Trump's doing the bidding of what his billionaire donors are paying him to do. "We don't give a hoot, we want to pollute." Not only that, he has to flat out make up lies to try and justify it, but in doing so proves once again that he is not only an idiot puppet for the fossil fuel industry, but a pathological liar as usual. It's just as disgusting as when he called coal beautiful and clean. “And the other thing I say to Europe: We will not allow a windmill to be built in the United States,” Trump said. “They’re killing us.” “They’re killing the beauty of our scenery, our valleys, our beautiful plains ― and I’m not talking about airplanes. I’m talking about beautiful plains, beautiful areas in the United States, and you look up and you see windmills all over the place. It’s a horrible thing. It’s the most expensive form of energy. It’s no good. They’re made in China, almost all of them.” He complained that wind turbines “rust and rot in eight years” and then can’t be “buried” because they will harm the soil. “The whole thing is a con job,” he said. “It’s very expensive. And in all fairness, Germany tried it and wind doesn’t work.” Much of what the president said was wildly inaccurate: Germany gets more than a quarter of its energy from wind, turbines last about 30 years (not eight), according to the U.S Department of Energy, it’s not the most expensive form of energy, and they’re not “almost all” made in China. Speaking of wind energy as nothing but a con job, that is Trump in a nutshell. Trump's making a living trying to con people day in and day out. Its embarrassing that this idiot wants to take us back 50 years in energy production when cheaper, cleaner, and healthier alternatives are being used in other modern countries. Yet, that blubbering idiot who thinks he is King of the World demands that others stop using windmills. "Wind doesn't work" says it all. What a dumbass. One thing is for sure, neither Trump nor any of his privileged grifting offspring will ever stoop as low as to work in a coal mine for a living. Using Daddy's influence and power to make business deals around the world at taxpayer's expense is more their thing. Meanwhile, Trump tries to make coal mining sound like a great job opportunity for risking black lung disease or other illnesses on the job. Trump's way of Making America Great Again is actually making Americans sicker and poisoning our environment in the process. Yeah, he really cares about people, health, and nature.
I'm not sweating it too much. Wind and solar sited in the right places don't need subsidies to have a good business case. It's the marginal cases where the subsidy changes the go/no-go decision. So those industries will still grow, but less fast. Batteries could probably use the subsidy because it needs more scale to drive down cost. I am hopeful that batteries will play a big role in increasing grid flexibility and smoothing out the price spikes.
The wind thing is weird since there are wind farms all over red parts of Texas and other red states. Are the guys getting rent from the wind farm companies not paying attention to what Trump is saying?
OK some interesting points here and a well-reasoned post. As it relates to timing of the grid build out and nuclear, since national security is at stake with the AI race, I tend to learn towards the "go fast and worry about re-engineering or adaptability of stranded assets later" approach. Nuclear absolutely must be a part of the fuel mix for us to compete long term. Unless a breakthrough is achieved with battery storage to help renewables. Absent that, then we need nuclear, coal and natural gas in a big way. On the coal side, most of the pollutants have been solved with scrubbers and emissions control technologies. Almost 100% of SO2 emissions are contained and over 80% of NOX emissions are contained at upgraded coal fired plants. This has been the case for 15+ years. C02 is not a pollutant, as it is a colorless, odorless gas. Some refer to it as a greenhouse gas, but that's not pollution. Thermal coal's applicability will be more international than in the US because the US is one of the few countries with super low cost natural gas. But a word of caution -- natural gas prices are historically volatile and what is cheap now may not be cheap in certain economic cycles. A diversified portfolio is best -- which points to an "all of the above" strategy for power generation fuel inputs. GOOD DAY
I'm down for nuclear energy- if we can finally make a permanent repository for the spent fuel. That was the question I never got a straight answer for at this conference. But, build the repository and I'm on board for nukes. But I do have a problem with the build-it-and-they-will-come approach to electric infrastructure. Ratepayers are captive and electricity bills are a significant expense to the average household. Laden it with wasteful projects and it will drive poverty and economic stagnation. Imo, load should pay for load. These data centers should be building their own plants and paying the entire utility cost of interconnecting. They can recoup their money by charging customers for their AI services.
We need "all of the above." That includes building big beautiful wind farms next to golf courses. Not sure why Trump cares so much about saving the whales.
C02 isn't claimed to be a pollutant, it traps heat, no wonder you don't believe in climate, change, you don't understand it. Regardless we use natural gas in the US for electricity, wtf would we move back to coal for? We have plenty of natty Edit: I see CO2 is classified as. a pollutant for climate change regulation purposes but regardless scientists have known what CO2 does long before climate change talk so it doesn't matter whether it should or shouldn't be classified as a pollutant, it traps heat
