Comment by phil21
22 days ago
> First, US demand increased by 3.1%. That is bad
It is not bad. Energy usage is the best proxy we have for societal wealth. It's starting to somewhat decouple, but I'd posit that's largely due to financial woo-woo than actual real wealth. Time shall tell. A lot of energy (no pun intended) was put into short-term easy wins on the efficiency side the last couple decades, but those low hanging fruits are largely picked over. In the end, it requires serious capital investment into energy production and distribution.
> demand should be going down
Naw. If we want to actually regain any sort of self-determination as a nation we need to re-industrialize and learn to make things again. This is a multi-generational project that takes decades to even build the foundation for. This all requires energy - preferably as clean and cheap as possible.
We should be looking what what China is doing. Building everything possible as quickly as possible. Spam solar, wind, nuclear, and yes natural gas which enables the former two to exist to begin with. Start spinning up battery plants as well on top of it. Coal I can grant is silly to invest in these days, re-purpose those plants as their useful lifetimes run out into natural gas or nuclear power plant sites.
Then start spamming long distance transmission lines throughout the country to further even out demand vs. supply, so more sunny and windy locations can pick up the slack in other regions of the country. Start telling NIMBYs to go pound sand.
This degrowth stuff is just a way to make poor and working class folks suffer. China and India are building so much energy production capacity it simply doesn't matter anyways. Build or have your grandchildren be left behind.
> is the best proxy we have for societal wealth.
You seem to be suggesting that we should continue to warm up the planet so as to increase "societal wealth". No, we should not, it is harmful and dangerous.
> Naw. If we want to actually regain any sort of self-determination as a nation
Avoiding global warming is an imperative. Your desire to feel "self-determination as a nation" is at most a nice-to-have.
That said - if the US were able to separate out a 're-importation of production capacity' from another country when estimating energy use, and could show a significant drop with that aside, and a drop relative to the energy use as part of that production activity, then - ok, that would be a legitimate argument that its conduct is better than the numbers suggest.
> This is a multi-generational project
So, you're claiming that it's ok for you to keep warming us all up and have the seas rise, and droughts, and fires, and agriculture failing etc. for at least, say, 50 years because of your multi-generational project.
No way. Now, of course, I'm just a guy on the Internet and the US is a global empire which invades and bombs kidnaps heads-of-state etc. But - that must be resisted. Also, the political elites within the US who subscribe to that view must be resisted internally.
> China ... Building everything possible as quickly as possible.
China's policies are a mixed bag; but they are certainly not building _everything_ as quickly as possible. And a lot of what they're building is non-CO2-emitting energy production capacity. Its official plan (IIRC) is no increase in emissions after 2030, and full neutrality by 2060 - which is absolutely not building everything nor as quick as possibly. Now, that is not good enough, but US policy (and your approach) seems to be "burn, baby, burn".
> This degrowth stuff is just a way to make poor and working class folks suffer.
Ah, yes, US society and economy these days are all about aleviating poverty and promoting working class interests.