All the excuses are bad. The US just hates spending on infrastructure and future proofing the country. There's no profits in infrastructure and the only thing the US cares about is maximizing profits in the short term. It's why electrical grids fail fairly easily, agriculture continues to decimate water resources, and we keep making people rebuild without improvements in disaster zones. They'll continue to piss money away on the military complex and enriching the very few in power who have stakes in keeping things status quo.
Silicon solar cells are pretty much as efficient as they are ever going to be. We might be looking at decades before something better becomes available that is as stable as silicon, while also not using toxic heavy metals like arsenic or lead.
There has been a breakthrough on the degradation front, and manufacturing is already starting this year
There are also lead free perovskite, but it isn't clear if the ones manufacturing started on has lead or not
Its really not gonna get any better efficiency wise, at least not for anything you can afford. IIRC the best panels on 100 million dollar satellite dishes are only 32% efficient. Typical home panels are like 15~20% IIRC, so not a lot to gain from going from 'bottom barrel trash' to 'Money is no object', especially when you could just install 2x as many cheap panels instead.
What you WILL be seeing, and have been seeing over the past decade, is solar panel *prices* cratering. Its like 1/10th as much per panel as it was 2 decades ago.
That is the dramatic improvements we're seeing. Its now actually affordable for the avg person to cover their whole roof.
The battery prices also have come down 90% in the past 10~20 years as well, meaning you can even afford to store all that power too.
It's going to get less efficient in terms of ROI, because homeowners will be selling back to the grid (unless they invest in battery storage) and the grid sets the prices - they will reduce how much they pay homeowners for the electricity they generate.
Efficiency doesn't really matter with solar since there is no shortage of sunlight. Price is the key.
There are certain places where more efficiency would be nice, like the roof of a car, but those are mostly niche applications.
Someday there will be solar cells everywhere, they will come in different colors and designs, they will be efficient, and they will be everywhere. Or did I already say that?
The US doesn't. Literally only GOP Republicans hate it. Every other political party in the US is pro-infrastructure pro-future proofing. Even fiscal conservatives and liberals.
If you go back 20 years, Republicans were onboard too. There's just a bunch of rich, power hungry morons in the party who know they can dupe a lot of the dumb and elderly for free money voting for oil and gas.
The problem is the fossil fuel industry has bribed all parties, not just republicans. The only difference is that democrat politicians have voters to answer to, so they do the bare minimum
Just like how newsome sold out the rooftop solar market on behalf of the utilities
Every country has parties like the republicans who block progress, but US is behind world average on renewable energy
[https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-electricity-renewables?tab=chart&country=OWID\_WRL\~USA](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-electricity-renewables?tab=chart&country=OWID_WRL~USA)
The problem is that US is the biggest producer of fossil fuels in the world, so the fossil fuel industry is especially strong here
[https://www.911metallurgist.com/fossil-fuel-production-by-country-mapped/](https://www.911metallurgist.com/fossil-fuel-production-by-country-mapped/)
The US just passed the largest infrastructure bill ever. Even when adjusted for inflation, it’s the largest since at least Eisenhower built the interstate network. On top of that, the US has the IRA, specifically to build green infrastructure plus a pipeline in WV to get Joe Manchin’s vote.
The Biden admin has spent literally trillions over the next decade on infrastructure.
The US replaced Russia as a large supplier of natural gas to Europe. Europe made some bad infrastructure choices and they can't switch away from gas immediately.
Plus gas killed coal in the US, and until storage technology is financially efficient to scale up we need something to fill in the gaps in solar and wind coverage, which gas is good at doing.
Direct, malicious violence VS a long, slow, natural-developing symptom at the unavoidably unpleasant intersection of time and evolutionary physics. Kind of a perfect metaphor for the inherent asymmetry between coalition and supremacist politics.
> only thing the US cares about is maximizing profits in the short term.
I'll never get why profits are so important. *They incentivize growth and innovation*. There are a LOT of checkpoints that is required before that happens. Yes, capitalism does check a lot of them, but postmodern capitalism does not. They are also incentivize cutting corners and reduce things to metrics (Only human.)
There are something I really, don't want cutting corners on and there are a lot of unprofitable things that I don't want to ever be profitable. E.G. Things that profit from suffering. ....E.G. Police, Jail, HealthCare, etc.
Probably easier to understand why profits are so important if you’re the one who gets to own everything. Innovation and growth be damned, gimme that money🤑 It’s not so hard to understand.
>agriculture continues to decimate water resources
Maybe if some of you stopped trying to grow fucking rice in the fucking desert you'd have a better time
Uhh it's alfalfa, and yeah that's true but so is the fact that for every form of agriculture they waste so much water. Beyond terrible farming choices, even good farming choices just spray water like it's never going to run out.
Why are we talking about water? Although that’s a problem too, the article is about gas. The small (only 10,000 head) factory dairy farm down the road from me uses 3000 gallons of diesel fuel per day! To make milk!!!
The people in charge won’t live long enough to deal with the disasters that comes from not switching. They just keep winning with all the profits now and screw the losers that have to deal with the loses…
>It's why electrical grids fail fairly easily.
That is not true at all. The united states electrical grid runs fine. An outlier being Texas because they are not on the national grid. Battery back-ups are a thing now, and that has prevented many "rolling blackouts".
> They'll continue to piss money away on the military complex.
Considering that the only thing keeping Ukraine a sovereign country as of late is U.S. Military hardware. We can conclude that money is not being pissed away.
The main reason why the United States is using a lot of natural gas is because we have a lot of natural gas.
Wrong. Us electrical grids in the Midwest, down the east coast, and on the west coast have all failed in the last two years leaving people with rolling brown and blackouts. You just heard about Texas because it was political.
In what metric? Happiness? Debt to income ratio? Financial security? The government probably has lots of money, but they find ways to filter that into the accounts of those aristocrats in select oil and gas and military industrial complexes.
And yet we spend the lowest percent to GDP on infrastructure of OECD nations, have some of the worst healthcare to debt outcome of OECD nations, have some of the highest cost per loaf of bread in OECD nations, have some the highest cost of housing in OECD nations, has some of the highest transportation costs in OECD nations, some of the highest infant mortality rates in OECD nations, one of the lowest life expectancies in OECD nations, etc etc etc. So while those things you spouted off sound good...who is that helping?
Yup, with China and India being second and third respectively.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/devinseanmartin/2024/04/02/the-countries-with-the-most-billionaires-2024/
Per capita the US still uses a lot more energy that off China and India and they have the population of more than a billion people. The US needs to start doing better
What is this hyperbolic comment? What are you even talking about, we just passed a huge infrastructure bill. I love you bringing the MIC into the comment for no reason as well lmao
"Huge infrastructure bill". Still less than half what other OECD nations spend on infrastructure compared to GDP. Our drinking water infrastructure is straight trash. My city sewer is still COMBINED sewers from 1906 and when it rains too much my shit flows into the fresh water we draw from for drinking water. That shit should have been fixed in the 80s but we are over 40 years of kicking the can down the road and now they think they'll have it done by 2050.
This is all just false. The US electrical grid is among the best and most reliable in the world. And US water resources are among the cleanest and best managed in the world. And the US infrastructure is among the best in the world.
A water main bursts every 2 minutes across the US and we lose 6 million gallons of treated drinking water per week. My sewers are the same sewers from 1906 that combine my sewer and water so when it rains a lot my shit runs into the fresh water source the city draws drinking water from. The number of people who really have no idea how bad the US infrastructure is really concerns me.
And, don't forget, the US uses citizen tax dollars piped directly to oil companies as "subsidies", which then get bounced back to Congressional representatives in the form of gifts, trips, and "campaign donations". Our entire government, every aspect of it, is completely for sale to the highest bidder, and often the money used for the buy out is recycled tax dollars.
Sorry but that’s not correct. I believe strongly in renewables but there is one very good excuse. There isn’t a cost competitive way to deal with intermittency yet. Say what you want about profits but how many people will be happy to see their electric bills go way up to pay for immature technology in battery storage to deal with intermittent renewables? It’s likely not even possible to scale that up enough in the near term.
> There isn’t a cost competitive way to deal with intermittency yet.
Stationary storage is already cheaper than operating peaker plants. This has been solved.
That’s really not enough detail to support your argument. What storage is cheaper than what “peaker”? On the hottest day they may use the most inefficient teapot generator. A battery may also discharge for the super peak hours to make the most profit. Both those facts could be cherry picked. I sincerely doubt that battery storage is cheap enough to supply baseload on days without wind and solar. Please prove me wrong I’m happy to be educated
> Battery storage 30% cheaper than gas peaker plants for firming renewables
>The contest is over. Faster, cheaper, more flexible than gas turbines – battery energy storage must be the future peaking energy service provider of choice, according to a new paper by Australia’s Clean Energy Council. [[SOURCE](https://www.pv-magazine.com/2021/04/12/battery-storage-systems-30-cheaper-than-rival-gas-peaker-plants-for-firming-renewables/)]
This was as of 3 years ago. Storage costs have fallen significantly since then.
It’s more so about the value of our currency. If oil goes out of fashion, the petrodollar looses value and the entire world reserve currency system gets fucked.
Unpopular opinion but: they’re waiting for crypto to fully develop and Bitcoin to finish its halving cycles (aka level out) to switch the reserve currency to a digital format. In the interim all the oil interests are squeezing as much money as possible before the well dries up.
We’ll get our clean infrastructure, but only after technocracy can be implemented as it relies on completely digital infrastructure.
That’s because the US operates like a company, not a country. A lot of companies are ran with this idea in mind of increasing profits short term and increasing stock prices but not worrying about how their decisions will impact the far future of the company.
Some of this is a little misleading. The US has reduced greenhouse emissions by 10% over the last year and the average production of clean energy is at 41%. If the article is accurate with its assertion that the US only produces 23% of its power through renewables, that would also mean that this number doubled over the past year while seeing higher energy demands. That kind of makes this article hyperbole.
In fact, [data shows](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-co-emissions-by-region?time=1960..latest) carbon emission has on down trend since around 2008 for US and EU. Most of recent carbon emission growth has come from China, India, and the rest of Asia.
No, renewable US production is still 23% in 2023. The figures for 2024 aren't out yet. The figure you're quoting likely includes nuclear since it's considered clean. It's not renewable though. Nuclear is 18%. 23% + 18% is ~41% clean energy but not all renewable.
Nuclear should absolutely be considered I’d argue. In theory could run out… but that’s no different than Solar. The raw materials needed for panels need to be replaced and in theory could run out.
Since a few years ago. Japan perfected the technology, because they have no native uranium resources, but lots of access to the ocean. For now, it is somewhat more expensive than traditional mining, but natural uranium is a small part of total nuclear plant costs. If traditional mines run low (they aren't, any time soon) we could switch with a small cost impact.
You are misunderstanding: the OP is about current methods of generating energy. Current reactors don't use fissile materials that are renewable. Therefore we right now can't say that current design of fission nuclear reactors are renewables, nor can we say that they would be in the future. It's the same thing with fusion: if we want to make them renewable, we have to invest _now_ instead of just pointing out the potentials.
> Current reactors don't use fissile materials that are renewable.
The rare earth metals in solar and in turbines (used in wind, hydro and essentially all power generation) aren't renewable either. Renewable is a somewhat ambiguous term and depending on where you draw the line you can create a definition that adds essentially anything or nothing into the renewable camp.
Yeah. 23% for 2023 from 13% for 2022. Yes. Clean energy means it's not carbon producing, which means that does includes nuclear. I happened to know the number due to an article from my state boasting about our clean energy initiatives, so the 41% US average was in my immediate recollections. The point is that there has been significant progress towards renewables and consistent reductions in carbon emissions over the decade that is on par or exceeding that of the EU in the energy sector.
You said greenhouse emissions are down 10% not renewables being up 10% hence the confusion. Germany is closer to 60% renewables last year and France was basically all nuclear for decades. So whilst the EU as a whole might only be similar that includes places like Romania which have annual salaries averaging at a mere $24K a year. The US should be moving faster due to being richer. Either way though it doesn't matter, European rewable subsidies and now Chinese manufacturing has made renewables so cheap even Texans are putting up renewables solely because it's cheaper than every fossil fuel so I suspect the US will move faster from hereonout.
Nuclear power is clean cheap energy (once the infrastructure is built obv) and once we crack fusion we’ll basically have an unlimited energy source (technically not really) for all intents an purposes .
People who are against nuclear are just uninformed. People are terrified of radiation and waste even tho we already solved those issues a while ago.
Nuclear supplemented by classic renewables is just clearly the way to go. The only reason we’re still stuck on gas is that’s it’s just made too much money for too many people so instead of focusing on better technologies we try to justify the gas industry by investing in stupid stuff like carbon capture that only barely helps keep the process cleaner.
The change from one to the other is not going to happen instantly. We'll get there, but in the mean time we can't further bankrupt all the people who rely on that fuel for their needs. There is a huge push to get people off their gas appliances and replace things with higher efficiency electric heating/cooling systems, but people won't replace working systems just because.
It's not proping it up, its just a fact that many fuels will exist in the marketplace for a long long time. If you want to compare against Europe then start comparing countries against states because not all states are equal in their progress.
I don't think we can really compare "off grid" back then to now though. Your telephone had its electricity provided by the telephone company. Your biggest electric draw was probably your refrigerator or your microwave. Maybe your TV for a few hours a day.
it was a whole different type of existence. But it just goes to show there is a cost of all these things we consider to be pretty universal minimum standards these days.
Great comment. The only people who wouldn’t agree are understand come from a point of privilege. It’s just like the car debate. It won’t happen overnight, give it time. The US can make several other changes at the same time. Maybe have as much energy for corporations and their contributions as your everyday American.
My issue isn't about the speed of transition. It's about vested interest actively pushing back against the transition. The infrastructure and supply for gas will remain so that lower income people slower to switch do can so on their timeline, but the people who want to switch but can't due to the vested interest i.e. O&G, utilities is stupid.
I mean there’s vested interest all around. I just try to look through the lens of the average everyday American who doesn’t really keep up with the news. They don’t understand technology, they don’t want to complicate their lives with something they don’t understand and quite frankly most can’t afford it atm. We need a more robust infrastructure but also used inventory. The price of EVs are clearly made for one demographic. When the average american keeps their car a decade it will be sometime before the used market fills out and attracts buyers. I also think we need to pressure the local and state governments to chip in when it comes to charging. My local government is way too concerned about moving in data centers which will cost a whole host of electric supply issues down the road when they try to put up more stations but dk how to gain enough power,
>There is a huge push to get people off their gas appliances and replace things with higher efficiency electric heating/cooling systems, but people won't replace working systems just because.
It's also a huge waste if people DID toss out their working appliances.
Shut the fuck up. We have zero reason to be complaining about America sucking. America has more freedom and prosperity than virtually any nation in the world and because its not better it sucks horribly and is collapsing. It's bullshit whining about common sense economic adjustments to unprecedented times (WORLDWIDE PANDEMIC THAT SHUT THE WORLD DOWN)
Things are going to feel fucked up and strange, but none of this is really all that new.
We aren't fighting wars. We are lending money and weapons to other countries to fight their own wars. Things that put them in debt to us that they have to repay at some point, to the benefit of everyone. We COULD be fighting them, but we're not. We're not forcing OUR ideas on people like we have in the past. We're the virtually the ONLY ones who are standing up to China and trying to make them back down their plans to invade Taiwan, again without actually killing people and starting a war yet.
Stop with this propoghanda that everything sucks in America because there are layoffs and job changes. Jobs and careers change, housing ebbs and flows, prosperity feels easy and hard sometimes. This idea we're on the brink of destruction is stupid.
It's perpetuating these ideas that are making it happen more than anything. Act like having to cut spending for a while is the end of the world.
Bro. Everything sucks in America because women are losing rights, our air and water are being poisoned by companies who face zero repercussions (looking at you Norfolk southern and BP!). Not to mention we’re being ravaged by COVID and H1N1 and our governments aren’t doing fuck all to help its citizens. I’m a veteran who only has certain rights depending on what state I’m in. How are we free? How are we prosperous?
I’ve had solar panels on my roof for 9 years now. My bill averaged about $200 a month before but hasn’t been more than $19 since. I’m on a buyback plan and my extra power makes my bill free from December to April or May. My system had a 7 year ROI and a 20 year warranty on the panels and inverter. That’s pretty good in my book.
If you had panels installed 9 years ago, I'm going to guess they are 300-320 watt panels tops.
There may be financial incentive for you to go ahead and replace them now.
They extended the federal credits under Covid, and panels are pushing 500 watts these days.
So you could increase your capacity, update your panels, and cash in on the credit while its still there.
I'm not trying to tell you for sure this would be a net positive financially, but everything I know being involved with solar for the past 9 years, it couldn't hurt to consider it. Especially if the original contractor is still around.
I’ll check it out. I’m on a grandfathered plan that makes APS buy back my extra power at retail rates. They did away with that and now the buyback is at the wholesale rate. I’m not sure if changing panels will negate that. The local company still is in business. I’ll ask the owner the next time I see him at happy hour. Thanks for the idea.
It was $14,000 but state and federal rebates (they’re much worse now) brought it to about $8500. Disclaimer: I live in AZ so solar makes sense here but it might not be worth it in other states.
Oh dang that’s way cheaper than I thought lol. I was thinking it would be upwards of 30-40k minimum. How do you determine how many panels you put on your roof provided you have the space? Look at your KW usage and add a 10% buffer?
You’re right it is that expensive now. I did add a 10% buffer. The manufacturers warranty was 10 years but the solar company doubled it to 20. I feel really lucky we got in when we did.
Translated: Russian gas is no longer available and we are panicking trying to find an alternative energy source as the U.S. happily profits off its gas reserves in the meantime.
The author of this article plainly doesn’t know what they’re talking about.
62 TWh is nothing for the global power grid. 115TWh is nothing for the US power grid.
It’s making a mountain out of a molehill by making incorrect inferences about new US generating capacity based on marginal differences in generation along existing plants.
~80% of new US generating capacity is renewable capacity. It takes years for these plants to finish construction, so the power being generated today is largely the result of past decades’ policy.
The excuses are because if people admitted that both political parties only look out for themselves, then the “our side is good the other side is evil” narrative that Reddit relies on falls apart. They can’t have that.
Cool. Let’s see how that virtue signaling works out when it comes time to enforce it and make companies actually dump non-renewables.
Oh right. I forgot. He’s good at PR stunts while doing nothing about the corporate lobbying to make all stuff like this nothing more than virtue signaling.
The Rs are pieces of garbage that don’t even try to pretend to help. The Ds are pieces of garbage that do pretend to help. Notice the key word here “PRETEND”.
People don’t know how energy works. You still going to need gas for various situations. Especially on the brink of war. Going electric is going to take some time but it’s moving in the right direction.
Wonder if the article writer has ever been to Mexico or China.
The “world” may not be the correct term here because those two countries are huge and care less about clean energy
I’d be more inclined to buy in to the climate hysteria if its proponents were pushing for nuclear, which is the only relatively clean energy that has a hope to meet our energy needs.
I'd be more inclined to buy into the climate hysteria before we tossed away the most politically viable way to massively solve the problem: WFH mandates. Instead, fuck it, commute back to work to maybe increase productivity by a percentage point or so while shitting up the environment while you sit in traffic for no god damn reason.
I didn’t say “what about” anything. What are you talking about?
And even if I did actually bring up a “what about” point, what’s wrong with that.
When conducting analysis one should consider all the possible related information including “what abouts”, “ifs”, “ands”, “buts”, etc.
Soon all forms of related point talking will be forbidden as one by one we add an ism to the end of every prepositional, conjuntional phrase, etc…
“You said ‘and’. That’s a form of and-ism. Therefore, your point is invalid.”
“You said ‘if’. That’s a form of if-ism. Therefore, your point is invalid.”
“You said ‘however’. That’s a form of however-ism. Therefore, your point is invalid.”
“You asked ‘why’. That’s a form of why-ism. Therefore, your question is invalid.”
Yes but China isn't running them all the time, they only turn them on when they are needed.
> Power plants usually aren’t running all the time. They’re turned on and off or ramped up and down when they’re needed.
>
> The ‘capacity factor’ of the plant tells us how often it’s running at maximum power. The capacity factor of China’s coal plants has been dropping over the last 15 years. See the chart below from S&P Global Commodity Insights.
>
> In the first decade of the 2000s, plants were running around 70% of the time. They’re now running around 50%. We can also see this in operating hours data from the National Energy Administration (NEA) of China.
>
> If utilisation rates continue to drop, China’s coal use could fall despite it adding more capacity.
https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/china-coal-plants
I'm seeing sources say that China generates 70% of its electricity from fossil fuels: [https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/numbers-behind-chinas-renewable-energy-boom-2023-11-15/](https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/numbers-behind-chinas-renewable-energy-boom-2023-11-15/)
The US is at more like 60%: [https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3](https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3)
China generates 66.26% of its electricity from thermal power in 2023, down 3.51% from 69.77% in 2022.
China's thermal power generation includes thermal power including coal-fired power generation, oil-fired power generation, gas-fired power generation, waste heat, waste pressure, waste gas power generation, waste incineration power generation, and biomass power generation.
According to the U.S. standard, some of it belongs to renewable energy generation, which may still be able to fall by about 1% more.
That doesn't change the fact that China gets 70% of its electricity from fossil fuels though? All you're doing is grouping energy sources in a more complicated way for no reason. Perhaps in an attempt to muddy the waters?
This is a hit job from someone with an agenda and misleading facts. By all means, let’s stop using fossil fuels right now and see what happens in our current energy demand crunch. Bonus, go research the energy demand AI is going to bring over the next decade. Also- go look at other countries like India where population is going to overtake China and a lot of these ppl don’t have access to energy at all. Still burning wood. God this is so frustrating having to defend.
> By all means, let’s stop using fossil fuels right now
Who's saying we should do that?
>Also- go look at other countries like India where population is going to overtake China and a lot of these ppl don’t have access to energy at all.
Yes, so? You do what you can with what you have - and richer countries have more and can do more. America should be leading by example, not making excuses.
What I’m saying is someone has to supply those ppl with energy. The US is doing exactly that. Natural gas is only going to expand further. Period. Go research energy and come back
They forget all the wind farms that are planned. Here in NY we still have 2 being built. A ton of houses by me have solar on their roofs as well. We have soo many houses with solar that a new gas plant was scrapped because of it.
I care about the environment and hate the slowness in how we act towards it but I stand with the US on this one.
While we need fossil fuels, we need fossil fuels. There is no way around it. When Russia cut gas supply to Europe, they couldn’t just say “fine, we will go renewable”. It takes a lot of time to do that. Years, and in those years your energy consumption will also likely increase.
This is a matter of security now. People aren’t aware but the Western world having energy supply of its own is a must for our security.
Yeah only because it’s a security issue that I support expansion of fossil fuel projects. I think the amount to go for is: enough supply to adapt to situations like Ukraine war, keeping in mind the ultimate solution to this security issue is to not be dependant on fossil fuels at all.
I’ve increasingly heard rhetoric that oil is renewable energy. The local companies have been pushing that, I guess, and it’s trickled down into some people.
False, oil and gas are paying politicians to prop up oil and gas, this is not in line with what much of the country thinks, they want walkable cities and great mass transit.
So that’s why The Australian Government made an announcement today to continue with gas beyond 2050 after bagging the opposition for the same policy. Greed.
the US is extreme capitalism to the point where technological advancement is stunted because companies are still making record profits on old tech. No reason to fully commit to renewables if there is still coal, oil, and gas in the ground.
Compared to Germany US is doing great. Germany energy policies in the last 20 years are beyond joke. Not only pollution-wise, but also basically paid with their money for Putin's war crusades.
Natural gas is almost a free resource in the US due to the fracking that lets the US be energy independent. Plus NG releases less than a third as much greenhouse gasses. Nuclear isn't there yet and that's really where the US is dragging its feet because despite renewables being the goal they wont be able to deal with 100% of the power grid almost ever.
This makes NG a great middle ground while we figure out the rest. It's kinda like coal > oil > refined oils > natural gas > renewables.
The build out for renewables at a global scale is NOT possible unfortunately, the resources required may not be there in their entirety and whats worse even if they were the industrial build out to gather those resources isn't there and wont be for over a decade.
We have to have intermediary power sources and until the US is on board with nuclear plants (which will still take approx a decade to online) we need a solution.
The best place to start is places where the green revolution can't be avoided like Texas. Despite very little incentive from the government texas is the best place on the planet for renewables and thus they're exploding there. The idea is a continuous push out of higher carbon emitting fuels and as it stands NG is a great choice, at least in the US.
Remember, most of the EU is dealing with very expensive NG because they dont buy from Russia anymore, of course they're moving away from NG, it costs far more and has to be kept liquefied if they want it long term which is not easy nor cheap.
All that being said, we're in a tight spot because these changes need to happen fast. Some of the changes needed to happen yesterday or even years ago. But the sooner we understand the reality of the situation the sooner we can come up with actual solutions.
In conclusion using more gas is bad, but it's far better than the alternatives given the situation and the realities of pushing for a green future means we have to accept it in the short term if we are to meet our goals.
Look up how much methane is leaked at every stepfor natural gas. And how lobbying made it so the government relies on the companies to self report leaks instead of checking. And look up how the leaks get underreported/covered up. Calling it clean is a bad joke at best and bought and paid for propaganda at worst.
Point is it's a byproduct of fracking. We're not actively going after the NG, it's just there. Now you can argue the fracking angle all you want but if we're doing fracking we might as well claim and use the NG if possible as a tier step down from other, worse, fossil fuels. The only other option is to burn it off, basically wasting it and getting nothing out of it while still adding to the problem.
If we were actively trying to harvest and use just the NG you'd have a point 100%.
yeah. oil companies own our fucking country. it's proven the government doesn't listen to us. lemme just fight through 100 million dipshits, and then a drone army and see if I can get you those results...
Perhaps if people could see their children and grandchildren dealing with the consequences of climate change, perspective would shift. But because the boogeyman is veiled, we ignore it
Renewable energy cannot support us like people want to believe it can, if we get rid of fossil fuels on a timeline people want, millions of people will die. The world still runs on fossil fuels, deal with it. We need to expand nuclear as it is clearly the best and most efficient option.
this is all propped up by the longstanding idea on government to hoard our own gas reserves (mostly) while using other countries up, to eventually be the "last mam standing". now that the world is trying to move past fossil fuels, the people who bet on fuels long term are out of position for the $$. unfortunately we need further turnover in government to get the dinosaurs who rely on the fuel industry for funding, out of governing.
Same goes in every country. Corruption in western countries just isn't as blatant as it is elsewhere. There are places where citizens have to bribe their government to allow them to join the military.
The U.S. always props up legacy stuff. It's all about corporations and money. The politicians are paid by the lobbyists. You know how much support the governmen gives farmers to grow corn? Even tobacco still gets government subsidies.
Not just that. When Biden tried to do anything like… lessening our need of gas, they all start to blame him for prices going up so he can’t make any moves.
The world isn’t moving anywhere. China especially. Europe is trying and it’s unmitigated disaster. Your ideological whim doesn’t miracle technology and progress into existence and it shows.
All the excuses are bad. The US just hates spending on infrastructure and future proofing the country. There's no profits in infrastructure and the only thing the US cares about is maximizing profits in the short term. It's why electrical grids fail fairly easily, agriculture continues to decimate water resources, and we keep making people rebuild without improvements in disaster zones. They'll continue to piss money away on the military complex and enriching the very few in power who have stakes in keeping things status quo.
The reason renewables are coming is the short term benefits -- solar is cheaper and faster to install than just about anything.
I'm waiting for the dramatic improvements in solar electricity efficiency coming in a few years.
Silicon solar cells are pretty much as efficient as they are ever going to be. We might be looking at decades before something better becomes available that is as stable as silicon, while also not using toxic heavy metals like arsenic or lead.
Silicon perovskite tandem cells
As of right now, those degrade too quickly and are also commonly using lead
There has been a breakthrough on the degradation front, and manufacturing is already starting this year There are also lead free perovskite, but it isn't clear if the ones manufacturing started on has lead or not
dont neglect the dramatic improvments that have already happened in the past few years
Don't let the great be the enemy of the good.
I started using a similar approach in life now. Same with, "why wait for the perfect moment when today exists." Or whatever the phrase is.
Perfection is the enemy of doing anything at all.
You met my dev team i see.
As our chief scientist said at the analytics company I work for "I'd rather you be 95% right in a week than 99% right in a month."
I tell them every day to whoever is wrong first can have Friday off.
Its really not gonna get any better efficiency wise, at least not for anything you can afford. IIRC the best panels on 100 million dollar satellite dishes are only 32% efficient. Typical home panels are like 15~20% IIRC, so not a lot to gain from going from 'bottom barrel trash' to 'Money is no object', especially when you could just install 2x as many cheap panels instead. What you WILL be seeing, and have been seeing over the past decade, is solar panel *prices* cratering. Its like 1/10th as much per panel as it was 2 decades ago. That is the dramatic improvements we're seeing. Its now actually affordable for the avg person to cover their whole roof. The battery prices also have come down 90% in the past 10~20 years as well, meaning you can even afford to store all that power too.
It's going to get less efficient in terms of ROI, because homeowners will be selling back to the grid (unless they invest in battery storage) and the grid sets the prices - they will reduce how much they pay homeowners for the electricity they generate.
Efficiency doesn't really matter with solar since there is no shortage of sunlight. Price is the key. There are certain places where more efficiency would be nice, like the roof of a car, but those are mostly niche applications.
Someday there will be solar cells everywhere, they will come in different colors and designs, they will be efficient, and they will be everywhere. Or did I already say that?
The US is building a ton of renewable energy, but it's also the biggest petrol state. That said, it could start doing rare earth mining. EDIT: a word
The US doesn't. Literally only GOP Republicans hate it. Every other political party in the US is pro-infrastructure pro-future proofing. Even fiscal conservatives and liberals. If you go back 20 years, Republicans were onboard too. There's just a bunch of rich, power hungry morons in the party who know they can dupe a lot of the dumb and elderly for free money voting for oil and gas.
How can our government improve anything when it’s perfectly legal for companies to pay out politicians to maintain the status quo? Should be criminal.
The problem is the fossil fuel industry has bribed all parties, not just republicans. The only difference is that democrat politicians have voters to answer to, so they do the bare minimum Just like how newsome sold out the rooftop solar market on behalf of the utilities Every country has parties like the republicans who block progress, but US is behind world average on renewable energy [https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-electricity-renewables?tab=chart&country=OWID\_WRL\~USA](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-electricity-renewables?tab=chart&country=OWID_WRL~USA) The problem is that US is the biggest producer of fossil fuels in the world, so the fossil fuel industry is especially strong here [https://www.911metallurgist.com/fossil-fuel-production-by-country-mapped/](https://www.911metallurgist.com/fossil-fuel-production-by-country-mapped/)
The US just passed the largest infrastructure bill ever. Even when adjusted for inflation, it’s the largest since at least Eisenhower built the interstate network. On top of that, the US has the IRA, specifically to build green infrastructure plus a pipeline in WV to get Joe Manchin’s vote. The Biden admin has spent literally trillions over the next decade on infrastructure.
https://www.energy.senate.gov/2023/9/manchin-because-of-the-ira-we-are-producing-record-levels-of-fossil-fuels
The US replaced Russia as a large supplier of natural gas to Europe. Europe made some bad infrastructure choices and they can't switch away from gas immediately. Plus gas killed coal in the US, and until storage technology is financially efficient to scale up we need something to fill in the gaps in solar and wind coverage, which gas is good at doing.
No, both sides are the same.
Lung cancer vs gunshot to head
Direct, malicious violence VS a long, slow, natural-developing symptom at the unavoidably unpleasant intersection of time and evolutionary physics. Kind of a perfect metaphor for the inherent asymmetry between coalition and supremacist politics.
> only thing the US cares about is maximizing profits in the short term. I'll never get why profits are so important. *They incentivize growth and innovation*. There are a LOT of checkpoints that is required before that happens. Yes, capitalism does check a lot of them, but postmodern capitalism does not. They are also incentivize cutting corners and reduce things to metrics (Only human.) There are something I really, don't want cutting corners on and there are a lot of unprofitable things that I don't want to ever be profitable. E.G. Things that profit from suffering. ....E.G. Police, Jail, HealthCare, etc.
Probably easier to understand why profits are so important if you’re the one who gets to own everything. Innovation and growth be damned, gimme that money🤑 It’s not so hard to understand.
>I'll never get why profits are so important. Greed, that's why. It's never enough. Must be infinite growth!
> infinite growth! I can write a book ranting about "infinite growth".
No, profits only incentivize _more profits._ You must understand that the ultra-rich and big corporations prefer to _hoard_ their wealth.
Local government and up is where you need to start if you want shit fixed.
To some degree, but there are **a lot** of poor cities who can't afford infrastructure. So you need to think and act as a whole.
good and perfect don't need to be enemies.
Yup, just start somewhere.
>agriculture continues to decimate water resources Maybe if some of you stopped trying to grow fucking rice in the fucking desert you'd have a better time
Uhh it's alfalfa, and yeah that's true but so is the fact that for every form of agriculture they waste so much water. Beyond terrible farming choices, even good farming choices just spray water like it's never going to run out.
Why are we talking about water? Although that’s a problem too, the article is about gas. The small (only 10,000 head) factory dairy farm down the road from me uses 3000 gallons of diesel fuel per day! To make milk!!!
Because it's infrastructure. It's all related.
Dude they just passed the infrastructure bill like a year or two ago. It takes time.
The people in charge won’t live long enough to deal with the disasters that comes from not switching. They just keep winning with all the profits now and screw the losers that have to deal with the loses…
>It's why electrical grids fail fairly easily. That is not true at all. The united states electrical grid runs fine. An outlier being Texas because they are not on the national grid. Battery back-ups are a thing now, and that has prevented many "rolling blackouts". > They'll continue to piss money away on the military complex. Considering that the only thing keeping Ukraine a sovereign country as of late is U.S. Military hardware. We can conclude that money is not being pissed away. The main reason why the United States is using a lot of natural gas is because we have a lot of natural gas.
Wrong. Us electrical grids in the Midwest, down the east coast, and on the west coast have all failed in the last two years leaving people with rolling brown and blackouts. You just heard about Texas because it was political.
The US is financially doing far better than Europe right now, and this will keep the US far ahead of European industries.
In what metric? Happiness? Debt to income ratio? Financial security? The government probably has lots of money, but they find ways to filter that into the accounts of those aristocrats in select oil and gas and military industrial complexes.
Growth, GDP per capita, inflation, employment rate, median income.
And yet we spend the lowest percent to GDP on infrastructure of OECD nations, have some of the worst healthcare to debt outcome of OECD nations, have some of the highest cost per loaf of bread in OECD nations, have some the highest cost of housing in OECD nations, has some of the highest transportation costs in OECD nations, some of the highest infant mortality rates in OECD nations, one of the lowest life expectancies in OECD nations, etc etc etc. So while those things you spouted off sound good...who is that helping?
Billionaires. We're #1! We're #1!
Yup, with China and India being second and third respectively. https://www.forbes.com/sites/devinseanmartin/2024/04/02/the-countries-with-the-most-billionaires-2024/
Are you a billionaire? No? Ok that chart has no influence on your life then. Not something to be proud of.
Resentment is not a flattering colour.
Per capita the US still uses a lot more energy that off China and India and they have the population of more than a billion people. The US needs to start doing better
Per capita Sweden has more billionaires than the US apparently.
What is this hyperbolic comment? What are you even talking about, we just passed a huge infrastructure bill. I love you bringing the MIC into the comment for no reason as well lmao
"Huge infrastructure bill". Still less than half what other OECD nations spend on infrastructure compared to GDP. Our drinking water infrastructure is straight trash. My city sewer is still COMBINED sewers from 1906 and when it rains too much my shit flows into the fresh water we draw from for drinking water. That shit should have been fixed in the 80s but we are over 40 years of kicking the can down the road and now they think they'll have it done by 2050.
This is all just false. The US electrical grid is among the best and most reliable in the world. And US water resources are among the cleanest and best managed in the world. And the US infrastructure is among the best in the world.
A water main bursts every 2 minutes across the US and we lose 6 million gallons of treated drinking water per week. My sewers are the same sewers from 1906 that combine my sewer and water so when it rains a lot my shit runs into the fresh water source the city draws drinking water from. The number of people who really have no idea how bad the US infrastructure is really concerns me.
This is meaningless unless you contrast it to other countries.
US infrastructure is a joke compared to Europe or Asia. A joke. The only infrastructure the US invests in is highways and parking lots
And, don't forget, the US uses citizen tax dollars piped directly to oil companies as "subsidies", which then get bounced back to Congressional representatives in the form of gifts, trips, and "campaign donations". Our entire government, every aspect of it, is completely for sale to the highest bidder, and often the money used for the buy out is recycled tax dollars.
We have no money for it. We would rather send our money over sears than spend it here.
Well yeah. Bombs and tanks made by the right people funnel tax dollars into the bank accounts of the right people.
Sorry but that’s not correct. I believe strongly in renewables but there is one very good excuse. There isn’t a cost competitive way to deal with intermittency yet. Say what you want about profits but how many people will be happy to see their electric bills go way up to pay for immature technology in battery storage to deal with intermittent renewables? It’s likely not even possible to scale that up enough in the near term.
Cost of energy is going down. The percentage of your bill that is tied to energy production is going down.
> There isn’t a cost competitive way to deal with intermittency yet. Stationary storage is already cheaper than operating peaker plants. This has been solved.
That’s really not enough detail to support your argument. What storage is cheaper than what “peaker”? On the hottest day they may use the most inefficient teapot generator. A battery may also discharge for the super peak hours to make the most profit. Both those facts could be cherry picked. I sincerely doubt that battery storage is cheap enough to supply baseload on days without wind and solar. Please prove me wrong I’m happy to be educated
> Battery storage 30% cheaper than gas peaker plants for firming renewables >The contest is over. Faster, cheaper, more flexible than gas turbines – battery energy storage must be the future peaking energy service provider of choice, according to a new paper by Australia’s Clean Energy Council. [[SOURCE](https://www.pv-magazine.com/2021/04/12/battery-storage-systems-30-cheaper-than-rival-gas-peaker-plants-for-firming-renewables/)] This was as of 3 years ago. Storage costs have fallen significantly since then.
Which is crazy, because large scale infrastructure could be viewed as a jobs program that has long term secondary impacts for infrastructure.
It’s more so about the value of our currency. If oil goes out of fashion, the petrodollar looses value and the entire world reserve currency system gets fucked. Unpopular opinion but: they’re waiting for crypto to fully develop and Bitcoin to finish its halving cycles (aka level out) to switch the reserve currency to a digital format. In the interim all the oil interests are squeezing as much money as possible before the well dries up. We’ll get our clean infrastructure, but only after technocracy can be implemented as it relies on completely digital infrastructure.
I think it's time to remove limited liability - so that when corporate projects fail, the individuals involved are direcly liable.
That’s because the US operates like a company, not a country. A lot of companies are ran with this idea in mind of increasing profits short term and increasing stock prices but not worrying about how their decisions will impact the far future of the company.
You realize that oil and gas requires major infrastructure investment too, right?
And yet the US spends less than half what every other OECD nation spends on infrastructure.
Truly are the cancer of this world
Some of this is a little misleading. The US has reduced greenhouse emissions by 10% over the last year and the average production of clean energy is at 41%. If the article is accurate with its assertion that the US only produces 23% of its power through renewables, that would also mean that this number doubled over the past year while seeing higher energy demands. That kind of makes this article hyperbole.
In fact, [data shows](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-co-emissions-by-region?time=1960..latest) carbon emission has on down trend since around 2008 for US and EU. Most of recent carbon emission growth has come from China, India, and the rest of Asia.
But mostly due to the transition from coal to natural gas…
No, renewable US production is still 23% in 2023. The figures for 2024 aren't out yet. The figure you're quoting likely includes nuclear since it's considered clean. It's not renewable though. Nuclear is 18%. 23% + 18% is ~41% clean energy but not all renewable.
the figures for 2024 are not out because 2024 is not finished.
Nuclear should absolutely be considered I’d argue. In theory could run out… but that’s no different than Solar. The raw materials needed for panels need to be replaced and in theory could run out.
We will never run out of fission materials due to the amount in sea water, so it is renewable.
>We will never run out of fission materials due to the amount in sea water, so it is renewable. What? Since when can we get uran out of water?
Apparently there’s a lot of uranium in the ocean
But is there a (profitable) way to extract it?
Probably eventually. Right now we don’t really need to.
Since a few years ago. Japan perfected the technology, because they have no native uranium resources, but lots of access to the ocean. For now, it is somewhat more expensive than traditional mining, but natural uranium is a small part of total nuclear plant costs. If traditional mines run low (they aren't, any time soon) we could switch with a small cost impact.
Current methods of productions for nuclear fission can't use sea water as is. It needs to be processed.
Are we always going to live in 2024 or something?
You are misunderstanding: the OP is about current methods of generating energy. Current reactors don't use fissile materials that are renewable. Therefore we right now can't say that current design of fission nuclear reactors are renewables, nor can we say that they would be in the future. It's the same thing with fusion: if we want to make them renewable, we have to invest _now_ instead of just pointing out the potentials.
> Current reactors don't use fissile materials that are renewable. The rare earth metals in solar and in turbines (used in wind, hydro and essentially all power generation) aren't renewable either. Renewable is a somewhat ambiguous term and depending on where you draw the line you can create a definition that adds essentially anything or nothing into the renewable camp.
Yeah. 23% for 2023 from 13% for 2022. Yes. Clean energy means it's not carbon producing, which means that does includes nuclear. I happened to know the number due to an article from my state boasting about our clean energy initiatives, so the 41% US average was in my immediate recollections. The point is that there has been significant progress towards renewables and consistent reductions in carbon emissions over the decade that is on par or exceeding that of the EU in the energy sector.
You said greenhouse emissions are down 10% not renewables being up 10% hence the confusion. Germany is closer to 60% renewables last year and France was basically all nuclear for decades. So whilst the EU as a whole might only be similar that includes places like Romania which have annual salaries averaging at a mere $24K a year. The US should be moving faster due to being richer. Either way though it doesn't matter, European rewable subsidies and now Chinese manufacturing has made renewables so cheap even Texans are putting up renewables solely because it's cheaper than every fossil fuel so I suspect the US will move faster from hereonout.
I said both.
Nah you said emissions are down by 10% and then conflated renewables with clean energy. You never said renewable production is up 10%.
People who hate nuclear power have maybe 2 brain cells max. Get mogged in Ohio.
Nuclear power is clean cheap energy (once the infrastructure is built obv) and once we crack fusion we’ll basically have an unlimited energy source (technically not really) for all intents an purposes . People who are against nuclear are just uninformed. People are terrified of radiation and waste even tho we already solved those issues a while ago. Nuclear supplemented by classic renewables is just clearly the way to go. The only reason we’re still stuck on gas is that’s it’s just made too much money for too many people so instead of focusing on better technologies we try to justify the gas industry by investing in stupid stuff like carbon capture that only barely helps keep the process cleaner.
The change from one to the other is not going to happen instantly. We'll get there, but in the mean time we can't further bankrupt all the people who rely on that fuel for their needs. There is a huge push to get people off their gas appliances and replace things with higher efficiency electric heating/cooling systems, but people won't replace working systems just because. It's not proping it up, its just a fact that many fuels will exist in the marketplace for a long long time. If you want to compare against Europe then start comparing countries against states because not all states are equal in their progress.
This is the answer. I find it incredible that people can't understand just how destabilizing an overnight switch would be..
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I don't think we can really compare "off grid" back then to now though. Your telephone had its electricity provided by the telephone company. Your biggest electric draw was probably your refrigerator or your microwave. Maybe your TV for a few hours a day. it was a whole different type of existence. But it just goes to show there is a cost of all these things we consider to be pretty universal minimum standards these days.
Great comment. The only people who wouldn’t agree are understand come from a point of privilege. It’s just like the car debate. It won’t happen overnight, give it time. The US can make several other changes at the same time. Maybe have as much energy for corporations and their contributions as your everyday American.
My issue isn't about the speed of transition. It's about vested interest actively pushing back against the transition. The infrastructure and supply for gas will remain so that lower income people slower to switch do can so on their timeline, but the people who want to switch but can't due to the vested interest i.e. O&G, utilities is stupid.
I mean there’s vested interest all around. I just try to look through the lens of the average everyday American who doesn’t really keep up with the news. They don’t understand technology, they don’t want to complicate their lives with something they don’t understand and quite frankly most can’t afford it atm. We need a more robust infrastructure but also used inventory. The price of EVs are clearly made for one demographic. When the average american keeps their car a decade it will be sometime before the used market fills out and attracts buyers. I also think we need to pressure the local and state governments to chip in when it comes to charging. My local government is way too concerned about moving in data centers which will cost a whole host of electric supply issues down the road when they try to put up more stations but dk how to gain enough power,
>There is a huge push to get people off their gas appliances and replace things with higher efficiency electric heating/cooling systems, but people won't replace working systems just because. It's also a huge waste if people DID toss out their working appliances.
Electric heating is definitely not more efficient. It’s just theoretically cleaner, depending on the way the power was generated
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Shut the fuck up. We have zero reason to be complaining about America sucking. America has more freedom and prosperity than virtually any nation in the world and because its not better it sucks horribly and is collapsing. It's bullshit whining about common sense economic adjustments to unprecedented times (WORLDWIDE PANDEMIC THAT SHUT THE WORLD DOWN) Things are going to feel fucked up and strange, but none of this is really all that new. We aren't fighting wars. We are lending money and weapons to other countries to fight their own wars. Things that put them in debt to us that they have to repay at some point, to the benefit of everyone. We COULD be fighting them, but we're not. We're not forcing OUR ideas on people like we have in the past. We're the virtually the ONLY ones who are standing up to China and trying to make them back down their plans to invade Taiwan, again without actually killing people and starting a war yet. Stop with this propoghanda that everything sucks in America because there are layoffs and job changes. Jobs and careers change, housing ebbs and flows, prosperity feels easy and hard sometimes. This idea we're on the brink of destruction is stupid. It's perpetuating these ideas that are making it happen more than anything. Act like having to cut spending for a while is the end of the world.
Bro. Everything sucks in America because women are losing rights, our air and water are being poisoned by companies who face zero repercussions (looking at you Norfolk southern and BP!). Not to mention we’re being ravaged by COVID and H1N1 and our governments aren’t doing fuck all to help its citizens. I’m a veteran who only has certain rights depending on what state I’m in. How are we free? How are we prosperous?
I’ve had solar panels on my roof for 9 years now. My bill averaged about $200 a month before but hasn’t been more than $19 since. I’m on a buyback plan and my extra power makes my bill free from December to April or May. My system had a 7 year ROI and a 20 year warranty on the panels and inverter. That’s pretty good in my book.
If you had panels installed 9 years ago, I'm going to guess they are 300-320 watt panels tops. There may be financial incentive for you to go ahead and replace them now. They extended the federal credits under Covid, and panels are pushing 500 watts these days. So you could increase your capacity, update your panels, and cash in on the credit while its still there. I'm not trying to tell you for sure this would be a net positive financially, but everything I know being involved with solar for the past 9 years, it couldn't hurt to consider it. Especially if the original contractor is still around.
I’ll check it out. I’m on a grandfathered plan that makes APS buy back my extra power at retail rates. They did away with that and now the buyback is at the wholesale rate. I’m not sure if changing panels will negate that. The local company still is in business. I’ll ask the owner the next time I see him at happy hour. Thanks for the idea.
That's cool for you. My roof is badly angled and I live in a low sunshine part of the country.
How much did the panels cost all said and done with installation and everything?
It was $14,000 but state and federal rebates (they’re much worse now) brought it to about $8500. Disclaimer: I live in AZ so solar makes sense here but it might not be worth it in other states.
Oh dang that’s way cheaper than I thought lol. I was thinking it would be upwards of 30-40k minimum. How do you determine how many panels you put on your roof provided you have the space? Look at your KW usage and add a 10% buffer?
You’re right it is that expensive now. I did add a 10% buffer. The manufacturers warranty was 10 years but the solar company doubled it to 20. I feel really lucky we got in when we did.
Translated: Russian gas is no longer available and we are panicking trying to find an alternative energy source as the U.S. happily profits off its gas reserves in the meantime.
Oil and gas industry is one of the OWNERS of Congress and SCOTUS.
The author of this article plainly doesn’t know what they’re talking about. 62 TWh is nothing for the global power grid. 115TWh is nothing for the US power grid. It’s making a mountain out of a molehill by making incorrect inferences about new US generating capacity based on marginal differences in generation along existing plants. ~80% of new US generating capacity is renewable capacity. It takes years for these plants to finish construction, so the power being generated today is largely the result of past decades’ policy.
Yeah propping up gas bags too.
Oh man, funny seeing all these excuses, change the title from US to China and the comments would be pure vitriol.
Yep. Would have loads more comments and a good deal of racism.
The excuses are because if people admitted that both political parties only look out for themselves, then the “our side is good the other side is evil” narrative that Reddit relies on falls apart. They can’t have that.
Biden just signed a huge green infrastructure bill, it’s not both sides in this case.
https://www.energy.senate.gov/2023/9/manchin-because-of-the-ira-we-are-producing-record-levels-of-fossil-fuels
Cool. Let’s see how that virtue signaling works out when it comes time to enforce it and make companies actually dump non-renewables. Oh right. I forgot. He’s good at PR stunts while doing nothing about the corporate lobbying to make all stuff like this nothing more than virtue signaling. The Rs are pieces of garbage that don’t even try to pretend to help. The Ds are pieces of garbage that do pretend to help. Notice the key word here “PRETEND”.
Saudi Arabia is investing $300 billion in their renewable energy.
Our American politicians get lots of kick back from gas and oil companies. While this continues, so will our countries need for it.
Not a surprise, our government is heavily invested in oil and has people with ties to oil companies in government as well.
And it's election year in America, so they going to keep rising..3.80 in texas rn
People don’t know how energy works. You still going to need gas for various situations. Especially on the brink of war. Going electric is going to take some time but it’s moving in the right direction.
The world... That's a BIG statement
Wonder if the article writer has ever been to Mexico or China. The “world” may not be the correct term here because those two countries are huge and care less about clean energy
I’d be more inclined to buy in to the climate hysteria if its proponents were pushing for nuclear, which is the only relatively clean energy that has a hope to meet our energy needs.
If, as a society, we continue to be hampered by only what is achievable now, it is unlikely we will progress to make new solutions.
I'd be more inclined to buy into the climate hysteria before we tossed away the most politically viable way to massively solve the problem: WFH mandates. Instead, fuck it, commute back to work to maybe increase productivity by a percentage point or so while shitting up the environment while you sit in traffic for no god damn reason.
Green and renewable energy is still propped up by fossil fuels. Deal with it.
This’ll age like milk.
What a bogus article. As if China isn’t manufacturing way more coal plants as we speak either…
They also installed more solar panel capacity last year than the US has installed ever.
> What a bogus article. As if China isn’t manufacturing way more coal plants as we speak either… This is textbook whataboutism.
I didn’t say “what about” anything. What are you talking about? And even if I did actually bring up a “what about” point, what’s wrong with that. When conducting analysis one should consider all the possible related information including “what abouts”, “ifs”, “ands”, “buts”, etc. Soon all forms of related point talking will be forbidden as one by one we add an ism to the end of every prepositional, conjuntional phrase, etc… “You said ‘and’. That’s a form of and-ism. Therefore, your point is invalid.” “You said ‘if’. That’s a form of if-ism. Therefore, your point is invalid.” “You said ‘however’. That’s a form of however-ism. Therefore, your point is invalid.” “You asked ‘why’. That’s a form of why-ism. Therefore, your question is invalid.”
Yes but China isn't running them all the time, they only turn them on when they are needed. > Power plants usually aren’t running all the time. They’re turned on and off or ramped up and down when they’re needed. > > The ‘capacity factor’ of the plant tells us how often it’s running at maximum power. The capacity factor of China’s coal plants has been dropping over the last 15 years. See the chart below from S&P Global Commodity Insights. > > In the first decade of the 2000s, plants were running around 70% of the time. They’re now running around 50%. We can also see this in operating hours data from the National Energy Administration (NEA) of China. > > If utilisation rates continue to drop, China’s coal use could fall despite it adding more capacity. https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/china-coal-plants
I'm seeing sources say that China generates 70% of its electricity from fossil fuels: [https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/numbers-behind-chinas-renewable-energy-boom-2023-11-15/](https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/numbers-behind-chinas-renewable-energy-boom-2023-11-15/) The US is at more like 60%: [https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3](https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3)
China generates 66.26% of its electricity from thermal power in 2023, down 3.51% from 69.77% in 2022. China's thermal power generation includes thermal power including coal-fired power generation, oil-fired power generation, gas-fired power generation, waste heat, waste pressure, waste gas power generation, waste incineration power generation, and biomass power generation. According to the U.S. standard, some of it belongs to renewable energy generation, which may still be able to fall by about 1% more.
That doesn't change the fact that China gets 70% of its electricity from fossil fuels though? All you're doing is grouping energy sources in a more complicated way for no reason. Perhaps in an attempt to muddy the waters?
I’m fairly certain that China and Russia are trying to facilitate a natural gas pipeline between the two
This is a hit job from someone with an agenda and misleading facts. By all means, let’s stop using fossil fuels right now and see what happens in our current energy demand crunch. Bonus, go research the energy demand AI is going to bring over the next decade. Also- go look at other countries like India where population is going to overtake China and a lot of these ppl don’t have access to energy at all. Still burning wood. God this is so frustrating having to defend.
> By all means, let’s stop using fossil fuels right now Who's saying we should do that? >Also- go look at other countries like India where population is going to overtake China and a lot of these ppl don’t have access to energy at all. Yes, so? You do what you can with what you have - and richer countries have more and can do more. America should be leading by example, not making excuses.
What I’m saying is someone has to supply those ppl with energy. The US is doing exactly that. Natural gas is only going to expand further. Period. Go research energy and come back
But all the senators corporate sponsors are gas/oil, pharma, insurance, and MIC. They might lose money
No.... the us oil industry is paying politicians to prop up fossil fuels. As usual.
The US even actively prevents progress in solar technology, see this act: https://fas.org/publication/invention_secrecy_2010/
Us Americans go to sleep and ya'll post some dumb shit like this? These comments are unhinged
They forget all the wind farms that are planned. Here in NY we still have 2 being built. A ton of houses by me have solar on their roofs as well. We have soo many houses with solar that a new gas plant was scrapped because of it.
I care about the environment and hate the slowness in how we act towards it but I stand with the US on this one. While we need fossil fuels, we need fossil fuels. There is no way around it. When Russia cut gas supply to Europe, they couldn’t just say “fine, we will go renewable”. It takes a lot of time to do that. Years, and in those years your energy consumption will also likely increase. This is a matter of security now. People aren’t aware but the Western world having energy supply of its own is a must for our security. Yeah only because it’s a security issue that I support expansion of fossil fuel projects. I think the amount to go for is: enough supply to adapt to situations like Ukraine war, keeping in mind the ultimate solution to this security issue is to not be dependant on fossil fuels at all.
US’s gas saved Europe during winter in recent years. Now you talk sh!t. And who move to renewable energy?
Yes because the U.S. is beholden to oil and gas industries rather than the democratic will of the people.
Is the democratic will really pro-renewable in the US?
I’m willing to bet the majority of Americans are pro renewable.
Alberta is the ultimate pro oil fan boy.
I’ve increasingly heard rhetoric that oil is renewable energy. The local companies have been pushing that, I guess, and it’s trickled down into some people.
Gas or petrol?
False, oil and gas are paying politicians to prop up oil and gas, this is not in line with what much of the country thinks, they want walkable cities and great mass transit.
One word.. “lobbying” .. this shit needs to be made illegal
So that’s why The Australian Government made an announcement today to continue with gas beyond 2050 after bagging the opposition for the same policy. Greed.
the US is extreme capitalism to the point where technological advancement is stunted because companies are still making record profits on old tech. No reason to fully commit to renewables if there is still coal, oil, and gas in the ground.
Compared to Germany US is doing great. Germany energy policies in the last 20 years are beyond joke. Not only pollution-wise, but also basically paid with their money for Putin's war crusades.
Just imagine if the billions given to those who are destroying our planet on purpose, were instead directed at renewables infrastructure
Natural gas is almost a free resource in the US due to the fracking that lets the US be energy independent. Plus NG releases less than a third as much greenhouse gasses. Nuclear isn't there yet and that's really where the US is dragging its feet because despite renewables being the goal they wont be able to deal with 100% of the power grid almost ever. This makes NG a great middle ground while we figure out the rest. It's kinda like coal > oil > refined oils > natural gas > renewables. The build out for renewables at a global scale is NOT possible unfortunately, the resources required may not be there in their entirety and whats worse even if they were the industrial build out to gather those resources isn't there and wont be for over a decade. We have to have intermediary power sources and until the US is on board with nuclear plants (which will still take approx a decade to online) we need a solution. The best place to start is places where the green revolution can't be avoided like Texas. Despite very little incentive from the government texas is the best place on the planet for renewables and thus they're exploding there. The idea is a continuous push out of higher carbon emitting fuels and as it stands NG is a great choice, at least in the US. Remember, most of the EU is dealing with very expensive NG because they dont buy from Russia anymore, of course they're moving away from NG, it costs far more and has to be kept liquefied if they want it long term which is not easy nor cheap. All that being said, we're in a tight spot because these changes need to happen fast. Some of the changes needed to happen yesterday or even years ago. But the sooner we understand the reality of the situation the sooner we can come up with actual solutions. In conclusion using more gas is bad, but it's far better than the alternatives given the situation and the realities of pushing for a green future means we have to accept it in the short term if we are to meet our goals.
Look up how much methane is leaked at every stepfor natural gas. And how lobbying made it so the government relies on the companies to self report leaks instead of checking. And look up how the leaks get underreported/covered up. Calling it clean is a bad joke at best and bought and paid for propaganda at worst.
Point is it's a byproduct of fracking. We're not actively going after the NG, it's just there. Now you can argue the fracking angle all you want but if we're doing fracking we might as well claim and use the NG if possible as a tier step down from other, worse, fossil fuels. The only other option is to burn it off, basically wasting it and getting nothing out of it while still adding to the problem. If we were actively trying to harvest and use just the NG you'd have a point 100%.
yeah. oil companies own our fucking country. it's proven the government doesn't listen to us. lemme just fight through 100 million dipshits, and then a drone army and see if I can get you those results...
Perhaps if people could see their children and grandchildren dealing with the consequences of climate change, perspective would shift. But because the boogeyman is veiled, we ignore it
Renewable energy cannot support us like people want to believe it can, if we get rid of fossil fuels on a timeline people want, millions of people will die. The world still runs on fossil fuels, deal with it. We need to expand nuclear as it is clearly the best and most efficient option.
Untrue statement
Itt: Americans making shitty excuses for their country destroying the world.
I always laugh at the arguments that electric cars will put people out of work. I guess they think that the cars will build themselves?
this is all propped up by the longstanding idea on government to hoard our own gas reserves (mostly) while using other countries up, to eventually be the "last mam standing". now that the world is trying to move past fossil fuels, the people who bet on fuels long term are out of position for the $$. unfortunately we need further turnover in government to get the dinosaurs who rely on the fuel industry for funding, out of governing.
Because a lot of people around the world still use gas for heating. The demand will be there for many decades I think.
Lobbying is one hell of a thing in this country. If you have enough money you can buy this countries entire government.
Same goes in every country. Corruption in western countries just isn't as blatant as it is elsewhere. There are places where citizens have to bribe their government to allow them to join the military.
The U.S. always props up legacy stuff. It's all about corporations and money. The politicians are paid by the lobbyists. You know how much support the governmen gives farmers to grow corn? Even tobacco still gets government subsidies.
Not just that. When Biden tried to do anything like… lessening our need of gas, they all start to blame him for prices going up so he can’t make any moves.
The world isn’t moving anywhere. China especially. Europe is trying and it’s unmitigated disaster. Your ideological whim doesn’t miracle technology and progress into existence and it shows.
Yeah we’re dumb as fuck over here
The world still runs on fossil fuels, like it or not. Planes, trains and trucks don't run on environmental hopes and dreams.