this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2024
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United States | News & Politics
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Because building out additional renewable capacity is becoming increasingly harder. If you look at the countries that presently generate all or most of their electricity from renewables, they generally have some mix of these characteristics:
The US has largely developed its hydro and geothermal sources, so the options going forward are wind and solar. This is presently a growing mix. Unfortunately, because those are unpredictable, storage is needed. Grid level batteries are not a mature technology, but there is plenty of investment going into the technology. It'll take some time to build out more wind and solar, and unfortunately Republicans are there the whole way to undermine any meaningful climate action.
Also of note in the US has been the shift from coal, with its higher emissions, to the still bad natural gas. Also less mercury and radioactive material.
China added more solar panels in 2023 than US did in its entire history. If China can expand their renewable infrastructure to such an extent I'm having a hard time believing the US can't do the same thing.
The U.S. is producing more oil than anytime in history right now under Biden. Republicans aren't the only ones undermining meaningful climate action, this is a fully bipartisan effort.
Both parties serve the same capital interests. Let's be clear, if they wanted to they absolutely could drastically reduce the amount of oil being drilled and pump billions of dollars into renewable energy research so that the US is no longer reliant on carbon-emitting energies; they just don't want to.
China may have added a lot of solar panels, but solar and wind only form a tiny portion of the energy mix. The vast majority is coal. Yes, the US should be doing more to push renewables, but China isn't in a much better position presently.
The US is bragging about how much oil it's drilling, while China is installing more solar than anyone else, ever. Cope harder.
I'm using China as a demonstration, that moving over to a renewable first or renewable only energy mix isn't just a wave your magic wand thing. Solar only makes up a few percentage points of China's energy mix. Same with wind.
No shit, which is why they're rapidly expanding their renewable energy infrastructure. How much of their energy do you think is going to come from solar 10 years from now? 20? Meanwhile half of US politicians refuse to even acknowledge the existence of climate change.