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EPA Moves to Cancel $7B in Grants for Solar Energy
- myotheraccount2 1y agoPolicy based on revenge, stupidity and probably bribes.
- guywithahat 1y agoWhy would canceling contracts require bribes? Bribes are something you do to get government contracts. I wouldn't bribe you to not give me money
- pavel_lishin 1y agoIf there's fewer money to invest in solar, that means traditional (read: fossil) fuels get used more.
- sofixa 1y ago> I wouldn't bribe you to not give me money But you would definitely bribe so your competitors don't get money and your services are required for longer. Existing coal and various other fossil fuel power generating and supply chain companies would be very happy to have less competition from solar. See Boeing managing to get the KC-45 tanker contract awarded to Airbus cancelled (for a plane that mostly existed and needed some US specific updates), to get a new one they won, that not only have they still not managed to deliver on, but they're also losing money.
- pixelatedindex 1y agoI can bribe you to cancel a contract so you can enter a contract with me
- guywithahat 1y agoBut the US government is not replacing the grants with grants to anyone else. Instead of the EPA giving out 7B in grants to their friends, each company will now have to fairly compete in the free market. Fair market competition =/= corruption
- dyauspitr 1y agoOil companies desperately trying to burning fuels relevant
- plandis 1y agoI don’t know if I buy that this is a conspiracy with bribes but killing the grants reduces the rate of growth of energy generation which reduces its future supply. Adding energy capacity reduces the prices at which firms can sell energy since there would be more supply. Removing the grants means that existing energy generation firms need to worry less about how increased supply would harm their prices.
- fnordpiglet 1y agoBribes here are likely donation based to PACs and they would be by fossil fuel interests who want to see the share of energy production from renewables slow or decline to maintain their own business. This is frankly akin to subsidizing cigarette smoking, a habit that fouls the air and kills people, but on a global scale. Sigh.
- ninininino 1y agoThis is a simplistic understanding. Competing industries: solar, oil & natural gas, wind, nuclear, hydro etc. Cancel tax rebates, subsidies, grants, etc. for one of your competing industries and your own benefits because your costs and supply is relative to the others. Your own price is never evaluated in a vacuum where those other energy options are not relevant.
- pahkah 1y agoThis particular bribe was reported on over a year ago, when Trump was raising money from oil execs for his campaign. It seems likely that the overall push against clean energy (pushing for dispatchable generation, canceling tax credits for green energy projects) is related. https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/09/trump-asks-oil-executives-campaign-finance-00157131 https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/09/trump-asks-oil-exec...
- guywithahat 1y agoRivian execs gave money to the Biden/Harris campaign and their causes, and they gave Rivian a ~6.6 billion dollar taxpayer subsidized loan. The idea an executive might have personal political opinions is not enough to claim it's corruption. It feels like your argument is they will have to compete in the free market instead of just being given free money, which isn't corruption. Corruption would be giving companies 7B in grants through the EPA or 6.6B dollar loans through the DOE. Letting people plan on a fair playing field isn't corruption https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/biden-throws-struggling-rivian-6-billion-lifeline-ev-factory https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/biden-throws-struggling-ri...
- insane_dreamer 1y agoBribes by those who would benefit from the contract being cancelled (oil, gas). Probably not actual bribes but “favors”, PAC support and the like.
- exe34 1y agoDo you seriously think "drill, baby, drill" is a policy based on careful study of the data on the impact on people's lives now and in the future?
- normalaccess 1y agoOr the fact that Microsoft believes they have cracked *fusion* power. Sun in a bottle. Microsoft is breaking ground in WA state building a new fusion reactor. https://kpq.com/helion-fusion-plant-chelan-pud/ EDIT: Adding description to video link Video from Real Engineering showing Helion's Pulsed Compression Fusion reactor prototype (2022). The same kind of reactor Helion is building in WA state for Microsoft. https://youtu.be/_bDXXWQxK38
- pavlov 1y agoAlways downvoting YouTube links unless they come with extremely clear context ("This is a talk I gave at conference X", etc.)
- normalaccess 1y agoThat's fair, I forget there is no auto preview here... I'll add the description
- normalaccess 1y agoBoy, people don't seem to like the idea of fusion...
- QuantumGood 1y agoLobbying vs bribes can be a distinction without a difference, but it usually needs to be included with bribes on any such list.
- singingwolfboy 1y agohttps://archive.is/BYFSO https://archive.is/BYFSO
- quesera 1y ago[flagged]
- jauntywundrkind 1y agoUnfortunately that's what a lot of the people that voted for him want. Either accelerationists of their own variety, or the many many evangelicals banking on apocalypse on earth.
- avgDev 1y agoThe only good thing about this, is that I won't have these annoying solar companies knocking on my door. Not that this news is great. We should promote green energy. I will just get the panels and do it myself.
- dawnerd 1y agoOh I they’re still going to be knocking. Their sales pitch here has already shifted.
- glenstein 1y agoI do think solar companies have hired door to door marketing teams that use straight up manipulative tactics. I don't want to hold that against the whole industry, and even sales reps for many solar companies hold themselves to a much higher ethical standard. But some states have had to push regulations because door to door marketing teams have misrepresented who they are, used pressure, and tried their best to imply without saying that a "switch" to renewable energy was non-optional or was like some technical correction with a billing problem.
- potato3732842 1y agoAround here the door to door sales are always a pair of college age floozies with pairs seemingly selected to cover fluency in multiple languages. Based on the quality of sales tactics I assume it's some sort of BS pyramid scheme because nobody who would make money by having them succeed would ever send them out so un-prepared. I kinda feel bad for them.
- avgDev 1y agoI have researched several companies which knocked on my doors. All of them have accusations online of scammy behavior and not really passing the benefit of the grant. I was told I would get "FREE SOLAR". At least in the midwest, when I hear solar, I hear scam. I would much rather purchase equipment myself and do the install myself.
- 1y ago
- philipallstar 1y ago> Michelle Moore, the chief executive of Groundswell, a nonprofit group that received a Solar for All grant, said revoking the award would undermine the Trump administration’s efforts to address soaring electricity demand fueled by artificial intelligence data centers. Solar is so expensive and cost-inefficient per-household. Data centers need their own large, uninterrupted power supplies.
- hristov 1y agoWrong, solar is cheap and probably the cheapest energy source a household can get if they have a sunny roof. Source - I have solar, have done the math.
- Spivak 1y agoIt's not ideal for everyone's situation but it's damn cheap. One of my neighbors has solar panels, no battery or storage of any kind, we don't have net metering here, and their electric bill is single digits.
- bfeynman 1y agoIs this if you just do the entire setup yourself? I'm pretty sure the math on solar currently is quite bad for the vast majority of people in the USA.
- garciasn 1y agoI had it priced out by 5 different vendors. Only one of those 5 was in any way truthful about the reality for my particular home: "you will likely only get 15% of what others with panels might due to the shape of your roof and tree cover now and especially in 10 years." That said, WITH grid-kickbacks (all of which are not at all guaranteed), according to 4 of them, I would be looking at a net zero cost in 30-36 years. I'm not even talking about the fact that panels MAY act like a pool for resale. Some people DO want them--again depending on your locale--most, at this point, do NOT where I live. I was looking primarily for cost reduction and a very small percentage of saving the environment or whatever you want to call it. But; depending on your locale, home structure, etc, solar may not at all be that. If you're leaning more on the side of energy independence and eco-friendliness, maybe it's a better fit for you.
- myrmidon 1y agoI'm very curious if there are any well-informed positive takes on Trumps climate policy. Personally, I believe even Biden-era efforts were insufficient; but all the common arguments to do less against climate change that I encounter regularly fall into the following 3 categories: 1) Selfishness/Freedom at someone elses cost ("why should I suffer from restrictions just to mitigate negative externalities") 2) Poorly informed skepticism toward solar panels, batteries, electric vehicles, frequently involving extremely implausible assumptions about production costs. 3) (Misinformed) dismissal of climate-change consequences ("a few degrees warmer won't hurt too much") Currently I can't help but think that people will look back on this in a few decades and regard the whole position as obvious idiocy (similarly to the US waging war in Vietnam).
- cogman10 1y agoThe best positive take I could make for the Trump policy is that the negative consequences of it are somewhat too late. Solar, wind, and battery, even without the grants, is already quite cheap. You'd have to fine the industries to really slow down deployment at this point. That means the 7B is mostly saved money with not too much negative impacts. (I still think it's a bad idea, don't get me wrong, but it's probably not the worst thing in the world).
- actionfromafar 1y agoI think they will find a way to fine or otherwise penalize wind and solar. Just give it some time, it hasn't been even a year yet.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- Loudergood 1y agoHere you go https://www.transportation.gov/briefing-room/president-trumps-transportation-secretary-sean-p-duffy-biden-buttigieg-ignored https://www.transportation.gov/briefing-room/president-trump...
- tootie 1y agoOnce again cutting off their nose to spite their face. And showing their complete ignorance of economics. Or possibly just their personal indebtedness to the oil and gas industries for supporting their election. The long term costs of climate change are going to dwarf any outlays for renewable energy adoption.
- normalaccess 1y agoOR, fusion. Microsoft is putting their bets on a sun in a bottle. If it works Solar and wind is dead. Maybe the administration doesn't want to back a losing horse. https://kpq.com/helion-fusion-plant-chelan-pud/ https://kpq.com/helion-fusion-plant-chelan-pud/
- loudmax 1y agoYou're giving the administration far too much credit. The policies are decided on alignment with culture war tribalism, or in some cases outright personal grift. Science and technology, or even sensible economics don't enter into it.
- gregbot 1y ago>The policies are decided on alignment with culture war tribalism Couldn’t the same be said for policies that subsidize solar and wind?
- tootie 1y agoNo. Renewables are the best policy. They have become aligned with liberals because conservatives decided to make energy policy a wedge issue instead of being rational.
- normalaccess 1y agoSolar and wind are not "renewable" in the same way plastic recycling "works". The total LiveCycle of wind and solar arguably cause more pollution from the materials used. you can't recycle wind and solar when they are done. The generator itself is the waste produced from the process. Not only that Solar changes the local climate because they absorbed and radiate heat as well as taking vast amounts of land that is stripped of life. Wind drives whales insane on the coast and kills massive amounts of birds. If we can crack fusion then the only fuels used are helium and such. Much cleaner and they work at night and whin the air is still.
- EcommerceFlow 1y agoI'm disappointed with both parties in regards to Solar, especially considering the sheer importance for the future. The problem I had with the Biden subsidies (as far as I'm aware) was that it didn't really foster hyper competition in the solar manufacturing industry. Furthermore, the best solution here is to create giant solar farms in the American SouthWest, then funnel energy across the country, is it not? Energy loss is minor, even along thousands of KM in distance. My dream here is Trump comes out with some new subsidies, focusing on manufacturing, which would drive the price down substantially and hopefully negate the need for consumer subsidies. We need the new tech-right guys in his admin to speak up on this!
- normalaccess 1y agoDon't worry about Solar or wind... Fusion might be right around the corner. Microsoft backed Fusion (Yes FUSION) power plant. https://kpq.com/helion-fusion-plant-chelan-pud/ https://kpq.com/helion-fusion-plant-chelan-pud/
- Loudergood 1y agoJust 5 more years!
- normalaccess 1y agoMore like 3, quote from Helion about the ne plant being built right now. "The company said, with site work now underway, Helion remains on track to meet the goal of doing so by 2028." Also, wind and solar are not the end, only a stop gap.
- warkdarrior 1y ago> My dream here is Trump comes out with some new subsidies, focusing on manufacturing, which would drive the price down substantially and hopefully negate the need for consumer subsidies. Locally manufactured panels will never be substantially cheaper than imported panels + tariffs. It does not make sense economically to be substantially cheaper.
- idiotsecant 1y agoSolar is fine, but what we need grants for is storage and transmission. There are already areas of the country that we have way too much solar, i.e. southern California. If you have too much generation and not enough storage and transmission you get strange artifacts like the price of power rapidly going from negative to extremely high values. That's not a mark of a healthy, balanced system. The problem is that getting political support for storage and transmission is much more difficult because everyone knows what a solar panel is. They don't always understand the intricacies of a net-zero electrical system.
- toomuchtodo 1y agoUS battery storage tax incentives remain intact. Standalone energy storage projects are excluded from the provisions of the One Big Beautiful Bill and will continue to qualify for the federal Investment Tax Credit (ITC). We'll return to ramp on the low carbon generation after regime change. https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/energy-almanac/california-electricity-data/california-energy-storage-system-survey https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/energy-almanac/califo... https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=64705 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=64705 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=64586 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=64586
- hooverd 1y agoIt's time to build!
- southernplaces7 1y agoThis is just blatantly stupid in the crudest sense. You want to showcase yourself as a friend of big industrial interests, oil and whatever else, fine. Want to spit in the face of "progressive" energy rhetoric? okay, sure, whatever. But why try to ruin a genuinely useful, powerfully developing technology for such crude motivations? Of course, because you're Trump (or a Trump appointee) and need to showcase your reactionary ass to the world of your perceived enemies even when it's completely counterproductive to do so.
- gregbot 1y agoI dont think there is a conspiracy by oil and gas companies to sabotage solar and wind. I think solar and wind are just not as easy and cheap to build a reliable grid because of transmission and storage costs which advocates always underestimate.
- insane_dreamer 1y agoThat’s incorrect
- triceratops 1y ago> I dont think there is a conspiracy by oil and gas companies to sabotage solar and wind. That's exactly what someone participating in the conspiracy would say. At this point it's an open secret that oil and gas have used their money to lobby against all alternative sources of energy, including HN's golden boy: nuclear. Exhibit A: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sierra_Club#Budget_and_funding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sierra_Club#Budget_and_funding Environmentalists didn't kill nuclear energy. They are a patsy for Big Oil.
- gregbot 1y agoThat’s great information thank you. I still think there is plenty of grass roots anti-nuclear sentiment
- triceratops 1y ago
- toastercat 1y agoCan someone in this thread please give me a good steelman that humans don't have a significant affect on climate change? This seems to be a growing sentiment among friends who I regard as intelligent, but goes against what I've believed to be the scientific consensus for years. I'm willing to admit I've been misled or wrong.
- czzr 1y agoOf course humans have a significant effect on climate change - the steelman versions of why that doesn’t matter are: 1) It doesn’t matter because we will figure out some technological solution in the future. Or 2) it doesn’t matter since I personally will be ok (because I am rich and/or live in a rich country that can afford to pay the costs)
- morkalork 1y ago(1) feels like a red herring when powers that be are fighting tooth and nail against solutions we have today
- tim333 1y agoI'm of the view climate change is real but not as big a deal as some people make out. A couple of reasons: - Solar power has been growing exponentially for years and will continue for a while allowing carbon usage to be phased out and maybe carbon capture done. - The climate has changed naturally more than most people realise and life goes on. The sea is forecast to rise 60cm or so over this century but has risen ~120m over the last 20k years which was hardly noticed. (graph from wikipedia https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1d/Post-Glacial_Sea_Level.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1d/Post-Gla...)
- czzr 1y agoOn point 2 - notice how flat your graph is for the last 6k years? Also, why do you think the impact of past changes on a tiny group of humans living as hunter gatherers is of any relevance to 8 billion people living in the modern world (including, for example, in massive coastal cities?)
- ck2 1y agoThis isn't conservatism, it's regressionism Will take DECADES to rebuild this country back Medicine, Science, Weather, Academia, etc. etc. Certainly not my lifetime, maybe not even anyone on HN right now
- dehrmann 1y agoIf it weren't for tariffs on foreign panels, I wonder how cheap solar would be. Solar's gotten cheap very quickly; we might be at the point that it's viable on its own.
- blacksmith_tb 1y agoThere are good US producers, I have 9kW of Silfab[1] panels on my roof, made in Washington state. 1: https://silfabsolar.com/ https://silfabsolar.com/
- DudeOpotomus 1y agoTrump is a gift to our adversaries. They could not have created a better path to overtaking the USA in science, tech, healthcare and defense. Sure makes one wonder if he is legitimately this stupid or if he has been legitimately compromised.
- vipa123 1y agoWhy not both?
- sundaeofshock 1y agoI don’t wonder about either. He is one of the stupidest — if not the stupidest — individual to occupy the White House.
- ujkhsjkdhf234 1y agoHow else is Trump going to pay for those tax cuts for his billionaire buddies?
- jauntywundrkind 1y agoThe Interior Department is almost making it impossible to build renewables. > The Interior Department released a new secretarial order Friday saying it may no longer issue any permits to a solar or wind project on federal lands unless the agency believes it will generate as much energy per acre as a coal, gas, or nuclear power plant. https://heatmap.news/sparks/interior-department-wind-solar-land-use https://heatmap.news/sparks/interior-department-wind-solar-l... Yeah, like, there's zero chance a solar plant is going to be as power dense as a natural gas plant. America has been taken over by traitors trying to destroy this nation.
- exe34 1y ago> unless the agency believes it will generate as much energy per acre as a coal, gas, or nuclear power plant That's amazing! America is famously known for lacking land.
- malfist 1y agoThis is the same sort of nonsense they pulled on abortion providers. Just bury people in pointless regulation to keep them from operating, like requiring abortion clinics to have hallways at least 12ft wide
- toomuchtodo 1y agoNot to worry, there is a whole lot of farm land that is going to free up soon for renewables as farmers go bankrupt from suboptimal agriculture trade policy. https://www.uaex.uada.edu/media-resources/news/2025/july/07-07-2025-ark-farm-bankruptcies.aspx https://www.uaex.uada.edu/media-resources/news/2025/july/07-... https://farmpolicynews.illinois.edu/2025/07/farm-bankruptcies-this-year-already-exceed-2024-levels/ https://farmpolicynews.illinois.edu/2025/07/farm-bankruptcie... (soybean exports to China from the US are already down 96% this year; also, while most federal lands are west of the midwest great plains, there should be sufficient non federal land to meet the energy needs of West Coast load centers: https://www.usgs.gov/media/images/pad-us-14-map-federal-lands https://www.usgs.gov/media/images/pad-us-14-map-federal-land...)