Posted by rbanffy 2 days ago
https://apnews.com/article/trump-media-fusion-power-company-...
Meanwhile China runs away with all the clean energy tech (solar, wind, batteries, etc, etc.) while we hold to fossil fuels to save less than 200,000 jobs.
If you're talking about coal miners, David Frum joked / observed that there are more yoga instructors in the US than coal miners:
* https://www.sfgate.com/columnists/article/Yoga-teachers-vs-c...
Yoga instructors, assemble!
It's all bullshit.
Yup, ahh... any day now.
1) the US has lots of oil reserves, which would lose lots of value if everybody was using renewables 2) oil is the main driver for dollar demand, as oil is paid in dollar, allowing the US to have lots of debt relatively cheaply
That's also the reason why he wants to tell Europe to stop using renewables, and that's the reason why he is threatening Venezuela - because they have the biggest oil reserve and started selling it in different currencies.
Now whether that whole genius strategy to gain wealth through geopolitics is worth an extinction event is a different story.
What's interesting is that the strategy you suggest (tell Europe to stop using renewables, attack nations that compete with US oil sales) only motivates other nations to move away from oil. It's a terrible strategy if the intent is to sell more US oil. Renewables are far more sustainable in many regards, and bolster national energy security while remaining on fossil fuels leaves them weak wrt energy security.
This is just more of that, contracts in the US are suddenly subject to political winds.
In the end, this will probably be unblocked by the legal system, and eventually the US tax payers will pay for damages. But it'll be a long time.
At least that's how I see this.
It's kind of hard to see the strategy you outlined as doing anything other than backfiring. Oil and other fossil fuels are consumables. Once burned, they're gone. For strategic reasons, most nations with any sense and the economic ability to do so are turning away from fossil fuels precisely due to this fact. European nations are not exceptional here, the US is actually the outlier.
Your suggested strategy is that the US wants European nations to buy more US oil, and in order to motivate them the US is demonstrating how bad oil dependence is. See Cuba (they depend on Venezuelan oil there).
How could a demonstration of the flaws of oil dependency possibly motivate the sale of US oil rather than hasten the move towards solar, wind, and other power sources?
This is why I said it's a terrible strategy. Only the non-thinking would go for it.
That being said, he is obviously aware that Europe is planning on greener energy. This administration also tries to break down the EU by pulling out countries like Italy and Poland. They are clearly promoting right wing parties all over Europe which align more with his agenda and are more EU sceptic. They might try to use social media for propaganda. The goal is divide and conquer. Europe has to pay attention to this and be aware of the risk. The strategy may seem stupid, but it would be even more stupid to ignore it and not make sure it fails.
That's my personal opinion on this subject.
For some reason, oil has masculine aesthetics but wind power doesn't. I don't think this is a calculated play
In the next breath, they pick something else from the deck to be upset about: These days, that's usually brown people, emails, laptops, the American cities that people in frog costumes burn to the ground every night, brown people, guns, laptops, and Hillary.
Sometimes, they then take a break to hear themselves talk about baseball, praise the president for getting so much done that he doesn't even have time to sleep, or to complain about the plot from the episode of The Dukes of Hazard -- from 1983 -- that they watched for the 14th time last night on Pluto.
After the break, it's time for them to complain about how they can't afford visit a doctor or buy eyeglasses, but they sure as hell don't want them any of those librawls to take any of their hard-earned money so everyone can go to the doctor.
Then things shift back to being weirder again: Schools turning boys into girls, kids using litter boxes in the classroom, men wearing dresses, God's Perfect Plan, guns, brown people, groceries, brown people, and blue hair dye.
This tiresome process repeats until I manage to escape, or I tell them very pointedly to shut the fuck up (hints don't work).
None of the people I know who act this way seem to be particularly bright, but I know them anyway.
And they vote. (Yes, I've checked.)
Did you ever consider that all the money spent on expensive renewables is money not spent on cheaper forms of power? Did you ever consider that they are correct and that spending on renewables drives up power costs? Because that's what the data says is happening. Now, I am aware that the amount of FUD on this topic is very different to get through. But if you learn about the differences between capacity and utilization costs and the other accounting games that are played with energy costs, you will learn how to see through the FUD. But I'm sure it is more psychologically comforting to just look down on them which is what you are actually doing.
That rig is pretty sweet.
It pays for itself, and in present form and with their present use (wherein: they're not trying to live particularly-efficiently) it is almost entirely capable of keeping them with power even if the grid goes down for an indefinite period.
But, sure: We can talk about games, instead, if what you want to chat about is just games.
What games might you have in mind?
You do know that batteries have a capacity right? And powerplants have something called a capacity factor. That means for a given amount of capacity, you generate on average a certain amount of power. For nuclear that factor is .9. For renewables its .1. So 1 watt of nuclear provides the same power as 9 watts of renewables. That's why when you say that renewables have 1/3 the capacity cost, it really means its 3x more expensive than nuclear. That means higher bills for people, which is what we mean when we say utilization cost. That's the real cost that people pay and actually counts. And all this is before we talk about siting issues with renewables. Fun fact, most PV is sites (located) somewhere with an albino factor of less than .25. But since you connected a battery terminal to a PV panel, you must know what that means. Seriously, you are just spreading misinformation that transfers cost from the rich to the poor, such a hero you are.
And I'm a big fan of nuclear power. I, for one, am completely in favor of having as many nuclear power plants in my back yard as possible.
You seem to be having an argument with someone who is not present -- as if you have some unseen enemy.
This delusion has been noted.
There is nothing here for us to discuss.
Good day.
Just like you can manipulate women en-masse by appealing to patriarchal attitudes around femininity and beauty, maybe by talking about weight or hair, you can influence men by appealing to patriachal attitudes around masculinity.
I mean, you can convince the average American man to drop an extra 20K on a truck he doesn't need and a multiply his gas cost by 2x just by convincing him it's manly. You can discourage men from drinking cosmopolitans and instead have them drink the equivalent of cat piss by telling him it's unmanly.
This stupid meme needs to die.
“Last week, Trump Media, the parent company of Truth Social that is majority-owned by the president, said it was getting into the energy business, announcing a merger with a fusion firm TAE Technologies.”
No, not for jobs. Profits, stock bumps, and bonuses for the execs at oil companies and friends of the admin.
That occurred a long time ago with the destruction of USAID and arbitrary firing of large numbers of federal workers.
91 million lives were saved over the last two decades. The vast majority of that wasn't "international development" fluff; it was basic survival. We’re talking about stopping tuberculosis, malaria, and starvation.
Framing this as getting rid of unwanted "cultural programs" is a convenient way to ignore the fact that we pulled the plug on the life support system for 30 million children.
Come on now. These programs are rife with corruption and ulterior motives. People have moved on from "think of the starving children" being able to shut down any questioning of it.
And really that's just silly when you think about it. If that's supposed to be an argument then we might ask why did previous governments practically murder 100 million people by not spending even more money on all these wonderful programs? Why are the European countries that have funded this paper you linked to murdering these orphans right now by not stepping in to replace the lost funding? It's just not really the way to have a reasoned discussion about it.
Interesting introduction to the paper too:
> Evidence before this study
> Despite the US Agency for International Development (USAID) being the world's leading donor for humanitarian and development aid, there is scarce evidence in the literature assessing its impact on global health. Few evaluations have attempted to estimate the effects of USAID funding on maternal and child mortality in selected low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs), and some reports have offered only approximate estimates for specific diseases.
Strange that the American public was being made to fund these vast expenditures for so many decades, on apparently scarce scientific evidence for its effectiveness. You don't think anybody could possibly have any negative feelings about how the ruling class has been spending their money?
I don't understand. How do you give someone money if they don't want it?
He's been doing that since January.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/energy-consumption-by-sou...
80% or more of new electricity generation in China is renewable. They build coal capacity but they don't use more of it.
This year their absolute carbon emissions decreased.
First off we can now look at the full year instead of 6 months of data, its no longer US +4.2% and China -2.7%, its US +2.0% and China -2.3%
China's 2025 YoY emissions decline is almost all due to a decline in industry, not power (1.8% of their 2.3% decline, in other words, most of it). It's understandable to have a lower year if you have an economic slowdown. Russia also had a decline, not for green reasons.
"economic slowdown" is an exaggeration.
In general it's weird to say '"economic slowdown" is an exaggeration' and then link to something that talks about the economic slowdown.
Total emissions also went down. Yeah GDP went up less than last year but that hardly matters when we're talking about an emissions reduction. Not "less emissions growth than last year", an absolute decrease.
China's consumption this year was about the same as last, and looking to drop a bit, so likely old coal plants were being retired at about the same rate as newer ones were built, and that will start to go the other way (more retired than built).
1. https://www.iea.org/news/global-coal-demand-has-reached-a-pl...
What is your point? Can you elaborate how this is relevant?
That began almost the moment this administration came into power.
"The Trump administration’s decision to shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths from infectious diseases and malnutrition, according to Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s Atul Gawande ... The dismantling of USAID, according to models from Boston University epidemiologist Brooke Nichols, “has already caused the deaths of six hundred thousand people, two-thirds of them children,” Gawande wrote. He noted that the toll will continue to grow and may go unseen because it can take months or years for people to die from lack of treatments or vaccine-preventable illnesses—and because deaths are scattered." [https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/usaid-shutdown-has-led-to-hund...]
Seriously, the pardons alone make this the most pro-crime administration in my lifetime. Probably ever.
https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2025/jun/12/stuckart-relea...
[1] Apparently, if Tank Man[2] was present in the US in 2025, he'd be guilty of 'Unlawful imprisonment'.
# Country CO2/capita CO2 total (2022) Population
- ------------- ---------- ---------------- ----------------
1 China 8.89 12,667,428,430 1,425,179,569
2 United States 14.21 4,853,780,240 341,534,046
3 India 1.89 2,693,034,100 1,425,423,212
An investment that doesn't make a profit is kinda pointless. Business 101.
> Your neighbor thinks he's saving the world filling his roof with cheap Chinese solar panels
And he's right. God bless him for having more sense than you.
> ignoring the toxic chemicals and human cost that went into manufacturing it
Yeah no toxic chemicals or human cost whatsoever went into digging up your coal and gasoline.
Tell us honestly: why do you gain by lying?
I am not following your logic or point here. The US has been the leading polluter, would that somehow stop us from saving the world from pollute if we came up with the technology for the rest of the world to stop polluting? Of course not. It's a very strange whataboutism that you are purveying that gets repeated frequently in online forums, but doesn't stand up to a little bit of back-and-forth.
Some of the dumbest, low quality comments I read here come from 10+ year old accounts so account age has no correlation to discussion quality.
I can't argue in good faith when everyone is acting like children.
China's leading the planet in development and deployment of renewable energy tech.
What proportion of China's emissions are a consequence of The West's externalizing the manufacturing of what it consumes?
At least with China in the driver's seat it looks like the planet's manufacturing needs will actually get cleaned up. Meanwhile the US will keep pearl clutching as it fades into irrelevance and Zimbabwean hyperinflation.
The cost isn't as good as solar though. a 1kw turbine is expensive.
I got an offer for a "essentially free" residential turbine including the pylon (8 to 10 meters, the legal limit for a "Kleinwindanlage") in SW Germany - just had to dismantle it and put it on my lawn. And of course pour a huge foundation [2x2m?] and have an accredited electrician do the necessary alterations. Nope. It didn't even produce enough electricity to offset the maintenance costs - no idea how I should offset the costs for moving it, even with the free capex.
And I did the math about 3 years ago: Prices for both PV and batteries dropped a lot since then. For late fall/early spring I would be better off by adding a PV carport (2 cars). I could also finally automate charging my batteries while electricity is cheap during Dec/Jan, might even be worth bumping my existing battery from 28 kWh to 42 kWh.
To be fair: The math might work out in the Northern Germany; but I would not bet on it.
Obviously, cost scales more than linearly with blade length but it’s a bit like big O - the n^2 factor dominates. This is why wind turbines have been getting bigger and bigger. And why the cost of domestic or small-scale wind turbines remains stubbornly high despite the dramatic fall in the average cost per MW seen for wind turbines - as the falls are largely driven by the ability to manufacture larger and larger turbine blades. While falls in costs for solar PV can be seen at every scale.
Generally utility scale solar buys cheap panels that aren't as energy dense as those purchased by rooftop consumers, so you could make the argument. However, the efficiency and energy density of the ever-growing turbines installed by utilities, particularly off-shore, are far more efficient than anything you would install yourself. E.g. average annual wind speed typically improves with altitude, and having a taller turbine can reach those larger sustained wind speeds. Whereas, utilities and consumers almost always install solar near-ish ground level and see the same sky, perhaps the utility installs in a sunnier corner of geography. Consumers potentially benefit from the shading of panels, and lower distribution costs.
Green energy is much harder to control because you can’t force the market into artificial scarcity and re-inflate the value of gas to drive the economy back up (and keep rich people rich).
The price of new solar+battery and wind should be pushing fossil fuel energy prices off a cliff right now, unless you live in a petrostate.
> Average prices are best used to measure the price level in a particular month, not to measure price change over time. It is more appropriate to use CPI index values for the particular item categories to measure price change.
I’m not doubting that (inflation-adjusted) energy prices have gone up but this graph is misleading to represent it
FRED actually has a blog post about how you would go about calculating an inflation-adjusted priced graph here: https://fredblog.stlouisfed.org/2022/11/fred-gets-real-unles...
Its not clear cut.
Part of the reason why electricity is so expensive in the UK is that its tied to natural gas prices. some of it is CFD, but most of it is because a lot of our power comes from natural gas.
We pay for gas on the open market because we aren't self sufficient for gas any more.
Yes solar is cheaper to deploy, but its not as useful on its own. Wind is far far better in the winter.
What we should be doing is getting nuclear plants built. Small ones ideally, but a few bigguns will do. Then we won't be so reliant on natural gas. We also need to get those extra transmission cables built.
(note we could have built 10 nuclear power plants, well EDF at 2002 power prices, but the present government balked because nuclear is bad yo.)
Correct, but that cost is a negative number.
When the generation happens in the same location where the electricity is used, you don't get the significant transmission losses. You don't have to build and maintain big transformer substations. Obviously this doesn't count for big utility-scale solar arrays. However, every commercial warehouse, for example, could cover its roof and have near-zero transmission losses for most or all of its energy usage.
Equilibrium is met when new production becomes too expensive vs. the existing profit potential.
All resource markets globally run on marginal price. The other option for electricity would be that everyone instead does their own research and predicts the clearing price leading to even higher waste and more volatility.
Many of the new wind farms get a fixed price for energy and when the wholesale price is about that the excess gets channeled into a fund that is used to reduce consumer prices
But we don't do this. So all else being equal, I would suggest we reorient towards other types of renewable energy, especially nuclear, if we are longer worried about price
Close, but one minor correction.
Multiple studies have found that it would be cheapest to DEstruct coal plants.
Literally demolishing them and replacing them with battery + solar is more cost effective than continuing to operate them in 99% of cases.
“Cheap” only if you exclude indirect costs due to emissions (both localized effects and less-localized.)
> we reorient towards other types of renewable energy, especially nuclear
nuclear is not renewable (it is low carbon, a feature that is also true of renewables in general, but it is not, itself, a renewable.)
It can be effectively renewable for all practical purposes, but there's an aversion to breeder reactors. Over 95% of the existing 'waste' could also be consumed by breeders.
Breeder reactors reduce long-term waste issues, but they don't make nuclear renewable.
[1] http://large.stanford.edu/publications/coal/references/docs/...
I like nuclear. The funny thing about nuclear power and the mercenaries promoting their startups about it is, you will still have to convince democrats about it. Because occasionally they are in power, and nuclear, as is often criticized, takes a long time to build and a short time to turn off haha.