• jabjoe@feddit.uk
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    10 months ago

    This is economics now, not politics. US can go full crazy Trump, but the grid will just keep getting greener as greener is cheapest. He can rant and rave about global warming being a conspiracy or anything else, but it’s unstoppable now.

    • Katana314@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      The infuriating thing to me is, renewable energy is often extremely independent. It means no reliance on foreign oil. That SHOULD be the most American thing, especially for those in the GOP who claim to be anti-government.

      Goes to remind you their main product is hypocrisy.

    • Darkhoof@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      No, the grid won’t get greener if Trump is elected because he WILL go full dictator. And he will revert everything that is being done currently.

      • jabjoe@feddit.uk
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        10 months ago

        He’ll struggle to make states to buy more expensive energy. If he managed, he’d put the state at a global disadvantage. Even then, he’d have to outlaw solar to stop people installing it at home.

        • zbyte64@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          10 months ago

          That’s what tanking the EPA is for. Without any oversight of externalities, dirty energy becomes cheaper.

            • zbyte64@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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              10 months ago

              Yes the Environmental Protection Agency. The Heritage foundation is taking applications and they vet by looking at whether their social media accounts supports Trump: https://www.project2025.org/

              Last time Trump did their best to push responsible people out of government jobs, but that was just a test run. This time around it would be a speed run.

              Edit: per Wikipedia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025

              The plan would perform a swift takeover of the entire executive branch under a maximalist version of the unitary executive theory

              • jabjoe@feddit.uk
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                10 months ago

                Like a lot Trump stuff, that is a whole bag of crazy! Yet another reason to hope he doesn’t get in.

            • wikibot@lemmy.worldB
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              10 months ago

              Here’s the summary for the wikipedia article you mentioned in your comment:

              The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is an independent agency of the United States government tasked with environmental protection matters. President Richard Nixon proposed the establishment of EPA on July 9, 1970; it began operation on December 2, 1970, after Nixon signed an executive order. The order establishing the EPA was ratified by committee hearings in the House and Senate. The agency is led by its administrator, who is appointed by the president and approved by the Senate. The current administrator is Michael S. Regan. The EPA is not a Cabinet department, but the administrator is normally given cabinet rank. The EPA has its headquarters in Washington, D.C., regional offices for each of the agency's ten regions, and 27 laboratories.The agency conducts environmental assessment, research, and education. It has the responsibility of maintaining and enforcing national standards under a variety of environmental laws, in consultation with state, tribal, and local governments. EPA enforcement powers include fines, sanctions, and other measures. It delegates some permitting, monitoring, and enforcement responsibility to U.S. states and the federally recognized tribes. The agency also works with industries and all levels of government in a wide variety of voluntary pollution prevention programs and energy conservation efforts. The agency's budgeted employee level in 2023 is 16,204.1 full-time equivalent (FTE). More than half of EPA's employees are engineers, scientists, and environmental protection specialists; other employees include legal, public affairs, financial, and information technologists.

              article | about

    • Spaceballstheusername@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Still plenty that can be done to stop it. Preventing transmission lines, giving even bigger subsidies to fossil fuels, putting large tarrifs on imported solar panels and wind turbines. Just look at California the power monopoly is in with Gavin Newsom and they created rules that protect their profits above all else and now solar installs is at 20% what it was before.

      • jabjoe@feddit.uk
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        10 months ago

        You mean 120% of what it was? 20% of what it was means way cheaper, and I’m sure you mean more expensive.

        Sure but it’s self defeating, making things more expensive. Putting that whole state/country at a disadvantage against those who use cheap clean power instead of fighting it.

        • Spaceballstheusername@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          I think you’re unfamiliar with California’s new policy it doesn’t change the cost to install but how much you pay and make for electricity. Basically now you sell electricity to the grid for 3-5 cents and buy it for like 10-15 but then they tack on like 20 cents in transmission fees. So it has made solar not cost effective anymore in most residential cases. So the total number of yearly installs has decreased to 20% compared to last year. But my point was a radical government can do plenty of stuff to sabotage progress in order to keep themselves and friends in power.

          • jabjoe@feddit.uk
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            10 months ago

            Don’t sell to the grid if you can avoid it. Charge a house battery, charge a EV, run all your stuff for the day. Always better to use than sell back to the grid anyway.

            But my larger point was that by harming green energy, you harm energy costs and harm the economy. It becomes less competitive to economies who ride reality instead of fight it.

            And yes, I don’t know California policies. Hand up, I’m a Brit who just champions green energy transitions. I watch https://grid.iamkate.com with glee.

      • jabjoe@feddit.uk
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        10 months ago

        Easier to recycle solar pannels and wind turbines than burnt coal or gas…

        Solar and wind are now the cheapest power. https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/electricity_generation/ Both can be mixed with other land use. Both are still undergoing material use evolution.

        Fission is always going to be an issue because humans aren’t grown up enough to handle the waste. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/nuclear-waste-is-piling-up-does-the-u-s-have-a-plan/

        Let alone running them safely. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_power_accidents_by_country So I’m pretty uncomfortable with standardized nuclear modules (sub reactors) being distributed far and wide.

        Maybe fusion will be different, but it always seams decades away.

        • wikibot@lemmy.worldB
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          10 months ago

          Here’s the summary for the wikipedia article you mentioned in your comment:

          Worldwide, many nuclear accidents and serious incidents have occurred before and since the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. Two thirds of these mishaps occurred in the US. The French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) has concluded that technical innovation cannot eliminate the risk of human errors in nuclear plant operation.

          article | about

      • datendefekt@lemmy.ml
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        10 months ago

        How exactly do solar and wind waste more money than they generate? There is hardly anything that requires less maintenance. I put panels on my roof and just forget about them for 20 years. No space wasted, no maintenance.

        Compare that to a nuclear power plant. How long does it take to build one? France is building new ones for I don’t know, 5 or ten years? And once it’s built, how much land does a NPP require? How much staffing and maintenance? They have massive cooling requirements so they always need to be built close to water. Did you know that France had to power down about half their NPPs in the summer because the rivers didn’t carry enough water? You say that solar is toxic as hell, then what is nuclear? What exactly is the plan with waste? Bury it somewhere really really deep and keep fingers crossed for thousands of years that it doesn’t contaminate ground water? And what’s with all the irradiated parts of the plant itself? How can you recycle them?

        Any way you cut it, nuclear is a grandiose, but extremely risky and costly technology.

      • Overshoot2648@lemm.ee
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        10 months ago

        What is toxic in solar panels? While I’d love it if they would actually recycle the silver, copper, and 99.99% pure silicon, most of the time it ends up the same place the fiberglass turbines do: ground into industrial sand for concrete. Also the aluminum is already recycled anyway. There are several recyclers for solar panels popping up as the scale of solar increases to better take advantage of the materials, but they are already fully recycled Also coal plants are shutting down and being edged out by natural gas anyway. I don’t know what sources you are using, but they are either out of date or wrong.

      • Zaderade@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        Quick everyone, downvote to oblivion because this guy actually is educated in the subject

        • SlopppyEngineer@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          That guy sounds more like that pilot I know bitching how noise and pollution regulations make their job now difficult or even take their wings. It’s not because they’re in the biz they’re not biased.

          Meanwhile where I live, solar panels and wind turbines are happily recycled.

          • Zaderade@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            That sounds pretty different actually. On one hand you have someone talking about being inconvenienced.

            On the other hand you have someone in the industry talking about practicality. Biased or not, people that work in their respective areas generally know the most about that same area, as opposed to random people online.

            • SlopppyEngineer@lemmy.world
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              10 months ago

              From where I’m sitting is still a random person online. I mean, I worked in a power plant for some time. It doesn’t make me an expert for the whole sector.

        • Encrypt-Keeper@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          I actually work in the industry and am definitely educated in the subject and I can say with 100% certainty that guy is not in the industry and is full of shit.

    • Chakravanti@sh.itjust.works
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      10 months ago

      No. No it’s not. EOTW in a decade tops. If it ain’t hell incarnate then it’ll be a virus, bio-, tech-, software, etc., maybe that comet, whatever. Unless you FOSS everything NOW…Goodbye…forever.