it sucks for you. I hope your wife leaves you. I hope your children never talk to you again. I hope broad society rejects you, permanently, for playing such stupid fucking games with the future of your nation, your children, and your own life.
Truly, it's the Right's chickens finally come home to roost. For decades the Republican side of things has gotten to play incompetent jackass olympics with the government, and between the US's position in global politics, our overall wealth and the general stability maintained by Democrats and moderates over the shrieking howling objections of themselves, everything kept trucking more or less to spec. Like children in a home maintained by parents who know what they're doing.
Now like the adolescents they so frequently scold everyone else for acting like, they have moved out on their own, maxed out their credit cards on stupid shit, and bills are stacking up. And just like those adolescents, they have no goddamn plan and just point the blame at everyone else for letting them fuck everything up for themselves.
Fucking. Children. And I don't just mean in that a distressing amount of them seem to be pedophiles.
Why let the idiots decide?
Every time we have this discussion, we always conclude that nuclear power generation is the only viable path forward.
Nuclear NIMBYism is even harder to defeat than regular NIMBYism, so you might as well ask for geothermal.
See: utilities trying to shut down coal plants because they are too expensive, being stopped by the current administration.
Turns out the department that deals with farming, is going to focus on farming… and not on pushing electricity production.
Well yeah, the Department of Energy should probably be the ones spearheading our solar, wind, etc.
I'm getting real tired of fighting tax breaks for people with 131 Scrooge McDuck piles of money already, at the cost of services a large portion of the country uses or may need.
To be clear, I don't have kids, but want my tax dollars to fund free lunches, but we can't have that. Instead we get garbage like public school busses being used to drive kids to private schools, while the public school students walk. (See Ohio)
1 - Secretary Rollins Blocks Taxpayer Dollars for Solar Panels on Prime Farmland
2- Secretary Rollins Prioritizes American Energy on National Forest Land
Both have quotes about putting "America first" to confuse people to make them think this is better for all. We think the USDA is about getting healthy food to people, but really they're about maximizing the money for farmers and people who own the land. Terrible.
[1] - https://www.usda.gov/about-usda/news/press-releases/2025/08/... [2] - https://www.usda.gov/about-usda/news/press-releases/2025/08/...
I am a little curious to know what percentage voted for this.
[1]: https://www.npr.org/2025/03/07/g-s1-52362/tariffs-farmers-tr...
That can be enough to swing things, but it's not enough to be the deciding block that many think they are. A century ago things were much different.
https://krcrtv.com/news/local/trinity-county-urges-congress-...
That is were we are headed, if you live below the Mason/Dixon line, a good chance your descendants will be one of those migrants many people seem to hate these days.
It also bans Chinese solar panels, ends wind/solar tax credits post-2027, and extends biofuel credits to 2029.
This is common-sense stuff to me. America chooses America and food-supply security. The article is horribly biased.
This video from a few days ago analyzes the issue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tNp2vsxEzk
Regardless of climate change issues, the anti-renewable policy doesn't seem to make any sense from an economic, growth, or national security standpoint. It even is contrary to the anti-regulation and pro-capitalism _stated_ stance of the administration.
downrightmike•3h ago
watwut•2h ago