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Related: Alec Watson’s recent, and excellent, Technology Connections YouTube piece on renewable energy. “You are being misled about renewable energy technology

by Wistar 7mo ago

Related: Alec Watson’s recent, and excellent, Technology Connections YouTube piece on renewable energy. “You are being misled about renewable energy technology” https://youtu.be/KtQ9nt2ZeGM?si=CJ_Tt9DnWSKH8eGC https://youtu.be/KtQ9nt2ZeGM?si=CJ_Tt9DnWSKH8eGC

AnotherGoodName 7mo ago
One nice thing about what’s happening is that politics are losing to reality. I’m not even sure how this became a left vs right issue in the first place (isn’t the right meant to be pro free market!?) but it doesn’t matter at this point anyway. Eg. Texas is doing really well in renewable rollouts (see the amount of battery capacity they are putting in - https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/energy-environment/2026/02/25/544339/texas-power-energy-storage-battery-data-centers/ https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/energy-envi... It’s certainly not because of Texan politics either. It’s just cold hard reality. Renewables won’t be stopped at this point. Even the executive orders to halt wind farms don’t make a dent in what’s happening. We may end up a few years later than other nations but at least it’s unstoppable.
- lm28469 7mo ago
  > I’m not even sure how this became a left vs right issue in the first place (isn’t the right meant to be pro free market!?) Besides the whole petro money and lobbyism thing that drove the US politics since Edwin Drake?
- sheikhnbake 7mo ago
  It became left vs right because the interests of the rich have an easier time exploiting the right wing's vulnerability to fusion identity. The right wing is defined by a collective appreciation for hierarchies and conformity. A lot of folks are spreading the message 'it's not right vs left but up vs down when in reality its both.
- AxiomaticSpace 7mo ago
  Yea I wonder how that battery capacity graph will look like post January 2026, since Texas's SB388 specifically excludes batteries from it's dispatchable power generation requirements. That doesn't necessarily prevent batteries storage from being constructed, but it does tilt the field pretty heavily in favor of natural gas.
  - dalyons 7mo ago
    AFAIU that bill did not pass and died.
- danans 7mo ago
  > One nice thing about what’s happening is that politics are losing to reality. I’m not even sure how this became a left vs right issue in the first place (isn’t the right meant to be pro free market!?) No, the right isn't meant to be pro free-market. It's meant to protect the interests, longevity, and demand-capture of its donor industries, primarily fossil fuels extraction, processing, and distribution, but increasingly large technology companies in monopoly positions in their markets. All the "free-market" to "culture-war" rhetoric are just political/religious strategies to achieve that end.
  - ggggffggggg 7mo ago
    At scale no group is against its own personal interests. It sucks and it’s hypocritical and annoying, but that’s humans.
    - JuniperMesos 7mo ago
      Why is it inherently good for a group to be against its own personal interests? Whose interests should a group favor instead?
    - dec0dedab0de 7mo ago
      Programmers are, because we keep encouraging AI to replace us.
    - ceejayoz 7mo ago
      > At scale no group is against its own personal interests. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_German_National_Jews https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_German_National...
      - ggggffggggg 7mo ago
        Don’t you think they thought this was self-interest?
        ceejayoz 7mo ago
- deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
- chasd00 7mo ago
  > It’s certainly not because of Texan politics either. It’s just cold hard reality. one of the few good things Rick Perry did for TX was upgrade the grid so West Texas wind power can reach the main cities. Once West TX showed renewables could make a profit then there's not much anyone, left or right, could do to stop it. The lobbyists made sure of that. Southwest Texas, where all the fracking took place, also turns out to be good for solar. It's very flat, sunny, and has pretty stable weather. I guess the grid is beefed up and accessible in that region because of the oil/gas industry, I've seen solar farms out there that are so big it's hard to describe. Imagine seeing a shimmering blue that looks like a lake on the desert horizon but then you get to it and it's just miles of solar panels. Again, the moment solar turned a profit there was no stopping it.
- dalyons 7mo ago
  Sadly they can be stopped. ~25% of US counties have adopted regulation effectively blocking new solar and wind (1). Up from 15% only a year ago! Peoples stupidity and self sabotage truly knows no bounds. 1 https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2026/02/21/takeaways-solar-wind-opposition-investigation-maps-charts/88720227007/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2026/02/2...
- eucyclos 7mo ago
  I suspect it's a left vs right issue because the right is the cheerleader of the military industrial complex, which is only justified by protecting oil interests. If oil becomes a curiosity useful for making certain consumer products and little else, the military industrial complex is oversized by any metric, hence the right is against that. Or to oversimplify even more: it's the Bush dynasty's fault.
epistasis 7mo ago
I've had so many arguments with people that think replacing a continual supply of gasoline with solar panels and batteries means that we are just as dependent on the source of solar panels as we are on the source of gasoline. It's hard for people to visualize the massive shift here. It's the difference between needing to eat every single day, to merely needing to buy a 5-year supply and never having to worry about eating again until 5 years from now. Except that it's 30+ years for solar panels, 20+ years for batteries. The amount of independence and security that renewables-based energy infrastructure provides is hard to imagine for most people. The US's two big inflationary events in the past 50 years have been due to global fossil fuel supply shocks. And the second one that happened in the 2020s was when the US was a net exporter of energy! We still had exposure to inflation shocks because we had a global market for our energy sources. Renewables change all that. Even if we bought all of our solar panels and batteries from China today, we'd have far better energy security, and have decades to build up the industry to replace them if we wanted to switch to autarky. (And autarky is a terrible idea, but that's a different discussion...)
- Kye 7mo ago
  You also get 30 years of efficiency improvements and 20 years of capacity and reliability improvements when you replace them. In practice: https://www.rte.ie/news/regional/2026/0116/1553440-mayo-wind-farm/ https://www.rte.ie/news/regional/2026/0116/1553440-mayo-wind... >> "Each one of the new wind turbines will be capable of supplying more power to the national electricity grid than was generated by the entire Bellacorick wind farm."
  - rsynnott 7mo ago
    Well, in that case they’re also far bigger turbines (bigger than were available when the original project was built, granted).
  - epistasis 7mo ago
    It's funny, there was meme-like behavior a few years ago where anti-wind advocates would say "they're tearing down the wind farms before their end of life, like only 15 years in! Clearly wind doesn't work at all!" And then you'd go and look at the details of any these "tear downs" and you find out that it's not because the current wind farm is failing, it's because turbine technology had improved so much that it made financial sense to drop in much bigger turbines right now, before their natural end of life. Shortly after that, there started to be complaints about "what will we do with the waste from these massive wind turbine blades!?" as if they were in any way comparable in toxicity to the byproducts of fossil fuel extraction and burning. It's so funny to see how shallow these anti-renewable talking points are. They all require that people spend zero effort and avoid critical thought in any way.
crystal_revenge 7mo ago
That entire talk didn't once mention the phrase "energy density" which is the real reason we rely so heavily on hydrocarbons. Additionally this talk makes the usual mistake of conflating "electricity" with "energy". While the US does have fairly high percentage of energy in the form of electricity it's still only around 33% of the US energy needs. And still we see that "green energy" only supplements not replaces our other energy needs. We've seen tremendous EV adoption and yet US oil consumption is on an upward trend and nearing pre-pandemic highs [0]. It's wild that there are multiple, very serious global conflicts heating up over control of oil and people still believe we're just a few more years away from a purely green energy world with no evidence to suggest that's a remotely reasonable belief. 0. https://afdc.energy.gov/data/10324 https://afdc.energy.gov/data/10324
- ceejayoz 7mo ago
  > It's wild that there are multiple, very serious global conflicts heating up over control of oil… That's what happens when the "Leader of the Free World" is 79 with dementia with memories of the 1970s oil crisis. We're not likely to get useful oil out of Venezuela, and any we do get isn't gonna be cost-competitive against solar.
  - irishcoffee 7mo ago
    Military vehicles that take oil-derived fuel take diesel, not hydrocarbons. The oil in Venezuela serves that purpose nicely. No, I am not condoning anything here, just pointing something out.
    - ceejayoz 7mo ago
      There’s plenty of diesel available to us that doesn’t require stabilizing an authoritarian Central American nation and rebuilding their oil industry first.
      - irishcoffee 7mo ago
        > We're not likely to get useful oil out of Venezuela, and any we do get isn't gonna be cost-competitive against solar. I was responding to that bit. It isn't accurate. I also said I don't condone it. Ignoring facts isn't helpful for anyone. Edit for ratelimiting: > You think it's likely that the US will manage to create a stable enough government in Venezuela for foreign investment to be successful? What in the history of American regime change efforts gives you this idea? No. I was simply saying the oil is useful in the military-industrial complex, and it does have value. I've said this twice already. I cannot say if this value will be realized, and for the third time, I don't condone it.
subpixel 7mo ago
May the man run for office
- jp191919 7mo ago
  The world isn't ready for that.
  - Wistar 7mo ago
    Maybe it is.
smoovb 7mo ago
Biggest take away - 90 million acres in the US go to corn/ethanol production. 31 acres of corn for ethanol to match the energy production of just 1 acre of solar panels. Revenue could be 3-4x that of corn production. Get ready for rise of the photon farmers.

by Wistar 7mo ago

AnotherGoodName 7mo ago

One nice thing about what’s happening is that politics are losing to reality. I’m not even sure how this became a left vs right issue in the first place (isn’t the right meant to be pro free market!?) but it doesn’t matter at this point anyway. Eg. Texas is doing really well in renewable rollouts (see the amount of battery capacity they are putting in - https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/energy-environment/2026/02/25/544339/texas-power-energy-storage-battery-data-centers/ https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/energy-envi... It’s certainly not because of Texan politics either. It’s just cold hard reality. Renewables won’t be stopped at this point. Even the executive orders to halt wind farms don’t make a dent in what’s happening. We may end up a few years later than other nations but at least it’s unstoppable.

lm28469 7mo ago
> I’m not even sure how this became a left vs right issue in the first place (isn’t the right meant to be pro free market!?) Besides the whole petro money and lobbyism thing that drove the US politics since Edwin Drake?
sheikhnbake 7mo ago
It became left vs right because the interests of the rich have an easier time exploiting the right wing's vulnerability to fusion identity. The right wing is defined by a collective appreciation for hierarchies and conformity. A lot of folks are spreading the message 'it's not right vs left but up vs down when in reality its both.
AxiomaticSpace 7mo ago
Yea I wonder how that battery capacity graph will look like post January 2026, since Texas's SB388 specifically excludes batteries from it's dispatchable power generation requirements. That doesn't necessarily prevent batteries storage from being constructed, but it does tilt the field pretty heavily in favor of natural gas.
- dalyons 7mo ago
  AFAIU that bill did not pass and died.
danans 7mo ago
> One nice thing about what’s happening is that politics are losing to reality. I’m not even sure how this became a left vs right issue in the first place (isn’t the right meant to be pro free market!?) No, the right isn't meant to be pro free-market. It's meant to protect the interests, longevity, and demand-capture of its donor industries, primarily fossil fuels extraction, processing, and distribution, but increasingly large technology companies in monopoly positions in their markets. All the "free-market" to "culture-war" rhetoric are just political/religious strategies to achieve that end.
- ggggffggggg 7mo ago
  At scale no group is against its own personal interests. It sucks and it’s hypocritical and annoying, but that’s humans.
  - JuniperMesos 7mo ago
    Why is it inherently good for a group to be against its own personal interests? Whose interests should a group favor instead?
  - dec0dedab0de 7mo ago
    Programmers are, because we keep encouraging AI to replace us.
  - ceejayoz 7mo ago
    > At scale no group is against its own personal interests. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_German_National_Jews https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_German_National...
    - ggggffggggg 7mo ago
      Don’t you think they thought this was self-interest?
      - ceejayoz 7mo ago
deleted 7mo ago
[deleted]
chasd00 7mo ago
> It’s certainly not because of Texan politics either. It’s just cold hard reality. one of the few good things Rick Perry did for TX was upgrade the grid so West Texas wind power can reach the main cities. Once West TX showed renewables could make a profit then there's not much anyone, left or right, could do to stop it. The lobbyists made sure of that. Southwest Texas, where all the fracking took place, also turns out to be good for solar. It's very flat, sunny, and has pretty stable weather. I guess the grid is beefed up and accessible in that region because of the oil/gas industry, I've seen solar farms out there that are so big it's hard to describe. Imagine seeing a shimmering blue that looks like a lake on the desert horizon but then you get to it and it's just miles of solar panels. Again, the moment solar turned a profit there was no stopping it.
dalyons 7mo ago
Sadly they can be stopped. ~25% of US counties have adopted regulation effectively blocking new solar and wind (1). Up from 15% only a year ago! Peoples stupidity and self sabotage truly knows no bounds. 1 https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2026/02/21/takeaways-solar-wind-opposition-investigation-maps-charts/88720227007/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2026/02/2...
eucyclos 7mo ago
I suspect it's a left vs right issue because the right is the cheerleader of the military industrial complex, which is only justified by protecting oil interests. If oil becomes a curiosity useful for making certain consumer products and little else, the military industrial complex is oversized by any metric, hence the right is against that. Or to oversimplify even more: it's the Bush dynasty's fault.

epistasis 7mo ago

I've had so many arguments with people that think replacing a continual supply of gasoline with solar panels and batteries means that we are just as dependent on the source of solar panels as we are on the source of gasoline. It's hard for people to visualize the massive shift here. It's the difference between needing to eat every single day, to merely needing to buy a 5-year supply and never having to worry about eating again until 5 years from now. Except that it's 30+ years for solar panels, 20+ years for batteries. The amount of independence and security that renewables-based energy infrastructure provides is hard to imagine for most people. The US's two big inflationary events in the past 50 years have been due to global fossil fuel supply shocks. And the second one that happened in the 2020s was when the US was a net exporter of energy! We still had exposure to inflation shocks because we had a global market for our energy sources. Renewables change all that. Even if we bought all of our solar panels and batteries from China today, we'd have far better energy security, and have decades to build up the industry to replace them if we wanted to switch to autarky. (And autarky is a terrible idea, but that's a different discussion...)

Kye 7mo ago
You also get 30 years of efficiency improvements and 20 years of capacity and reliability improvements when you replace them. In practice: https://www.rte.ie/news/regional/2026/0116/1553440-mayo-wind-farm/ https://www.rte.ie/news/regional/2026/0116/1553440-mayo-wind... >> "Each one of the new wind turbines will be capable of supplying more power to the national electricity grid than was generated by the entire Bellacorick wind farm."
- rsynnott 7mo ago
  Well, in that case they’re also far bigger turbines (bigger than were available when the original project was built, granted).
- epistasis 7mo ago
  It's funny, there was meme-like behavior a few years ago where anti-wind advocates would say "they're tearing down the wind farms before their end of life, like only 15 years in! Clearly wind doesn't work at all!" And then you'd go and look at the details of any these "tear downs" and you find out that it's not because the current wind farm is failing, it's because turbine technology had improved so much that it made financial sense to drop in much bigger turbines right now, before their natural end of life. Shortly after that, there started to be complaints about "what will we do with the waste from these massive wind turbine blades!?" as if they were in any way comparable in toxicity to the byproducts of fossil fuel extraction and burning. It's so funny to see how shallow these anti-renewable talking points are. They all require that people spend zero effort and avoid critical thought in any way.

crystal_revenge 7mo ago

That entire talk didn't once mention the phrase "energy density" which is the real reason we rely so heavily on hydrocarbons. Additionally this talk makes the usual mistake of conflating "electricity" with "energy". While the US does have fairly high percentage of energy in the form of electricity it's still only around 33% of the US energy needs. And still we see that "green energy" only supplements not replaces our other energy needs. We've seen tremendous EV adoption and yet US oil consumption is on an upward trend and nearing pre-pandemic highs [0]. It's wild that there are multiple, very serious global conflicts heating up over control of oil and people still believe we're just a few more years away from a purely green energy world with no evidence to suggest that's a remotely reasonable belief. 0. https://afdc.energy.gov/data/10324 https://afdc.energy.gov/data/10324

ceejayoz 7mo ago
> It's wild that there are multiple, very serious global conflicts heating up over control of oil… That's what happens when the "Leader of the Free World" is 79 with dementia with memories of the 1970s oil crisis. We're not likely to get useful oil out of Venezuela, and any we do get isn't gonna be cost-competitive against solar.
- irishcoffee 7mo ago
  Military vehicles that take oil-derived fuel take diesel, not hydrocarbons. The oil in Venezuela serves that purpose nicely. No, I am not condoning anything here, just pointing something out.
  - ceejayoz 7mo ago
    There’s plenty of diesel available to us that doesn’t require stabilizing an authoritarian Central American nation and rebuilding their oil industry first.
    - irishcoffee 7mo ago
      > We're not likely to get useful oil out of Venezuela, and any we do get isn't gonna be cost-competitive against solar. I was responding to that bit. It isn't accurate. I also said I don't condone it. Ignoring facts isn't helpful for anyone. Edit for ratelimiting: > You think it's likely that the US will manage to create a stable enough government in Venezuela for foreign investment to be successful? What in the history of American regime change efforts gives you this idea? No. I was simply saying the oil is useful in the military-industrial complex, and it does have value. I've said this twice already. I cannot say if this value will be realized, and for the third time, I don't condone it.

subpixel 7mo ago

May the man run for office

jp191919 7mo ago
The world isn't ready for that.
- Wistar 7mo ago
  Maybe it is.

smoovb 7mo ago

Biggest take away - 90 million acres in the US go to corn/ethanol production. 31 acres of corn for ethanol to match the energy production of just 1 acre of solar panels. Revenue could be 3-4x that of corn production. Get ready for rise of the photon farmers.