Comment by rtkwe
4 days ago
I think that's part of what's notable about this. The administration hasn't been able to reverse the trend despite putting a massive thumb on the scale against projects like offshore wind and tariffs on solar panel imports.
There's probably a delay in the effects though since projects started before they took office are probably starting to thin out and finish up. We'd have to look into the permitting of new projects or wait for to see how big the decline in new capacity turns out to be in a couple years.
A lot of comes from state initiatives too. Texas being conservative also happens to be very pro solar. I’m in the business and we have some great projects there. The US military is also pushing solar at their facilities. Then you have many private-state partnerships like tolls investing a lot in solar. The outlook in general is pretty positive in the US, a lot more than what people would think.
Anyone who still even views this as a conservative/liberal issue, is someone who is in the pocket of the fossil fuel lobby. Solar is simply a very cheap and realiable way to generate electricity. Much cheaper than gas and coal nowadays. Pure economic incentive is going to continue to drive its adoption.
As someone from another continent, I giggle when I see doomsday-prepping anti-govmint fiercely-independent cowboys hating EVs and loving gas.
Gas has a 6-month shelf-life, and is attached to a whole geopolitically volatile military-industrial complex. Meanwhile an EV + solar can be actually self-sufficient and last for a decade or two. A realistic Mad Max would have been EV battles over solar panels.
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I also recall a New York times article from many moons ago suggesting that a lot of Texas oil wealth got repurposed into a large-scale wind energy infrastructure, but my info might be out of date.
True though one of the major things they have been able to do because it's mostly in the federal purview is killing offshore wind.
It's sort a "broken clock right twice a day" thing, but I agree with not doing offshore wind in the US. The divergence immediately follows in that I wish they would just push onshore wind.
It's sort of a circular issue, it's madly expensive because we haven't built a lot and aren't super good at it, and we don't get much of it built because we aren't great at it and it always is ludicrously expensive.
The US has a uniquely underdeveloped maritime sector, we don't build a lot of the massive turbines you use offshore. You drive through central and west texas, it feels like there might be more wind turbines than people. We've kind of already made the decision based on what works.
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This is hilarious to me. In my country people prefer to have wind turbines 20 kilometres off the coast line instead of near their house...
Offshore wind is the perfect NIMBY solution.
Tariffs on solar panel imports should stimulate domestic solar panel production, but only when they are high enough and applied long enough to justify investments into new solar panel manufacturing facilities.
Is oil production equipment similarly tariffed? No part of that supply chain comes from China? Otherwise, why solar panels specifically?
"The research results show that China controls the supply of primary materials, manufacturing, installed capacity, and recycling capacity. China alone produces at least 80 % of the main components of PVs."
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S277273782...
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Top oil field equipment suppliers and manufacturers in the world are from: France, Switzerland, US, UK, Norway
https://www.blackridgeresearch.com/blog/list-top-global-oilf...
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You can do it with targeted tariffs with assurances they'll last but these broad tariffs make it harder to get the base materials you need to build the panels out of in the first place plus they're so crazy they're almost guaranteed to be wiped out in a few years if not sooner so as a manufacturer they don't have the confidence that the cost equalization of the tariffs will be around long enough to not bankrupt them.
Another way to do it would be guaranteed buys for electrifying military etc and grants for projects using US made cells instead of foreign ones that could also effectively subsidize local production.
It's like a lot of things done by this administration they do it such hamfisted and obvious ways that they don't accomplish their nominal goals. See a lot of the court cases where they've been blocked in implementation because they said the quiet part out loud. eg: it's usually REALLY hard to prove malicious prosecution but they keep saying out loud "we're prosecuting this person in retaliation for their protected activities".
It's important to tariff the basic materials Polysilicon, wafers, if you want to spread solar production around the world, not only in a single country.
https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/solar-pv-manu...
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Like you can't avoid gravity, you can't avoid economic reality. Not in the long term anyway.
It's especially notable because there isn't just the thumb against offshore wind, solar panel tariffs, and even EVs. Chinese EVs can't be imported because of tariffs and many conservative states a pretending that EV drivers "don't pay their fair share because they don't buy gas" - except most gas taxes haven't been adjusted in multiple decades and don't even begin to pay for the cost of maintaining roads. Fuel taxes are a tiny portion of any state revenue.
There has always been a massive thumb on the scale in the form of tax breaks, direct subsidies (billions a year alone on this), land leasing, etc for fossil fuels and their use. Favorable public policy. And what the IMF calls implicit subsidies - the cost of impact on the climate/environment and people's health.
When a refinery is pumping out pollution and everyone in the area is getting sicker than people in similar areas - that costs us as insurance ratepayers and taxpayers.
https://www.americanprogress.org/article/5-hidden-ways-the-g...
https://www.imf.org/en/topics/climate-change/energy-subsidie...
...to name a few. A simple google search will turn up dozens more.
And yet what is the first critique of solar and wind by right wingers? "It's only cheaper because of all my tax dollars going to subsidizing them."
Federal, state, and local subsidies for green energy and EVs are a drop in the bucket.
Unfortunately this is one of the few cases where both sides are close to the same -- they both chose to heavily tariff foreign EVs. Something to remember when Democrats talk about climate change.
"closer to the same" except one side has consistently promoted the building and sale of EVs in America.
If you were feeling generous you could credit then with the entire existence of modern EVs given their support of the nascent industry for decades in California.
But sure, let's focus on the mote in Democrat eyes and ignore the insanity across the aisle. That's what got us into this situation, so why stop now.
It's the same in the UK. The CfD "subsidy" mechanism for solar power results in the solar farms paying us money almost every day - including today - but you will still see right wing politicians vow to eliminate this "subsidy".