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YZFtoday at 9:55 PM4 repliesview on HN

Solar energy is the fastest growing source of energy in the US. That's because it's also the cheapest source of energy. So markets are working.

https://abcnews.com/US/solar-generates-energy-coal-us-1st-ti...

"Solar and storage provided 90% of all new power added in the U.S." is mind blowing. How about we give the US credit for this?

Fossil fuel extraction is not the problem. The problem is fossil fuel usage. Given the world consumes fossil fuel I prefer they use American fossil fuel vs. Russian or Saudi fossil fuels. I don't understand why we are dwelling on the wrong metric here. Also consider the US has just removed a sh~tload of fossil fuels from the world economy. How about some extra credits there?

Similarly data centers are going to get built somewhere. If they're already built I'd rather they are built in places like the US.

Instead of politics and blame we need to focus on markets and let them take care of the problem. This is already happening with solar. Where I would be critical about US policy is that I think they are introducing more tariffs on imported solar panels. This might fit into governments make things worse and hopefully everyone regardless of their political affiliation can push back on this specific item.

The world all going to act together stronger than the markets is not going to happen. You can argue that is unfortunate but it's also where we are.


Replies

asdfman123today at 10:42 PM

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well_ackshuallytoday at 10:39 PM

Markets are fundamentally unable to take into account externalities, but yes, let's "focus on markets and let them take care of the problem". Conveniently ignore the fact that the only reason solar is the cheapest power is because a country put in their political will and power into making it so.

Your sacred market has been killing us all and will continue to keep killing us all if it makes a few pennies.

Gander5739today at 10:36 PM

Relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/3226/

pennomitoday at 10:04 PM

What a weird, rose-tinted view of the US you have. Just because the markets are working and the US bungled its way into another war over oil doesn’t mean we should ignore the absolutely braindead political opposition to energy modernization.

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