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)
For example take the 2024 Financial Report of Hydro One (distributor for Ontario) [0].
Apparently they earned 8,484M in revenue, and spent 4,143M in Power, and Net Income was 1,156M. Putting these together you can sort of conclude that the price of the electricity is around 1/2 their expenses.
If I then go to Ontario Power Generation financial reports 2024 [1], Revenue was apparently 7,187M, with Fuel Costing 1,049M, and net income around 1,006M. This sort of tells you that the price of fuel is only around 1/6th of their expenses.
I spent some time thinking about this and I'm not sure what to conclude other than probably a lot of what you pay is just paying for staff and maintenance and so even if fuel was free where I live it would be like a 1/12th change. Assuming the big savings in Wind are supposed to be from not having to pay for Fuel.
[0] https://www.hydroone.com/investorrelations/Reports/Hydro%20O...
UK secures record supply of offshore wind projects
This has also been suggested by various politicians and others in front of a microphone or a camera without any basis in fact whatsoever. There is a (by now remote) chance that indeed wind power (or renewables in general) were the primary cause but the evidence points in an entirely different direction, the lack of control authority and undampened oscillations getting out of control. In such a situation various safety protocols dictate that sections of the grid disconnect and go into island mode or switch off altogether. This to prevent damage to the grid and to all of the grid connected devices. As these outages go, I think it was handled extremely well, the main question remaining is what the root cause was and what should be done to avoid a repetition.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Iberian_Peninsula_blackou...
It’s not really surprising that an electricity grid becomes fragile if you remove large rotating masses which can act as power reserves which can react to power variations immediately.
It's more related to me in terms of when you look at the economical impact of energy, what sizes are in play. Just reading 4.6B Euro is a bit vague to understand to me, at least without having that put into perspective.
Another topic that has been surfacing every now and then is Electricity theft, partially for in-door cannabis plantation in occupied apartments. Which Endesa is valued 2B Euro per year.
https://www.endesa.com/en/press/press-room/news/energy-secto...
Generally renewables do pose new challenges onto the grid, unfortunately conservatives/fascists are using that for FUD - making a technical conversation harder on that topic.
https://www.brattle.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/2025-Iber...
Even in the hypothetical scenario that renewable energy being more expensive than fossil energy (in production), the climate catastrophe and the impact of that on the economy is undeniable magnitudes bigger than any investment we could currently do to shift quicker stronger to renewable resources.
robertakarobin•1h ago
timeon•1h ago
embedding-shape•1h ago
robertakarobin•1h ago
wood_spirit•1h 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•36m 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 pro renewables but safety is a major concern and operators that do not work safely and/or ignore valid complaints are a net negative for renewables.
Manfred•1h ago
SoftTalker•1h ago
tensor•1h ago
Tade0•1h ago
Couldn't hear anything besides the road several hundred metres away.
edent•55m ago
jacquesm•38m 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.