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For years I've wondered why renewable energy hasn't been considered under the auspices of national security. I think the primary reason is that the fossil fuel

For years I've wondered why renewable energy hasn't been considered under the auspices of national security. I think the primary reason is that the fossil fuel lobby outranks national security on any topic too complicated for the majority of the general voting populace to understand (ie. anything less subtle than big boom-boom bad makes). It's politically interesting (cringe), the line between assisting Ukraine's defense by sending weapons and funding as opposed to actively committing troops and implementing a no-fly-zone etc. Interesting that Russia is now accusing NATO of effectively conducting a proxy war against Russia - it seems that Russia wants to have war declared upon it in order to post-justify their invasion as "see, this is what was going to happen anyway" - it doesn't have to make sense to anyone other than the Russian leadership in order for them to be assured of the righteousness of their own cause.

breckenedge 5y ago
> For years I've wondered why renewable energy hasn't been considered under the auspices of national security. Energy independence used to come up more often in US elections until prices collapsed in 2014ish and the US became a net exporter of refined petroleum products. The whole “Nuclear Renaissance” that began under W. was derailed by insanely cheap natural gas production, so it just kinda fell off everyone’s radar since people in the US considered the problem solved for the time being.
- BLKNSLVR 5y ago
  My context is Australia which is 100% dependent upon imported petroleum whilst also having abundant wide open spaces and sunshine. In combination with a government that frequently dog whistles national security.
fy20 5y ago
I think it's just that politicians always knew that any real push would be expensive and raise energy prices. Everyone wants to go green, but if that involves doubling energy costs, then how many people are still going to say yes? That would not be popular with their constitutes, so bye bye political career. Nobody could make the hard choice and they hoped that technology would solve the issue eventually - which to be fair, it did look like that was going to happen. On the other hand, we have this situation. In my country natural gas prices have risen 40% in the last month and some items in supermarkets are close to double what they were a year ago.
- BLKNSLVR 5y ago
  In reality it's probably my increasing interest in and exposure to politics as opposed to any cultural change, but it feels like "we" are increasingly sacrificing big in the future for small in the present. It's probably always been like this in politics though.
  - boringg 5y ago
    That is the probably with politics and the wall street quarterly cycle - you always sacrifice the long term for your short term gains. There have been some moves away from this but largely the system rewards/punishes people who don't operate on the short term. Switch to renewables is such a huge win for everyone (less oil producing nations). Cheaper, cleaner electricity (unlocking new manufacturing capabilities on price), lower social unrest impacts from climate change, better water quality, less reliance on foreign oil, etc. Costs are now starting to hit the point where it's far cheaper to go renewable - if we could get some political will power to push us further we could get continued wide spread adoption and massive scale up.

breckenedge 5y ago

> For years I've wondered why renewable energy hasn't been considered under the auspices of national security. Energy independence used to come up more often in US elections until prices collapsed in 2014ish and the US became a net exporter of refined petroleum products. The whole “Nuclear Renaissance” that began under W. was derailed by insanely cheap natural gas production, so it just kinda fell off everyone’s radar since people in the US considered the problem solved for the time being.

BLKNSLVR 5y ago
My context is Australia which is 100% dependent upon imported petroleum whilst also having abundant wide open spaces and sunshine. In combination with a government that frequently dog whistles national security.

fy20 5y ago

I think it's just that politicians always knew that any real push would be expensive and raise energy prices. Everyone wants to go green, but if that involves doubling energy costs, then how many people are still going to say yes? That would not be popular with their constitutes, so bye bye political career. Nobody could make the hard choice and they hoped that technology would solve the issue eventually - which to be fair, it did look like that was going to happen. On the other hand, we have this situation. In my country natural gas prices have risen 40% in the last month and some items in supermarkets are close to double what they were a year ago.

BLKNSLVR 5y ago
In reality it's probably my increasing interest in and exposure to politics as opposed to any cultural change, but it feels like "we" are increasingly sacrificing big in the future for small in the present. It's probably always been like this in politics though.
- boringg 5y ago
  That is the probably with politics and the wall street quarterly cycle - you always sacrifice the long term for your short term gains. There have been some moves away from this but largely the system rewards/punishes people who don't operate on the short term. Switch to renewables is such a huge win for everyone (less oil producing nations). Cheaper, cleaner electricity (unlocking new manufacturing capabilities on price), lower social unrest impacts from climate change, better water quality, less reliance on foreign oil, etc. Costs are now starting to hit the point where it's far cheaper to go renewable - if we could get some political will power to push us further we could get continued wide spread adoption and massive scale up.