It's getting harder to tell if this is sheer stupidity, planned malice or both.
Remember who did this in the future. Accepting them back into polite society is a horrific idea. They declared they hate everyone in the country and want to burn it down. There should be no Kumbaya, guitars and mallows around the fire.
fernly · 2h ago
Refer to David Brooks' opinion piece in today's NYT, about Republican Nihilism. He claims there is a spirit of "burn it all down". Seems to be seconded by several comments in this thread.
IT4MD · 26m ago
I'm rapidly getting to the point of joining that group.
I'm getting real tired of fighting tax breaks for people with 131 Scrooge McDuck piles of money already, at the cost of services a large portion of the country uses or may need.
To be clear, I don't have kids, but want my tax dollars to fund free lunches, but we can't have that. Instead we get garbage like public school busses being used to drive kids to private schools, while the public school students walk. (See Ohio)
karmakurtisaani · 19m ago
The sad part is that once it all burns down, the 131 rich fucks will be the most likely to survive it all. The rest of us not so much.
lossolo · 1h ago
It’s pretty simple, actually, you have a problem with institutionalized corruption in your country. This was lobbied for and now executed. Drill, baby, drill.
fknorangesite · 2h ago
Planned malice. There are plenty of sections in Project 2025 demonizing renewable energy.
strangattractor · 2h ago
A certain person has had a thing against Wind Mills ever since Scotland built them spoiling the view from his golf course.
IT4MD · 24m ago
I think it's quite generous that you labeled him human. Personally, I believe he's sub-human, at best.
marchingkazoo · 1h ago
This is the most pertinent comment in the thread.
Loughla · 2h ago
And why? That's the part that gets me. What's the reason? If we can develop renewables that brings the cost of energy down, how is that bad?
ElevenLathe · 2h ago
Lower energy prices and more renewables are both bad if you're in the fossil fuel business. Doubly so if the rest of the world is rapidly solarizing and you are desperate to hold onto one of your last best markets.
fknorangesite · 2h ago
Because it's not about improving anyone's lives (other than maybe the fossil fuel execs). It's just about Fuck The Libs.
ToucanLoucan · 1h ago
It really is just this. Like I'm sure there are some folk in the GOP, both party and voterbase, who have actual principles. That however has been sacrificed on the altar of triggering the libs.
It's all they do now. If it will make some liberal in their heads unhappy, they'll do it. They don't care how much it hurts themselves.
That's honestly why I have absolutely not one iota of sympathy for all the Republicans who's businesses are getting obliterated by the trade "policies" of the dumbass in chief. You voted for this shit. I hope it sucks for you. I hope your wife leaves you. I hope your children never talk to you again. I hope broad society rejects you, permanently, for playing such stupid fucking games with the future of your nation, your children, and your own life.
Truly, it's the Right's chickens finally come home to roost. For decades the Republican side of things has gotten to play incompetent jackass olympics with the government, and between the US's position in global politics, our overall wealth and the general stability maintained by Democrats and moderates over the shrieking howling objections of themselves, everything kept trucking more or less to spec. Like children in a home maintained by parents who know what they're doing.
Now like the adolescents they so frequently scold everyone else for acting like, they have moved out on their own, maxed out their credit cards on stupid shit, and bills are stacking up. And just like those adolescents, they have no goddamn plan and just point the blame at everyone else for letting them fuck everything up for themselves.
Fucking. Children. And I don't just mean in that a distressing amount of them seem to be pedophiles.
krapp · 1h ago
Republicans have been anti-environmentalism since the 1970s, to cater to the anti-regulation sensibilities of big business and energy donors.
It's way beyond anti regulation now. They are actually creating regulation to hurt the environment.
See: utilities trying to shut down coal plants because they are too expensive, being stopped by the current administration.
lossolo · 1h ago
It wasn’t demonized for ideological reasons. Whose interest is it for renewables to fail? Follow the money.
wat10000 · 2h ago
Many believe that renewables are a boondoggle that will never be cheaper, pushed by either radical environmentalists who hate humanity, or by some shadowy conspiracy that's doing this as part of a plot to somehow reshape the world. And that fossil fuels are great, don't run out, and don't cause harm.
IT4MD · 39m ago
>Many believe that renewables are a boondoggle that will never be cheaper
Why let the idiots decide?
Braxton1980 · 1h ago
And what is their belief based on?
wat10000 · 50m ago
Contrarianism, fear of change, cherry-picked info, and propaganda.
jimbob45 · 2h ago
Solar and wind are unreliable and too low-impact relative to their cost and maintenance.
Every time we have this discussion, we always conclude that nuclear power generation is the only viable path forward.
Jtsummers · 1h ago
Solar and wind + storage is a viable path forward. Solar panels are getting cheaper, and batteries are getting better capacity and charge cycle stats each year. It may not be the path forward, we may never eliminate the need for a baseline system like nuclear plants or some gas or coal plants. But we can get ourselves off of them, other countries are, it's not like the US is special here. Same physics.
astrange · 1h ago
The sun reliably comes out every day. The rest of this idea has been, or will be, obsoleted by how incredibly cheap batteries have become.
Nuclear NIMBYism is even harder to defeat than regular NIMBYism, so you might as well ask for geothermal.
dalyons · 1h ago
Every time we have this discussion, we conclude that despite some good aspects nuclear is way too expensive and too slow to build.
karmakurtisaani · 13m ago
Luckily for us, the market has also already concluded this. Global solar is now growing by 1TW of installed capacity per year.
Braxton1980 · 1h ago
Do you have proof of this?
UncleMeat · 2h ago
Planned malice. They simply hate "lib shit" and want liberals to suffer. The left likes solar and wind so actively placing barriers in the way of solar and wind is a way of saying "fuck you, libs" and kicking sand in their faces.
My aunt is a conservative lobbyist. She is also a drunk. This means that she gets drunk and texts my family her real feelings all the time. She is absolutely 100% motivated by hate. That's it. She has told her sister to kill herself because she's on government benefits. She has told my mom that she should be thrown in prison for going to an anti-Trump protest. She has told her own daughter that she'd be better off dead than bisexual. Her daughter has attempted suicide twice.
She is not motivated by some actual policy outcome. She is not motivated by trying to help people just through some different mechanism than the left would use. She is not motivated by libertarian ideals. She is motivated by hate.
toomuchtodo · 2h ago
This is true, but the funny part is, it's only going to impact red states. PNW/California already get most of their power from low carbon sources. Illinois has the largest fleet of commercial nuclear generators, and subsidizes it. NYISO gets a bunch of clean hydro power from Canada and some fossil gas. Is industry going to build where power costs are higher out of stupidity? Unlikely. "Stop hitting yourself."
As another comment mentioned, this is immaterial at the rate at which solar PV and batteries are being manufactured, it just makes electricity more costly (an additional tax) until we get to the future.
Outright banning solar and wind in red states and then watching as power generation companies flee to blue states as these energy sources outcompete fossil fuels in the marketplace doesn't matter. They still got to say "fuck you, libs." That's all that matters. Pointing out how this hurts their own voters won't change anything because the thing they want is not actually human flourishing. The thing they want is "fuck you, libs" and they got that already.
Loughla · 2h ago
Hurting the voters in this way is a win for Republicans though.
They can use it as a wedge issue.
Look, Republicans in Republican states, they're leaving you without jobs and giving your jobs to immigrants. See, slightly red but mostly purple States? This is what will happen to you. And the energy companies take the blame, not legislators.
Politics today is ruled by cynicism.
UncleMeat · 2h ago
I don't even believe that this matters. I don't think the motivation is based on "hey we can use this as a strategy to get re-elected." I truly believe that the motivation is "fuck you, libs" and nothing deeper. Even if it makes them less likely to retain power they'll still do it. Because they got to spit on the left.
That's not cynicism. That's brute honesty.
toomuchtodo · 1h ago
You’re not wrong, we’re just waiting for voters to age out (~2M 55+ every year, ~5k per day). Angry, irrational, uneducated people will not be swayed, nor change their mind or their vote. We just keep powering forward through the molasses. It is what it is. Change what you can, ignore what you cannot.
Braxton1980 · 50m ago
With health technology they'll live until 100 costing an disproportionate amount of money through government heathcare while continuing to vote Republican
mdorazio · 2h ago
The data is kind of misleading. Texas actually produces almost twice as much solar + wind power as California. The %mix is lower because Californians don’t have to run AC and heat year-round, so power demand per capita is way lower as a function of geography rather than policy.
toomuchtodo · 1h ago
I accounted for that in the comment you replied to. Texas has a voracious appetite for power due to data centers, manufacturing, and air conditioning, and impairing new renewables will hurt Texas more than California. Energy policy is in direct opposition to Texas' need for inexpensive, low carbon power due to their higher per capita consumption. Texas should be doing everything in its power to support the deployment of renewables, but out of ideology at the federal and state levels, they are not.
California is ahead of the curve by having built renewables and batteries before this policy change, while other states will be stuck with suboptimal energy policy for at least the next half decade, increasing their cost of power. California is also the world's fourth largest economy with the energy system they have built.
You continue to talk to your aunt which validates her opinions.
UncleMeat · 18m ago
You can see my other comment which explains why we cannot safely go no contact with her.
fred_is_fred · 2h ago
Just block. Life's too short to deal with people like this.
UncleMeat · 2h ago
Unfortunately we cannot. She is actively stealing my grandparents' remaining money and taking legal steps to gain legal and economic control over my other aunt's life once my grandparents die.
My family would absolutely love to go no-contact with her. But if she ends up with guardianship of my other aunt once my grandparents pass then she'll be sentenced to suffer and die.
mindslight · 54m ago
Also it sounds like that contact should be helping you for any eventual guardianship hearings. You are keeping a log with the exact date, time, and content of things like "She has told her sister to kill herself", right?
UncleMeat · 19m ago
Yes.
But unfortunately being a republican lobbyist means a couple things. She is extremely persuasive and she is friends with some relevant government officials.
Dig1t · 2h ago
Sounds like she’s a mean drunk? Or maybe she has her own trauma that you’re not aware of. Sort of a dehumanizing picture you paint.
It sounds like your broader point is that conservatives are all stupid and motivated by hatred. I kind of feel like you have plenty of your own hatred though but seem sort of blind to it.
UncleMeat · 2h ago
I have dealt with her for my entire life.
My mother has dealt with her for her entire life.
I assure you that I am not missing some hidden trauma that complicates my aunt. What I described above is just a taste of the harm she's done to people.
kayodelycaon · 1h ago
Trauma is not an excuse or justification for the level of hatred described and especially not for years.
Unless someone is completely incapable of rational action (which has happened to me), there’s some level of personal responsibility involved.
I wouldn’t argue that conservatives are stupid and motivated by hatred. However, many people voted for a campaign of blatant hate and an explicitly stated desire for revenge. This definitely colors your view of anyone that doesn’t think this is a bad thing.
IT4MD · 36m ago
The left's hate is in response.
You seem to happily ignore who started this garbage, who's responsible for the orange shit stain on the entire country, who yelled "Fuck your feelings" when anyone disagreed, who refused to wear a mask to possibly prevent infections, but is quite happy to see their idiocy forced upon anyone else.
goodluckchuck · 2h ago
That’s how I feel about the title. How could that sentence ever make sense? People can support whatever they want. Which renewable resources? Pulpwood? Is it illegal to recycle?
Turns out the department that deals with farming, is going to focus on farming… and not on pushing electricity production.
Well yeah, the Department of Energy should probably be the ones spearheading our solar, wind, etc.
troyvit · 1h ago
One problem with that is that the department of agriculture already has the relationships with farmers and producers. Now farmers who want to make a few extra bucks with some wind turbines or solar (which works well in tandem with growing stuff) have to talk to a stranger.
reactordev · 2h ago
Idiocracy. It’s all just a move to protect vested interests in fossil fuels.
Tesla has the right idea with solar roofs but we need better options than shingles or giant panels mounted. Wind gen is amazingly good if you have a consistent supply.
When I was sailing, the sun and wind would recharge my batteries during the day. At night, wind would keep the batteries charging so I could run lights, laptops, VHF, and NMea2000 equipment.
The future isn’t this. Banning renewable energy is like banning breathing.
EDIT
Coming back after a walk, I can't stop thinking about this. When I worked at an energy tech company, me and a couple data scientists actually worked out that if, theoretically you had solar panels capable of capturing sun energy with 99% efficiency - you could power all of humanity on 1 day's worth of sunlight. (granted you had the storage capacity, we did fun things like "You saved 254,143 trees by reducing your water use" kind of stuff).
The wind farms off the coasts in the EU countries are producing massive amounts of energy at fractions of the cost. Yes, the engineering is hard. Yes, the big tall windmills are ugly (paint them, put LED lights on them, who cares). You don't need the giant big ones, a field of smaller ones works too at the same altitude (key part... wind is faster at altitude). Make a wind mill kite and send it up. There's so much energy around us. We just need to find a way to trap those electrons.
softwaredoug · 49m ago
It's not really good for those vested interests. If the rest of the world moves away from fossil fuels, they'll be stuck, in a market with shrinking growth. Instead they could invest in a different, growth market. If they get mixed signals from the US govt, they risk making poor strategic decisions
It may be short term good for them but long term fairly idiotic (for them and the US).
Jtsummers · 12m ago
Long term isn't even that far away. Much of the developing world will be happy to adopt renewables and battery storage, just as they've been happy to adopt mobile networks over fixed lines. It's a leapfrog moment and the US is not supplying the materials nor participating in the improvements gained from it.
realo · 2h ago
If I were an adversarial state to the US I would certainly applaud all those initiatives and Big Beautiful Bills from the current US administration.
In time, it seems to me that those will drive the US economy right into a solid brick wall.
BlackjackCF · 2h ago
This administration might not be full of adversarial agents, but they sure are behaving like they are.
dpkirchner · 1h ago
It only takes a few well placed hostile (or fools) to take down an organization, especially when there are no ramifications.
jackschultz · 2h ago
Go to usda.gov and two recent press releases are
1 - Secretary Rollins Blocks Taxpayer Dollars for Solar Panels on Prime Farmland
2- Secretary Rollins Prioritizes American Energy on National Forest Land
Both have quotes about putting "America first" to confuse people to make them think this is better for all. We think the USDA is about getting healthy food to people, but really they're about maximizing the money for farmers and people who own the land. Terrible.
Farmers also want solar panels is the thing. It brings their costs down.
jackschultz · 2h ago
I'm in Wisconsin and if I drive on a county road, I see signs near the road that say "Save our S̶o̶l̶a̶r̶ Farms". Maybe some are fine with them, but seems like lots of internal pressure to say no or unfortunate reasons.
wnevets · 2h ago
> Farmers also want solar panels is the thing. It brings their costs down.
I am a little curious to know what percentage voted for this.
Depending on the state, not enough to matter. Farmers are not a major voting block in most of the US anymore. Farmers are a bit over 1% of the US population. I'm trying to find better sources than listicle type things, but the best I can find is that in the states with the highest percentage of farmers, it's still only 5-6% of their state population.
That can be enough to swing things, but it's not enough to be the deciding block that many think they are. A century ago things were much different.
Hilift · 1h ago
Another wrinkle is funding for Secure Rural Schools under the 1908 25% fund act hasn't been renewed. Counties that have a national forest presence have a federal government offset to compensate for lost logging.
Serious question. Why do farmers need the USDA's help on this? Is it a financial issue, banks don't believe there is a positive ROI on farmland solar so the wont lend? Is it health related, the USDA needs to approve solar panel usage in close proximity to crops? Is it infrastructure related, someone has to approve and build transmission lines to the farm?
xnx · 2h ago
Came here looking for information on the same. I would be upset if restrictions were put on installation of renewables, but this looks like its ending giveaways to farmers.
troyvit · 1h ago
My partner works directly with farmers and USDA folks. Farmers have long, established relationships with USDA people and field offices. It's not always perfect and the relationships aren't always great but it's people they know and farmers being out in the middle of nowhere and very busy people those relationships are rare and valuable. That's how I understand it anyway.
zywoo · 2h ago
China is working on it: whether hydropower, solar, onshore wind, or offshore wind, it ranks first in the world — and the cost of generation has already fallen below coal. If the world’s fastest-growing industrial nation can rely on renewable electricity, I can’t see any reason why other countries wouldn’t.
blitzar · 2h ago
Congratulations China on your Science Victory
softwaredoug · 1h ago
In the US we’re fond of pigs
alangibson · 2h ago
So they're worried about (easily removable) solar eating up farm land, but not (impossible to remove) suburbs. OK.
astrange · 1h ago
Solar doesn't eat up land anyway; it improves it. You can put things under the panels, you can use solar panels as fencing, you can put it over water to reduce its evaporation, etc. Farmland doesn't need burning hot direct sunlight.
UncleMeat · 2h ago
They are not actually worried about that.
They just think that solar and wind is woke shit that liberals like and since they hate liberals they need to hate solar and wind.
nico · 2h ago
It was pretty shocking to me, learning that the White House had solar panels in the 70s!, and Reagan removed them when he came into office
jeffbee · 2h ago
While this is true, it's also true that they were pretty awful early thermal solar panels and Reagan removed them not to own the libs but because the roof was leaking. I doubt that this was politically motivated by Reagan, or that Reagan was generally cognizant of anything in 1986.
Nevermark · 1h ago
The symbolic impact of removing but not replacing them was nationally, even internationally, significant.
The "economics" of a particular roof repair are simply irrelevant in this context.
nico · 1h ago
While that’s technically correct, they could have put them back
This is what Google says when asked about why the panels were removed:
“President Ronald Reagan had the White House solar panels removed in 1986 as part of his administration's broader opposition to government involvement in renewable energy and a belief that the free market, not the government, should drive energy policy. While the administration cited cost as a reason for not reinstalling them during roof repairs, the decision reflected Reagan's philosophy and his administration's cuts to renewable energy funding”
Not sure about the sources though. So I guess it’s debatable
Still interesting to realize that the US govt can zigzag so much, and that it’s not necessarily progressing in a specific direction
jeffbee · 1h ago
If I ran this board I would instantly and permanently ban people for quoting a discount robot. Why would you expect someone to engage in a conversation by proxy with Google AI Mode search results?
thomascountz · 2h ago
It's not that either. It's money.
UncleMeat · 2h ago
We'd see different behavior if they were motivated by money.
Supermancho · 2h ago
They are motivated by people with money today, who plan on continuing to make money tomorrow, without competing with new technologies. Money is the motivation for everyone in the chain that is alive today, not worrying about those that live in a far tomorrow.
metalman · 1h ago
truth.
I have been off grid for a long time, my motivation to do so was founded in a grade school science project with the wreckage of a camera light meter, conclusion sunlight=electricity, blink, blink, blink!
and one day after getting my first decent silcone pv panel leaned up against my no power hook up farm house, a guy pulls in on his harley, and after a bit starts raving about banning solar
about 15 years ago, and now I have a realy visible
array, and there is solar everywhere you care to look
they tryin to turn back the tide, and have zero chance with that.
the first pannel still runs and cost me more than $2.50 /watt, current prices hover around $0.20/watt......retail
also that first panel provided minimum lights and water for a house, then was installed on.the hood of a truck that got destroyed by bieng rear ended, and is now moumted on.another building providing lighting and power for small tools, chargers, etc.
ie: the stuff is tough
rapsacnz · 2h ago
Doesn't matter. At this point renewables are going to win, it's just an economic fact. This will only serve to delay this by a small amount.
Robotbeat · 2h ago
You underestimate how making something illegal can stop the thing in that country. Look at a place like Germany, blocking fracking and nuclear power and now reliant on Russian gas.
toomuchtodo · 2h ago
Germany has historical low usage of gas for generation and is adding 14-17GW of solar per year. Germany will need ~57 GWh of batteries by 2030 to sunset coal generation, scaling to 271 GWh by 2050. Current storage is just ~19 GWh (mostly in homes).
Germany needs north of 10TWh of batteries to sunset _gas_ generation.
If you're looking for a renewables success story, Germany ain't it.
toomuchtodo · 2h ago
> Germany needs north of 10TWh of batteries to sunset _gas_ generation.
Citation? Because the EU intends to phase out Russian gas entirely by 2027. I'm not too concerned about Germany consuming non Russian LNG at this time as they continue to deploy renewables and batteries (GP said "and now reliant on Russian gas." in their comment above). Germany is now getting almost two-thirds of its power from renewables; if that isn't a success story, I don't know what is.
Import volume of natural gas from Russia in Germany from June 2021 to November 2024 - https://www.statista.com/statistics/1332783/german-gas-impor... ("As of November 2024, Germany has imported no Russian natural gas since September 2022. To compare, in August 2022, the import volume of the named commodity stood at around 953 million cubic meters. Over the period observed, the highest figure was recorded at 5.2 billion cubic meters in December 2021.")
(edit: Supermancho wrote in a deleted comment about energy demand destruction due to German de-industrialization, but I'm unsure if that energy demand should be forecasted in the future without good data about potential re-industrialization in the future creating said energy demand)
No comments yet
programmertote · 2h ago
Short-sighted actions. Sad to see that the US is taking all these backward approaches while China is charging heads down toward renewal future....
chriskanan · 1h ago
This is so shortsighted. The US needs a huge increase in its electricity generation capabilities, and nowadays, rewnewables, especially solar, are the cheapest option.
Regardless of climate change issues, the anti-renewable policy doesn't seem to make any sense from an economic, growth, or national security standpoint. It even is contrary to the anti-regulation and pro-capitalism _stated_ stance of the administration.
01HNNWZ0MV43FF · 2h ago
I can't read it. Is it going to cut subsidies or put new restrictions on what farmers can do with their own land?
> At the state fairgrounds in Lebanon, Tennessee, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said Monday that the agency will no longer allow “businesses to use your taxpayer dollars to fund solar projects on prime American farmland, and we will no longer allow solar panels manufactured by foreign adversaries to be used in our USDA-funded projects.”
mikeyouse · 2h ago
It’s going to cut a specific kind of subsidy in favor of other subsidies (biofuel, biomass, nat-gas hydrogen).
skhameneh · 2h ago
> Brooke Rollins said Monday that the agency will no longer allow “businesses to use your taxpayer dollars to fund solar projects on prime American farmland, and we will no longer allow solar panels manufactured by foreign adversaries to be used in our USDA-funded projects.”.
Could be reasonable, we need more renewable independence.
> ...while boosting support for biofuels...
And there it is, going backwards. So tired of this.
skhameneh · 2h ago
My biggest concern is this could bring hybrid solutions to a halt. Solar panels make for perfect shading in some use cases, for multi-use land. There has been many approaches to selectively place solar panels to increase farming efficiency while providing energy, a win-win-win scenario.
jmclnx · 2h ago
Lets hope the children/grandchildren of these people, as they are struggling to avoiding heat stroke and watching their homes float/fly away, realize how stupid there ancestors where.
That is were we are headed, if you live below the Mason/Dixon line, a good chance your descendants will be one of those migrants many people seem to hate these days.
ujkhsjkdhf234 · 1h ago
I don't think ban is the right word for this? The federal government will no longer be funding renewables on farmland which is stupid but not a ban.
fknorangesite · 2m ago
> bans support
MaxPock · 1h ago
If Sputnik had happened today,MAGA would would have dismissed it as commie wastefulness.
downrightmike · 3h ago
Crops are already not doing well with the drought. This will increase carbon in the atmosphere and create worse droughts. If we want power, we're going to need to get it from sources that don't rely on steam to turn a turbine. That rules out coal, Natural Gas, biomass and Nuclear.
watwut · 1h ago
They have overproduction of corn this year. What are on about in here.
hereme888 · 1h ago
The bill prioritizes use of agricultural land for food over renewables (using just 0.05% of acres vs. biofuels' 30-40% of corn/soy), curbs land cost inflation, and favors U.S. energy.
It also bans Chinese solar panels, ends wind/solar tax credits post-2027, and extends biofuel credits to 2029.
This is common-sense stuff to me. America chooses America and food-supply security. The article is horribly biased.
rwyinuse · 41m ago
If "choosing America" means significantly higher Co2 emissions, then that's not a good strategy for maintaining food supply security. Extreme and more unpredictable weather makes farming difficult, especially without irrigation. Any country that still sees fossil fuels as primary form of power generation is basically risking its (and everyone else's) food supply in the future.
Remember who did this in the future. Accepting them back into polite society is a horrific idea. They declared they hate everyone in the country and want to burn it down. There should be no Kumbaya, guitars and mallows around the fire.
I'm getting real tired of fighting tax breaks for people with 131 Scrooge McDuck piles of money already, at the cost of services a large portion of the country uses or may need.
To be clear, I don't have kids, but want my tax dollars to fund free lunches, but we can't have that. Instead we get garbage like public school busses being used to drive kids to private schools, while the public school students walk. (See Ohio)
It's all they do now. If it will make some liberal in their heads unhappy, they'll do it. They don't care how much it hurts themselves.
That's honestly why I have absolutely not one iota of sympathy for all the Republicans who's businesses are getting obliterated by the trade "policies" of the dumbass in chief. You voted for this shit. I hope it sucks for you. I hope your wife leaves you. I hope your children never talk to you again. I hope broad society rejects you, permanently, for playing such stupid fucking games with the future of your nation, your children, and your own life.
Truly, it's the Right's chickens finally come home to roost. For decades the Republican side of things has gotten to play incompetent jackass olympics with the government, and between the US's position in global politics, our overall wealth and the general stability maintained by Democrats and moderates over the shrieking howling objections of themselves, everything kept trucking more or less to spec. Like children in a home maintained by parents who know what they're doing.
Now like the adolescents they so frequently scold everyone else for acting like, they have moved out on their own, maxed out their credit cards on stupid shit, and bills are stacking up. And just like those adolescents, they have no goddamn plan and just point the blame at everyone else for letting them fuck everything up for themselves.
Fucking. Children. And I don't just mean in that a distressing amount of them seem to be pedophiles.
https://archive.is/h99oh
See: utilities trying to shut down coal plants because they are too expensive, being stopped by the current administration.
Why let the idiots decide?
Every time we have this discussion, we always conclude that nuclear power generation is the only viable path forward.
Nuclear NIMBYism is even harder to defeat than regular NIMBYism, so you might as well ask for geothermal.
My aunt is a conservative lobbyist. She is also a drunk. This means that she gets drunk and texts my family her real feelings all the time. She is absolutely 100% motivated by hate. That's it. She has told her sister to kill herself because she's on government benefits. She has told my mom that she should be thrown in prison for going to an anti-Trump protest. She has told her own daughter that she'd be better off dead than bisexual. Her daughter has attempted suicide twice.
She is not motivated by some actual policy outcome. She is not motivated by trying to help people just through some different mechanism than the left would use. She is not motivated by libertarian ideals. She is motivated by hate.
As another comment mentioned, this is immaterial at the rate at which solar PV and batteries are being manufactured, it just makes electricity more costly (an additional tax) until we get to the future.
https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/72h/hourly (center on US)
Outright banning solar and wind in red states and then watching as power generation companies flee to blue states as these energy sources outcompete fossil fuels in the marketplace doesn't matter. They still got to say "fuck you, libs." That's all that matters. Pointing out how this hurts their own voters won't change anything because the thing they want is not actually human flourishing. The thing they want is "fuck you, libs" and they got that already.
They can use it as a wedge issue.
Look, Republicans in Republican states, they're leaving you without jobs and giving your jobs to immigrants. See, slightly red but mostly purple States? This is what will happen to you. And the energy companies take the blame, not legislators.
Politics today is ruled by cynicism.
That's not cynicism. That's brute honesty.
California is ahead of the curve by having built renewables and batteries before this policy change, while other states will be stuck with suboptimal energy policy for at least the next half decade, increasing their cost of power. California is also the world's fourth largest economy with the energy system they have built.
https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/US-CAL-CISO/12mo/monthl...
https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/us-electricity-2025...
https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/energy-almanac/califo...
https://www.gov.ca.gov/2025/04/23/california-is-now-the-4th-...
My family would absolutely love to go no-contact with her. But if she ends up with guardianship of my other aunt once my grandparents pass then she'll be sentenced to suffer and die.
But unfortunately being a republican lobbyist means a couple things. She is extremely persuasive and she is friends with some relevant government officials.
It sounds like your broader point is that conservatives are all stupid and motivated by hatred. I kind of feel like you have plenty of your own hatred though but seem sort of blind to it.
My mother has dealt with her for her entire life.
I assure you that I am not missing some hidden trauma that complicates my aunt. What I described above is just a taste of the harm she's done to people.
Unless someone is completely incapable of rational action (which has happened to me), there’s some level of personal responsibility involved.
I wouldn’t argue that conservatives are stupid and motivated by hatred. However, many people voted for a campaign of blatant hate and an explicitly stated desire for revenge. This definitely colors your view of anyone that doesn’t think this is a bad thing.
You seem to happily ignore who started this garbage, who's responsible for the orange shit stain on the entire country, who yelled "Fuck your feelings" when anyone disagreed, who refused to wear a mask to possibly prevent infections, but is quite happy to see their idiocy forced upon anyone else.
Turns out the department that deals with farming, is going to focus on farming… and not on pushing electricity production.
Well yeah, the Department of Energy should probably be the ones spearheading our solar, wind, etc.
Tesla has the right idea with solar roofs but we need better options than shingles or giant panels mounted. Wind gen is amazingly good if you have a consistent supply.
When I was sailing, the sun and wind would recharge my batteries during the day. At night, wind would keep the batteries charging so I could run lights, laptops, VHF, and NMea2000 equipment.
The future isn’t this. Banning renewable energy is like banning breathing.
EDIT
Coming back after a walk, I can't stop thinking about this. When I worked at an energy tech company, me and a couple data scientists actually worked out that if, theoretically you had solar panels capable of capturing sun energy with 99% efficiency - you could power all of humanity on 1 day's worth of sunlight. (granted you had the storage capacity, we did fun things like "You saved 254,143 trees by reducing your water use" kind of stuff).
The wind farms off the coasts in the EU countries are producing massive amounts of energy at fractions of the cost. Yes, the engineering is hard. Yes, the big tall windmills are ugly (paint them, put LED lights on them, who cares). You don't need the giant big ones, a field of smaller ones works too at the same altitude (key part... wind is faster at altitude). Make a wind mill kite and send it up. There's so much energy around us. We just need to find a way to trap those electrons.
It may be short term good for them but long term fairly idiotic (for them and the US).
In time, it seems to me that those will drive the US economy right into a solid brick wall.
1 - Secretary Rollins Blocks Taxpayer Dollars for Solar Panels on Prime Farmland
2- Secretary Rollins Prioritizes American Energy on National Forest Land
Both have quotes about putting "America first" to confuse people to make them think this is better for all. We think the USDA is about getting healthy food to people, but really they're about maximizing the money for farmers and people who own the land. Terrible.
[1] - https://www.usda.gov/about-usda/news/press-releases/2025/08/... [2] - https://www.usda.gov/about-usda/news/press-releases/2025/08/...
I am a little curious to know what percentage voted for this.
[1]: https://www.npr.org/2025/03/07/g-s1-52362/tariffs-farmers-tr...
That can be enough to swing things, but it's not enough to be the deciding block that many think they are. A century ago things were much different.
https://krcrtv.com/news/local/trinity-county-urges-congress-...
They just think that solar and wind is woke shit that liberals like and since they hate liberals they need to hate solar and wind.
The "economics" of a particular roof repair are simply irrelevant in this context.
This is what Google says when asked about why the panels were removed:
“President Ronald Reagan had the White House solar panels removed in 1986 as part of his administration's broader opposition to government involvement in renewable energy and a belief that the free market, not the government, should drive energy policy. While the administration cited cost as a reason for not reinstalling them during roof repairs, the decision reflected Reagan's philosophy and his administration's cuts to renewable energy funding”
Not sure about the sources though. So I guess it’s debatable
Still interesting to realize that the US govt can zigzag so much, and that it’s not necessarily progressing in a specific direction
also that first panel provided minimum lights and water for a house, then was installed on.the hood of a truck that got destroyed by bieng rear ended, and is now moumted on.another building providing lighting and power for small tools, chargers, etc. ie: the stuff is tough
https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DE/12mo/monthly
https://ember-energy.org/countries-and-regions/germany/
https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/eu-battery-storage-...
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2025/01/03/germany-hits-62-7-ren...
https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/commodities/negativ...
https://www.heise.de/en/news/Power-generation-from-renewable...
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-08-27/how-germa... | https://archive.today/4Vk52
If you're looking for a renewables success story, Germany ain't it.
Citation? Because the EU intends to phase out Russian gas entirely by 2027. I'm not too concerned about Germany consuming non Russian LNG at this time as they continue to deploy renewables and batteries (GP said "and now reliant on Russian gas." in their comment above). Germany is now getting almost two-thirds of its power from renewables; if that isn't a success story, I don't know what is.
EU plans ban on new Russian gas contracts using trade law - https://www.ft.com/content/8b005c13-2088-47cd-aa47-9163e36ef... | https://archive.today/INqOI ("Russian gas makes up less than 19 per cent of the EU’s overall imports of the fossil fuel, down from around two-fifths when Moscow started its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.")
Import volume of natural gas from Russia in Germany from June 2021 to November 2024 - https://www.statista.com/statistics/1332783/german-gas-impor... ("As of November 2024, Germany has imported no Russian natural gas since September 2022. To compare, in August 2022, the import volume of the named commodity stood at around 953 million cubic meters. Over the period observed, the highest figure was recorded at 5.2 billion cubic meters in December 2021.")
Renewables Supplied Two-Thirds of Germany’s Power Last Year [2024] - https://e360.yale.edu/digest/germany-renewable-power-2024 - January 8th, 2025
(edit: Supermancho wrote in a deleted comment about energy demand destruction due to German de-industrialization, but I'm unsure if that energy demand should be forecasted in the future without good data about potential re-industrialization in the future creating said energy demand)
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This video from a few days ago analyzes the issue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tNp2vsxEzk
Regardless of climate change issues, the anti-renewable policy doesn't seem to make any sense from an economic, growth, or national security standpoint. It even is contrary to the anti-regulation and pro-capitalism _stated_ stance of the administration.
Could be reasonable, we need more renewable independence.
> ...while boosting support for biofuels...
And there it is, going backwards. So tired of this.
That is were we are headed, if you live below the Mason/Dixon line, a good chance your descendants will be one of those migrants many people seem to hate these days.
It also bans Chinese solar panels, ends wind/solar tax credits post-2027, and extends biofuel credits to 2029.
This is common-sense stuff to me. America chooses America and food-supply security. The article is horribly biased.