What's extra maddening about this is that in all likelihood, we'll have a Democrat-led government by the time the effects of this start to hit, and because such a large portion of our electorate is ignorant and unthinking, they'll believe that the pain is the fault of the current administration at that time.
That’s what’s so particularly stupid about this. Except for the possibility that ICE becomes a full-on secret police force, nothing in this bill helps or entrenches Republican power. It’s all downside, both politically and for the country. Maybe you’re right that they’ll find a way to blame the disaster on Democrats, but that’s only relevant if you’ve already given up and assumed a crushing GOP defeat in 2028.
They could also refuse to allow Dems to be elected. Call the election fraudulent in advance, like they did before, and "stop" the steal by only letting their own partisans vote, or by declaring the results invalid if their candidate doesn't win, or by having states or Congress appoint new members of Congress or presidential electors to ensure a Trump victory regardless of public preference, or by incumbents refusing to vacate their seat and Republican officials refusing to seat the "wrong" candidates, etc. I suspect Americans are not so rebellious that you will need to "disappear" huge numbers to wield undemocratic power, but if you do, the deportation apparatus can grab enough people to intimidate the rest, while the government refuses to let power change hands peacefully.
We have a president who encouraged political violence to hold power beyond his term, was re-elected on promises to act like a dictator, and urged his supporters to vote just this once so they won't have to do it anymore, and his party has tried to steal a judicial election in North Carolina and flirted with the idea of having gerrymandered state legislatures overrule the voters to appoint a different state of presidential electors. Our currently-dominant political party is openly against electoral democracy, which may be why they are unmoved by evidence that their policies are deeply unpopular.
I would bet the price of a nice dinner that Kash Patel will open an investigation into at least one Democratic House candidate in a competitive race, probably more than one. And I wouldn't be surprised if Bondi actually tries to prosecute at least one.
"...are unmoved by evidence that their policies are deeply unpopular."
Because they have FOX News and RW media to endlessly propagandize for them. Either withholding facts; or spinning it. Like the fact that the BBB will hurt rural MAGA voters severely. This is why Trump in a *nationally televised debate* spouted two notorious ant-Dem falsehoods, about Libs murdering babies after birth, and Haitian illegals eating dogs and cats. Because there's no risk RW media will ever hold him or his fellow conservative politicians to account.
IF FOX News starts running repeated segments on changing the Constitution to allow Trump to run again, THAT's the signal the GOP is going all-in for dictatorship.
If that ends up being the case (if...) then the incoming Democratic led gov needs to be ready to engage to get solutions with wide-buy in - very much the Abundance Agenda in smoothing out red-tape, and just be energy agnostic on Headline (with permit smoothing and accerlated grid expansion to enable access, RE will beat).
Eh that’s really why I think this bill will flounder. Slowdown won’t take that long - this isn’t 2017 again. Market conditions are uncertain and tariffs are still passing through inventory channels. Once everyone starts raising prices and the labor market deteriorates support will plummet further.
If we continue to see vacillations in tariff policy after this bill passes the benefit will be null - investment will be limited and interest rates will keep capital costs high. Even if rates go down it’s hard to envision the type of growth we saw during IRA given the phase outs and the political uncertainty of the next elections.
Who wants to deploy capex in hundreds of millions or billions in this environment?
Maybe to fully understand the GOP on fossil fuels and solar we need to go psycho-sexual. Put them all on a couch and I bet you’d find that fossil fuels are, in their psyches, explosive, penetrative, manly. Solar is gentle, receptive, feminine. They simply can’t stomach the idea of being a Bottom.
What could be more manly than stealing fire from the Sun God armed with nothing but our smarts and a bit of silicon?
While anyone who's ever dealt with a petrol engine knows that they are capicrious, loud, prone to going their own ways without rhyme nor reason. Hysterical, one might call them. And if that's not the essence of the feminine, I don't know what is...
Now if we could just find the politician who could deliver this alternative mythos to the MAGA cultists with the effectiveness of Trump’s malevolent instincts.
Did I hit a nerve, Falous? My Dad was a NY City cop. I’m a conservative. Always have been.
It’s funny you bring up masturbation, though. Are you feeling kinda jealous of the gay guys who can sit around happily getting each other off?
But you are correct.
Non understanding seems to be reaching a crisis point, so instead of flinging political mischaracterizations (“Lefty”) and sexual innuendo (“maturbatory”) onto others, perhaps you might enliven the conversation with your own insights into why MAGA might be attacking our energy future.
A nerve? Why would a silly stupid masturbatory comment hit a nerve?
It is merely a roll-eyes at the complete sterility and utter uselessness of such commentary.
MAGA is evidentaly attacking RE because the Green Left bungled and made RE all about Lefty cliamte political acitivism and crunchy granola politics, and blocked compromise as with Manchin et al - and so opportunity missed to make economic arguments and get energy interests aligned, and left the Right side coding of RE open to be coded as daft empty headed crunchy granola 1970s nonsense.
And certainly the ineffectiveness of the Biden Admin in actually getting projects through to pouring concrete - thanks again the the Groups and Everything Bagelism - means Facts on the Ground didn't get... on the Ground and the whole thing becomes more easily coded as cruncy granola 70s nonsense.
One can engage in masturbatory self-congratution backpatting and ineffectual sneering at MAGA or one can think about how to turn things around - of which absurd "psycho sexual" comments don't get you anywhere, have no actual analytical utility and just are about self-congratulation.
Well, forgive me, Falous, but you sure sound like you’ve got a thing against masturbation; your anger and contempt does tend to suggest less conscious emotional issues—unless you somehow think politics can only be understood in the cold light of reason, and that the darker sides of our nature play no part. But far be it from me to try, beyond my mild initial suggestion, to psychoanalyze anyone.
But this “crunchy granola nonsense.” I agree with you—partly. To link alternative energy to the abstractions of climate activism is a politically stupid tactic, but again (in the name of understanding the limits to growth crowd of the 70s, instead of dismissing it as “crunchy granola nonsense”) that movement was, historically, a part of the dawning of our ecological awareness. All you have to do to sympathize with the movement, however foolish it was politically, is look at the data on species extinction since the 70’s. It’s pretty damn sobering.
> The American people, for the most part, get the general gist of Trump’s ideology-driven approach to economic policy, and they’re not happy about it. Poll after poll shows that even many Republicans despise the One Big Beautiful Bill.
Yeah, I don't know. It seems voters think the economico-legal institutional set up they are experiencing is a bit like the weather. Sometimes, it's good, sometimes, it's not, some days, things work, some other days, they don't, whatyougonnadoboutit...
And this fatalistic approach to human affairs is disastrous inasmuch as it reduces politics to vibes and/or culture wars while ignoring the myriad ways politics can make your macro environment better or worse depending on who's in charge.
Noah, I believe that you've reached the limits of an economics-driven approach, with its rationalist assumptions, as a conceptual framework to understand the nihilism of the Republican and MAGA movement.
I think it’s entirely possible to understand this economically, but to do that you’d have to recognize that (1) a rapid energy transition threatens trillions of dollars in fossil asset prices, (2) the industry will spend anything to delay this, even if their loss is guaranteed in the end, (3) the GOP is absolutely bought and paid for.
But Noah isn’t willing to go that far, I think. Even if it fits the available facts much better than any other economic explanation.
The dearth of common sense in today's Republican Party is truly stunning. I keep trying to thing who they are beholden to and it is very difficult. Musk is totally right on this one and I don't know why all the other tech bros are not weighing in. Maybe the only way out of this morass is to let the bill pass and when electricity rates go up, the people will get their pitchforks out and storm the castle.
Even Chevron (disclosure: I'm a shareholder) understands that renewables are part of the energy mix and they have been funding a bunch of different projects!
I've concluded that Trump really does possess an authentic reality distortion field surrounding him. The only upside is that it will follow him to the grave when he eventually passes away
When you mention tax increases you never connect them to only products coming from China other than briefly claiming that figuring that out would be impossible. Isn't it worth discussing whether having our energy production dependent on cheap Chinese manufacturing is a national security threat? Why did you leave that out?
Why did I leave it out? Because Chris Wright, our Energy Secretary, left it out! In his op-ed explaining the BBB's energy policy, he doesn't mention the word "China" once. Here, you can check for yourself:
So what? Not sure we should let this administration define the bar for quality and depth of discourse. If it’s pertinent, why shouldn’t be discussed? The fact that they don’t make the case for it in one op-ed means what? Or are you just looking for straw men today?
Anyway, what I want is cheap(er), clean, reliable energy. I don’t want government picking the winners and losers. I am happy to see Big Solar and Big Wind kicked to the subsidy curb, but I don’t want higher taxes on any of them. Subsidies and artificial barriers for none! I’d like to see the world get to net zero energy poverty and then move up from there. An energy abundance agenda will do us all good. Regardless of what your sexual fantasies and metaphors are.
Because a large chunk of the IRA has gone towards investing in manufacturing within the US. if you take away that money, now the components to build clean energy projects will no longer come from the US and must be sourced elsewhere. China is the #1 source of clean energy manufacturing right now and thus the most affordable. If you make it more expensive to build these projects by relying on expensive pieces within the US or other countries, as well as making it more expensive to source from China, then the projects will simply die. This is also a big consequence if they decide to repeal the CHIPS Act.
There's probably just a difference in philosophy between you and me. Government investment in industry can definitely have short term advantages, but I believe fundamentally that it warps the most useful outcome into something sub optimal.
We definitely have a problem with China and there are other, very good ways to produce electricity. I'd like American ingenuity to be unhampered by government to figure those out. If you think solar is the future, great, but we shouldn't be supporting Chinese industry to do it. Long term that only hurts domestic solar production and creativity as well.
Tell me, do you think the Space Race was a bad thing for the US? That was a technological investment funded solely by the US government as there was no private industry in the field at the time. Had we simply "left spaceflight up to American ingenuity", we would have lost that race to the Soviets plain and simple.
We are now in a new technological race with China, both involving AI and clean energy. It's not as sexy as the Space Race, nor does it stoke the fears that Sputnik did when it first launched. But it's a race nonetheless, and we need all the advantages we can get. If that means government investment to close the gap, then so be it.
Eh? The Chinese got to where they are today through relentless government investment and subsidization. It’s literally why they seem to be pulling away now - and by electrifying their economy they are actually neutralizing a strategic threat to their own economy (reliance on oil imports as they cannot produce enough domestically because it’s physically not there).
You’re arguing that warping the market is less efficient and that’s exactly how China now accounts for over a third of all global manufacturing (and no - that’s not just low cost goods - it’s intermediate and advanced like semis!).
And now they make most of the solar panels allowing them to harness a cheaper source of energy.
If you just tax the Chinese imports that seems like it should be sufficient. Requiring domestic industries to fill out paperwork tracking every single purchase they made to verify where they all come from doesn’t make things better for anyone other than specialists in filing paperwork.
One Republican faction quite responsibly says we need to rein in the massive addition to our deficit. Gotta find more ways to pay for the bill.
A second Republican faction says the only additional tax increases we'll touch are ones that can be sold as screwing liberals
Trump onboard with the message that big interests on the other side from me will be very, very sorry
I'd like to think, given the amount of solar I am seeing in very Republican areas, that they are not just working against national interests, they are also misreading the political room.
Reading this excellent update on GOP malfeasance you would think that Dems have an open interstate highway back to power. Funny that it doesn’t feel that way.
I sent this letter to every US Senator. Yes, all 100 of them. It describes the electrical blackout I experienced over Memorial Day weekend.
"Dear Senator __________ ,
I recently spent two days without electricity. It is shocking how dependent we are on its uninterrupted delivery. This small town whose businesses were looking forward to increased customer traffic over Memorial Day weekend was frustrated and disappointed by the power outage. That power outage had no economic nor political upside. Stores were closed. Restaurants were dark and empty. At sundown the light faded, people went to bed and nothing was accomplished until sunrise the following day. We like to consider ourselves independent and self-sufficient, but episodes like this make us realize that we are dependent on the country’s infrastructure which is ageing and in need of maintenance, repair and expansion.
Unfortunately, electricity has become part of the culture wars. It is now a lever which is pulled to increase the political power of certain segments of society. However, it does not matter if you are red or blue or a registered Republican like me, when the lights go out, we all live in the dark. And cold. The United States needs more electricity and the capacity to make it, not less. America requires solar and wind sources in addition to gas fired electrical plants. We need battery storage. Grid stability must be enhanced. We need more electrical capacity from a multitude of sources which can be assembled in a relatively short time frame. Coal-fired plants and nuclear reactor generators will take between 5 and 20 years to come on-line. The data centers currently being built and the demands of Artificial Intelligence will soon outstrip our current capacity. Meeting the growing power needs of data centers is essential to US national security in the AI arms race with China.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act which now is under review by the US Senate will make electrical outages more common and will not address the pressing needs of Americans. The bill removes incentives to produce more electricity and will demolish projects which are already in the pipeline to achieve the goal of increased production. Deleting tax incentives upon which construction depends has frozen current investment thereby halting the development of new solar electricity generation plants. Preserve the current governmental financial incentives for solar energy production. It is as if our political future and security depends on it."
If 10,000 people copied this and sent it to their Senators perhaps the representatives in Congress would budge on their short-sighted support for this disastrous piece of legislation. Or modify it or create your own communique. Somehow we need to move the needle on this bill and defeat it.
If solar batteries are already very cheap and getting cheaper and also solar+wind already reliable - why they can’t stand on their own in competition with fossils and still require subsidies?
What's extra maddening about this is that in all likelihood, we'll have a Democrat-led government by the time the effects of this start to hit, and because such a large portion of our electorate is ignorant and unthinking, they'll believe that the pain is the fault of the current administration at that time.
That’s what’s so particularly stupid about this. Except for the possibility that ICE becomes a full-on secret police force, nothing in this bill helps or entrenches Republican power. It’s all downside, both politically and for the country. Maybe you’re right that they’ll find a way to blame the disaster on Democrats, but that’s only relevant if you’ve already given up and assumed a crushing GOP defeat in 2028.
They could also refuse to allow Dems to be elected. Call the election fraudulent in advance, like they did before, and "stop" the steal by only letting their own partisans vote, or by declaring the results invalid if their candidate doesn't win, or by having states or Congress appoint new members of Congress or presidential electors to ensure a Trump victory regardless of public preference, or by incumbents refusing to vacate their seat and Republican officials refusing to seat the "wrong" candidates, etc. I suspect Americans are not so rebellious that you will need to "disappear" huge numbers to wield undemocratic power, but if you do, the deportation apparatus can grab enough people to intimidate the rest, while the government refuses to let power change hands peacefully.
We have a president who encouraged political violence to hold power beyond his term, was re-elected on promises to act like a dictator, and urged his supporters to vote just this once so they won't have to do it anymore, and his party has tried to steal a judicial election in North Carolina and flirted with the idea of having gerrymandered state legislatures overrule the voters to appoint a different state of presidential electors. Our currently-dominant political party is openly against electoral democracy, which may be why they are unmoved by evidence that their policies are deeply unpopular.
I would bet the price of a nice dinner that Kash Patel will open an investigation into at least one Democratic House candidate in a competitive race, probably more than one. And I wouldn't be surprised if Bondi actually tries to prosecute at least one.
"...are unmoved by evidence that their policies are deeply unpopular."
Because they have FOX News and RW media to endlessly propagandize for them. Either withholding facts; or spinning it. Like the fact that the BBB will hurt rural MAGA voters severely. This is why Trump in a *nationally televised debate* spouted two notorious ant-Dem falsehoods, about Libs murdering babies after birth, and Haitian illegals eating dogs and cats. Because there's no risk RW media will ever hold him or his fellow conservative politicians to account.
IF FOX News starts running repeated segments on changing the Constitution to allow Trump to run again, THAT's the signal the GOP is going all-in for dictatorship.
If that ends up being the case (if...) then the incoming Democratic led gov needs to be ready to engage to get solutions with wide-buy in - very much the Abundance Agenda in smoothing out red-tape, and just be energy agnostic on Headline (with permit smoothing and accerlated grid expansion to enable access, RE will beat).
Eh that’s really why I think this bill will flounder. Slowdown won’t take that long - this isn’t 2017 again. Market conditions are uncertain and tariffs are still passing through inventory channels. Once everyone starts raising prices and the labor market deteriorates support will plummet further.
If we continue to see vacillations in tariff policy after this bill passes the benefit will be null - investment will be limited and interest rates will keep capital costs high. Even if rates go down it’s hard to envision the type of growth we saw during IRA given the phase outs and the political uncertainty of the next elections.
Who wants to deploy capex in hundreds of millions or billions in this environment?
Oh no the people who own the voting machine companies will ensure that no democrat gets elected, just like they did last time.
Of course I'm just messing, but it has reached a point where even this no longer seems beyond possible, and that by itself is troubling enough.
There's a reason why in the Netherlands we still cast votes and count by hand.
Let’s start the counter argument early and often 😎
Maybe to fully understand the GOP on fossil fuels and solar we need to go psycho-sexual. Put them all on a couch and I bet you’d find that fossil fuels are, in their psyches, explosive, penetrative, manly. Solar is gentle, receptive, feminine. They simply can’t stomach the idea of being a Bottom.
Maybe we can reverse the imagery?
What could be more manly than stealing fire from the Sun God armed with nothing but our smarts and a bit of silicon?
While anyone who's ever dealt with a petrol engine knows that they are capicrious, loud, prone to going their own ways without rhyme nor reason. Hysterical, one might call them. And if that's not the essence of the feminine, I don't know what is...
/snark
Now if we could just find the politician who could deliver this alternative mythos to the MAGA cultists with the effectiveness of Trump’s malevolent instincts.
Fundamentally this is Lefty masturbatory back patting.
And part of the mode of non-understanding that has contributing to getting to this point.
Did I hit a nerve, Falous? My Dad was a NY City cop. I’m a conservative. Always have been.
It’s funny you bring up masturbation, though. Are you feeling kinda jealous of the gay guys who can sit around happily getting each other off?
But you are correct.
Non understanding seems to be reaching a crisis point, so instead of flinging political mischaracterizations (“Lefty”) and sexual innuendo (“maturbatory”) onto others, perhaps you might enliven the conversation with your own insights into why MAGA might be attacking our energy future.
A nerve? Why would a silly stupid masturbatory comment hit a nerve?
It is merely a roll-eyes at the complete sterility and utter uselessness of such commentary.
MAGA is evidentaly attacking RE because the Green Left bungled and made RE all about Lefty cliamte political acitivism and crunchy granola politics, and blocked compromise as with Manchin et al - and so opportunity missed to make economic arguments and get energy interests aligned, and left the Right side coding of RE open to be coded as daft empty headed crunchy granola 1970s nonsense.
And certainly the ineffectiveness of the Biden Admin in actually getting projects through to pouring concrete - thanks again the the Groups and Everything Bagelism - means Facts on the Ground didn't get... on the Ground and the whole thing becomes more easily coded as cruncy granola 70s nonsense.
One can engage in masturbatory self-congratution backpatting and ineffectual sneering at MAGA or one can think about how to turn things around - of which absurd "psycho sexual" comments don't get you anywhere, have no actual analytical utility and just are about self-congratulation.
Well, forgive me, Falous, but you sure sound like you’ve got a thing against masturbation; your anger and contempt does tend to suggest less conscious emotional issues—unless you somehow think politics can only be understood in the cold light of reason, and that the darker sides of our nature play no part. But far be it from me to try, beyond my mild initial suggestion, to psychoanalyze anyone.
But this “crunchy granola nonsense.” I agree with you—partly. To link alternative energy to the abstractions of climate activism is a politically stupid tactic, but again (in the name of understanding the limits to growth crowd of the 70s, instead of dismissing it as “crunchy granola nonsense”) that movement was, historically, a part of the dawning of our ecological awareness. All you have to do to sympathize with the movement, however foolish it was politically, is look at the data on species extinction since the 70’s. It’s pretty damn sobering.
> The American people, for the most part, get the general gist of Trump’s ideology-driven approach to economic policy, and they’re not happy about it. Poll after poll shows that even many Republicans despise the One Big Beautiful Bill.
Yeah, I don't know. It seems voters think the economico-legal institutional set up they are experiencing is a bit like the weather. Sometimes, it's good, sometimes, it's not, some days, things work, some other days, they don't, whatyougonnadoboutit...
And this fatalistic approach to human affairs is disastrous inasmuch as it reduces politics to vibes and/or culture wars while ignoring the myriad ways politics can make your macro environment better or worse depending on who's in charge.
To
Noah, I believe that you've reached the limits of an economics-driven approach, with its rationalist assumptions, as a conceptual framework to understand the nihilism of the Republican and MAGA movement.
It's pathology, not policy.
I think it’s entirely possible to understand this economically, but to do that you’d have to recognize that (1) a rapid energy transition threatens trillions of dollars in fossil asset prices, (2) the industry will spend anything to delay this, even if their loss is guaranteed in the end, (3) the GOP is absolutely bought and paid for.
But Noah isn’t willing to go that far, I think. Even if it fits the available facts much better than any other economic explanation.
The dearth of common sense in today's Republican Party is truly stunning. I keep trying to thing who they are beholden to and it is very difficult. Musk is totally right on this one and I don't know why all the other tech bros are not weighing in. Maybe the only way out of this morass is to let the bill pass and when electricity rates go up, the people will get their pitchforks out and storm the castle.
Even Chevron (disclosure: I'm a shareholder) understands that renewables are part of the energy mix and they have been funding a bunch of different projects!
I've concluded that Trump really does possess an authentic reality distortion field surrounding him. The only upside is that it will follow him to the grave when he eventually passes away
When you mention tax increases you never connect them to only products coming from China other than briefly claiming that figuring that out would be impossible. Isn't it worth discussing whether having our energy production dependent on cheap Chinese manufacturing is a national security threat? Why did you leave that out?
Why did I leave it out? Because Chris Wright, our Energy Secretary, left it out! In his op-ed explaining the BBB's energy policy, he doesn't mention the word "China" once. Here, you can check for yourself:
https://nypost.com/2025/06/27/opinion/how-the-big-beautiful-bill-will-lower-energy-costs-bolster-the-electric-grid-and-unleash-us-prosperity/
It's crystal clear from their own statements that China and energy security are not the administration's true justification for these policies.
So what? Not sure we should let this administration define the bar for quality and depth of discourse. If it’s pertinent, why shouldn’t be discussed? The fact that they don’t make the case for it in one op-ed means what? Or are you just looking for straw men today?
Anyway, what I want is cheap(er), clean, reliable energy. I don’t want government picking the winners and losers. I am happy to see Big Solar and Big Wind kicked to the subsidy curb, but I don’t want higher taxes on any of them. Subsidies and artificial barriers for none! I’d like to see the world get to net zero energy poverty and then move up from there. An energy abundance agenda will do us all good. Regardless of what your sexual fantasies and metaphors are.
Because a large chunk of the IRA has gone towards investing in manufacturing within the US. if you take away that money, now the components to build clean energy projects will no longer come from the US and must be sourced elsewhere. China is the #1 source of clean energy manufacturing right now and thus the most affordable. If you make it more expensive to build these projects by relying on expensive pieces within the US or other countries, as well as making it more expensive to source from China, then the projects will simply die. This is also a big consequence if they decide to repeal the CHIPS Act.
There's probably just a difference in philosophy between you and me. Government investment in industry can definitely have short term advantages, but I believe fundamentally that it warps the most useful outcome into something sub optimal.
We definitely have a problem with China and there are other, very good ways to produce electricity. I'd like American ingenuity to be unhampered by government to figure those out. If you think solar is the future, great, but we shouldn't be supporting Chinese industry to do it. Long term that only hurts domestic solar production and creativity as well.
Tell me, do you think the Space Race was a bad thing for the US? That was a technological investment funded solely by the US government as there was no private industry in the field at the time. Had we simply "left spaceflight up to American ingenuity", we would have lost that race to the Soviets plain and simple.
We are now in a new technological race with China, both involving AI and clean energy. It's not as sexy as the Space Race, nor does it stoke the fears that Sputnik did when it first launched. But it's a race nonetheless, and we need all the advantages we can get. If that means government investment to close the gap, then so be it.
Comparing space to energy is kind of silly. There's more money in energy than anything else and up until very recently there was zero money in space.
Eh? The Chinese got to where they are today through relentless government investment and subsidization. It’s literally why they seem to be pulling away now - and by electrifying their economy they are actually neutralizing a strategic threat to their own economy (reliance on oil imports as they cannot produce enough domestically because it’s physically not there).
You’re arguing that warping the market is less efficient and that’s exactly how China now accounts for over a third of all global manufacturing (and no - that’s not just low cost goods - it’s intermediate and advanced like semis!).
And now they make most of the solar panels allowing them to harness a cheaper source of energy.
If you just tax the Chinese imports that seems like it should be sufficient. Requiring domestic industries to fill out paperwork tracking every single purchase they made to verify where they all come from doesn’t make things better for anyone other than specialists in filing paperwork.
Decent point. But the Chinese have no oil and oil beats electricity in a war. Why cede them the high ground?
What does that have to do with requiring solar plants to fill out huge amounts paperwork or else take on huge taxes?
Discouragement of Chinese domination of global manufacturing should not begin and end in the US energy sector use of Chinese goods.
Agreed. We should have high and rising tariffs on all of Chinese goods.
Time to devouple
I'm pretty sure we're doing a lot of other stuff too
Thanks for breaking this part of the BBB down Noah. Very informative.
JFC. This is so f*ing depressing.
“Utterly insane and destructive” says the man who helped destroyed USAID and spread Russian propaganda.
Regrettably Trump voters are going to have to touch the stove.
This strikes me as totally politics-driven:
One Republican faction quite responsibly says we need to rein in the massive addition to our deficit. Gotta find more ways to pay for the bill.
A second Republican faction says the only additional tax increases we'll touch are ones that can be sold as screwing liberals
Trump onboard with the message that big interests on the other side from me will be very, very sorry
I'd like to think, given the amount of solar I am seeing in very Republican areas, that they are not just working against national interests, they are also misreading the political room.
Reading this excellent update on GOP malfeasance you would think that Dems have an open interstate highway back to power. Funny that it doesn’t feel that way.
because voters don't care (enough)
This was entirely predictable, and yet Elon Musk spent a (admittedly very small) fraction of his fortune helping to give them a trifecta.
What does that make him?
"All that matters to them is their hate." "Do you suppose that's all they ever had, sir?" No, but it's all they have left."
I sent this letter to every US Senator. Yes, all 100 of them. It describes the electrical blackout I experienced over Memorial Day weekend.
"Dear Senator __________ ,
I recently spent two days without electricity. It is shocking how dependent we are on its uninterrupted delivery. This small town whose businesses were looking forward to increased customer traffic over Memorial Day weekend was frustrated and disappointed by the power outage. That power outage had no economic nor political upside. Stores were closed. Restaurants were dark and empty. At sundown the light faded, people went to bed and nothing was accomplished until sunrise the following day. We like to consider ourselves independent and self-sufficient, but episodes like this make us realize that we are dependent on the country’s infrastructure which is ageing and in need of maintenance, repair and expansion.
Unfortunately, electricity has become part of the culture wars. It is now a lever which is pulled to increase the political power of certain segments of society. However, it does not matter if you are red or blue or a registered Republican like me, when the lights go out, we all live in the dark. And cold. The United States needs more electricity and the capacity to make it, not less. America requires solar and wind sources in addition to gas fired electrical plants. We need battery storage. Grid stability must be enhanced. We need more electrical capacity from a multitude of sources which can be assembled in a relatively short time frame. Coal-fired plants and nuclear reactor generators will take between 5 and 20 years to come on-line. The data centers currently being built and the demands of Artificial Intelligence will soon outstrip our current capacity. Meeting the growing power needs of data centers is essential to US national security in the AI arms race with China.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act which now is under review by the US Senate will make electrical outages more common and will not address the pressing needs of Americans. The bill removes incentives to produce more electricity and will demolish projects which are already in the pipeline to achieve the goal of increased production. Deleting tax incentives upon which construction depends has frozen current investment thereby halting the development of new solar electricity generation plants. Preserve the current governmental financial incentives for solar energy production. It is as if our political future and security depends on it."
If 10,000 people copied this and sent it to their Senators perhaps the representatives in Congress would budge on their short-sighted support for this disastrous piece of legislation. Or modify it or create your own communique. Somehow we need to move the needle on this bill and defeat it.
Warden
If solar batteries are already very cheap and getting cheaper and also solar+wind already reliable - why they can’t stand on their own in competition with fossils and still require subsidies?