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My biggest fear is that Republican political correctness will come to over-regulate and stop the deployment of clean energy. You can already see it at the natio

My biggest fear is that Republican political correctness will come to over-regulate and stop the deployment of clean energy. You can already see it at the national level. Texas will have to decide if they like money and the free market more than being politically correct. You can already see this conflict in all the areas where the new factories have been built from Biden's IRA. These factories generally raise wages quite a bit, invigorate communities that feel like they have been forgotten, but that it's clean energy doing the good is kept on the down-low. To mix metaphors: don't poke the bear, lest the bear cuts off its nose to spite its face.

renewiltord 2y ago
Democrat political correctness is the one that's killing all of these in California right now. Environmentalism requires that solar and wind be banned. And Nevada's brand of environmentalism requires fighting geothermal.
- tclancy 2y ago
  Citation needed.
- epistasis 2y ago
  Well most of the environmental laws in the way of this were passed by California Republicans, and then expanded by the courts (whatever partisanship that is), and broadly supported by Democrats. But today it is not "politically incorrect" to advocate for changes to the environmental regulations for California Democrats. And they are definitely pursuing changes to regulations! So you are very correct that regulations are in the way, and that Democrats are in power, but you are wrong that it's politically incorrect to change the regulations.
  - renewiltord 2y ago
    A universal phenomenon of California democrats is that they're always advocating and pursuing changes but never changing anything. It's been some twenty years of CEQA reform pursuit. Democratic Party control: Legislature from 1996-present day; executive from 1999-2003, 2011-present day. In California politics, only Republicans pass things. Democrats always pursue and advocate.
  - gamblor956 2y ago
    All of the landmark CA laws (CEQA, CCCA, CCA, CESA, CDPA) were passed by Democratic legislatures. Most of them were signed by Reagan (who subsequently repudiated all of those laws as President) or Pete Wilson (who did not). The CSRA and CSGMA are the only two major CA environmental laws recent enough to be signed by a Democratic governor. Notably, by today's political standards, (gubernatorial-era) Reagan and Wilson would be characterized as moderate Democrats.
stogot 2y ago
The commission that regulates this (the Texas railroad commission) is fully republican as is most of their legislature/govenrment. The republicans are in charge of all this
- epistasis 2y ago
  And at the moment additions to the grid are mostly an open free market. My fear is that they will change that to stop renewable energy. Many places that are extremely anti-renewable for partisan political reasons, such as Montana, have been caught on tape changing regulations to highly regulate and stymie solar. Texas has not been that way and I think there's probably a >50% chance that Texas Republicans on that commission will continue to choose the free market over blocking renewables. But there is a risk.
rossdavidh 2y ago
TX resident here: valid concern, but there are big moneyholders in TX investing in wind and solar here, and that has a tendency to override political orthodoxy. Lots of rich people who want their solar and wind investments to pay off, and they have pull in TX GOP.
gnuser 2y ago
In reality, the market will do it for them as the datacenter and energy boom requires more energy than green can provide and the money will flow anew to nuclear and fission.
- toomuchtodo 2y ago
  Nuclear and fission take at least a decade to build. You can build the same firm renewables in 2-3 years. Regime change will occur first.
  - dralley 2y ago
    Right. As much as I like nuclear, you could overbuild solar or wind by a factor of 3 in half the time and pay the whole project off before the nuclear project even gets finished.
    - toomuchtodo 2y ago
      I am not violently allergic to nuclear, and am mindful that there will be places it is needed, although it’s going to be incredibly expensive and time consuming to build where needed. Texas has enormous wind and solar potential, they can skip it.
      - tstrimple 2y ago
        Nuclear power is fundamentally incompatible with a for-profit energy sector. It makes zero sense as a profit seeking CEO to invest tens of billions of dollars and over a decade of development to something that might pay for itself over the next half century if ever. Especially when you can build wind farms that turn profits in under 16 months and solar even more quickly these days. Maybe nuclear makes sense for a country's long term energy security. But that literally has no bearing on what happens with US energy investments.
        epistasis 2y ago
        There's also the huge amount of economic risk in each construction project, which is too much financial risk for an entity the size of a utility to bear. I would argue that it makes little more sense for a nation state to take on that economic risk, either. Risk can be priced, and the bill for many the risks of nuclear are already picked up by others due to the laws around nuclear. If, even with those massive subsidies, nuclear is too economically risky for utilities, I would argue that it's too costly overall for anyone. Or at least a poor decision. Until there's some major innovation in nuclear construction, the risk should be reserved for those with no better options (e.g. Finland, maybe the UK, etc.)
conradev 2y ago
Solar panels are a commodity and they are getting cheaper. That will continue regardless of which political party is in charge. Moving the solar supply chain to be domestic is a massive undertaking. First Solar, one of the stronger US companies, will be at at 50/50 manufacturing in the US versus not: "We inaugurated our new $1.1 billion Alabama facility, which when, fully scaled, adds 3.5 gigawatts of vertically integrated nameplate solar manufacturing capacity. The start of commercial operation at the Alabama facility, along with our under construction Louisiana facility, which remains on track to begin operations in the second half of 2025, keeps us on course to achieve our projection of over 14 gigawatts of annual U.S. nameplate capacity and over 25 gigawatts of global nameplate capacity by 2026." https://www.fool.com/earnings/call-transcripts/2024/10/29/first-solar-fslr-q3-2024-earnings-call-transcript/ https://www.fool.com/earnings/call-transcripts/2024/10/29/fi... You are correct that it will take investment to continue to build factories here instead of Malaysia or India, but the factories will be built regardless.
- epistasis 2y ago
  My specific fear is that connecting those cheap solar panels to the grid will be the hard part. I have no doubt that they will continue to plummet in price, and than new innovative installation methods will continue to cause installation prices to drop, etc. etc. The technology for a 100% renewable energy system for all of humanity is about 90%-95% there, the biggest impediment is political and not technical now. (Hard-to-decarbonize areas like industry is close but not there yet, and we can do all the other areas while new solutions are found for cement, chemicals, etc.)
  - ViewTrick1002 2y ago
    My personal view is that rooftop solar and home batteries are putting a price roof on what people accept their electricity bills to cost. As the solar and storage costs continue to plummet even if you can’t sell electricity to the grid we will increasingly see more and more homes with near zero electricity usage for much of the year. No matter how much you attempt to force fossil fuels down these people throats there’s nothing you can do if people simply don’t pull energy from the grid. Then the expensive facilities sit unused. Offloading these costs on the voters will quickly become politically untenable.

renewiltord 2y ago

Democrat political correctness is the one that's killing all of these in California right now. Environmentalism requires that solar and wind be banned. And Nevada's brand of environmentalism requires fighting geothermal.

tclancy 2y ago
Citation needed.
epistasis 2y ago
Well most of the environmental laws in the way of this were passed by California Republicans, and then expanded by the courts (whatever partisanship that is), and broadly supported by Democrats. But today it is not "politically incorrect" to advocate for changes to the environmental regulations for California Democrats. And they are definitely pursuing changes to regulations! So you are very correct that regulations are in the way, and that Democrats are in power, but you are wrong that it's politically incorrect to change the regulations.
- renewiltord 2y ago
  A universal phenomenon of California democrats is that they're always advocating and pursuing changes but never changing anything. It's been some twenty years of CEQA reform pursuit. Democratic Party control: Legislature from 1996-present day; executive from 1999-2003, 2011-present day. In California politics, only Republicans pass things. Democrats always pursue and advocate.
- gamblor956 2y ago
  All of the landmark CA laws (CEQA, CCCA, CCA, CESA, CDPA) were passed by Democratic legislatures. Most of them were signed by Reagan (who subsequently repudiated all of those laws as President) or Pete Wilson (who did not). The CSRA and CSGMA are the only two major CA environmental laws recent enough to be signed by a Democratic governor. Notably, by today's political standards, (gubernatorial-era) Reagan and Wilson would be characterized as moderate Democrats.

stogot 2y ago

The commission that regulates this (the Texas railroad commission) is fully republican as is most of their legislature/govenrment. The republicans are in charge of all this

epistasis 2y ago
And at the moment additions to the grid are mostly an open free market. My fear is that they will change that to stop renewable energy. Many places that are extremely anti-renewable for partisan political reasons, such as Montana, have been caught on tape changing regulations to highly regulate and stymie solar. Texas has not been that way and I think there's probably a >50% chance that Texas Republicans on that commission will continue to choose the free market over blocking renewables. But there is a risk.

rossdavidh 2y ago

TX resident here: valid concern, but there are big moneyholders in TX investing in wind and solar here, and that has a tendency to override political orthodoxy. Lots of rich people who want their solar and wind investments to pay off, and they have pull in TX GOP.

gnuser 2y ago

In reality, the market will do it for them as the datacenter and energy boom requires more energy than green can provide and the money will flow anew to nuclear and fission.

toomuchtodo 2y ago
Nuclear and fission take at least a decade to build. You can build the same firm renewables in 2-3 years. Regime change will occur first.
- dralley 2y ago
  Right. As much as I like nuclear, you could overbuild solar or wind by a factor of 3 in half the time and pay the whole project off before the nuclear project even gets finished.
  - toomuchtodo 2y ago
    I am not violently allergic to nuclear, and am mindful that there will be places it is needed, although it’s going to be incredibly expensive and time consuming to build where needed. Texas has enormous wind and solar potential, they can skip it.
    - tstrimple 2y ago
      Nuclear power is fundamentally incompatible with a for-profit energy sector. It makes zero sense as a profit seeking CEO to invest tens of billions of dollars and over a decade of development to something that might pay for itself over the next half century if ever. Especially when you can build wind farms that turn profits in under 16 months and solar even more quickly these days. Maybe nuclear makes sense for a country's long term energy security. But that literally has no bearing on what happens with US energy investments.
      - epistasis 2y ago
        There's also the huge amount of economic risk in each construction project, which is too much financial risk for an entity the size of a utility to bear. I would argue that it makes little more sense for a nation state to take on that economic risk, either. Risk can be priced, and the bill for many the risks of nuclear are already picked up by others due to the laws around nuclear. If, even with those massive subsidies, nuclear is too economically risky for utilities, I would argue that it's too costly overall for anyone. Or at least a poor decision. Until there's some major innovation in nuclear construction, the risk should be reserved for those with no better options (e.g. Finland, maybe the UK, etc.)

conradev 2y ago

Solar panels are a commodity and they are getting cheaper. That will continue regardless of which political party is in charge. Moving the solar supply chain to be domestic is a massive undertaking. First Solar, one of the stronger US companies, will be at at 50/50 manufacturing in the US versus not: "We inaugurated our new $1.1 billion Alabama facility, which when, fully scaled, adds 3.5 gigawatts of vertically integrated nameplate solar manufacturing capacity. The start of commercial operation at the Alabama facility, along with our under construction Louisiana facility, which remains on track to begin operations in the second half of 2025, keeps us on course to achieve our projection of over 14 gigawatts of annual U.S. nameplate capacity and over 25 gigawatts of global nameplate capacity by 2026." https://www.fool.com/earnings/call-transcripts/2024/10/29/first-solar-fslr-q3-2024-earnings-call-transcript/ https://www.fool.com/earnings/call-transcripts/2024/10/29/fi... You are correct that it will take investment to continue to build factories here instead of Malaysia or India, but the factories will be built regardless.

epistasis 2y ago
My specific fear is that connecting those cheap solar panels to the grid will be the hard part. I have no doubt that they will continue to plummet in price, and than new innovative installation methods will continue to cause installation prices to drop, etc. etc. The technology for a 100% renewable energy system for all of humanity is about 90%-95% there, the biggest impediment is political and not technical now. (Hard-to-decarbonize areas like industry is close but not there yet, and we can do all the other areas while new solutions are found for cement, chemicals, etc.)
- ViewTrick1002 2y ago
  My personal view is that rooftop solar and home batteries are putting a price roof on what people accept their electricity bills to cost. As the solar and storage costs continue to plummet even if you can’t sell electricity to the grid we will increasingly see more and more homes with near zero electricity usage for much of the year. No matter how much you attempt to force fossil fuels down these people throats there’s nothing you can do if people simply don’t pull energy from the grid. Then the expensive facilities sit unused. Offloading these costs on the voters will quickly become politically untenable.