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The trump administration by refusing to admit the superior metrics of solar, they're just burying their heads in sand. As admitting that solar is now a superio
by dzonga 8mo ago
The trump administration by refusing to admit the superior metrics of solar, they're just burying their heads in sand.
As admitting that solar is now a superior and cost effective means of energy means admitting that the US is no longer top dog.
As empires are built on mastering a source of energy.
the Portuguese | Dutch - mastered wind to power their ships.
the British mastered coal to power Industrial Revolution.
America mastered oil
now the Chinese have Solar.
even in places like Africa etc -- places were the grid was never available for $2k -- you can power your whole house with solar and lithium batteries. Panels are getting cheaper, same as batteries. Once the tipping point is reached for electric vehicles both personal and commercial - transition to fully electric mobility happens
- Gibbon1 8mo agoSome comment I read I keep coming back to. They (elites) will risk everything to give up nothing. The same elites that were telling us we can't have electric cars because the power grid can't support them are now building massive data centers for AI which they think will allow them to completely ignore the working class.
- floatrock 8mo agoChinese also have battery manufacturing, whose rapidly falling cost-curve is what is missing to enable 24/7 solar. American empire ruled with the petrodollar. Chinese will rule with the solaryuan if we don't get our shit together.
- BLKNSLVR 8mo agoEven if the US gets it's shit together it's already lost the solar and battery fight. It will have to win the next one - which it might do with AI.
- maxerickson 8mo agoWhat does it mean to lose? Like we can, uh, transfer the technology and build at whatever cost we can build at. Good luck to China charging us more than that cost.
- jandrese 8mo agoYou just slightly missed the crux of the issue here. The big "problem" with renewables like solar is that once you've installed enough for yourself you are done for like 30 years. There is no monthly sun fee you need to keep paying. There is no solardollar, because there's nothing that needs to be extracted, transported, and sold every single day. A lot of billionaires are in an existential crisis over a world where fossil fuels are no longer the driving force of the economy. That's why we have incessant propaganda against renewable energy. Even the solar panel market is self defeating. Once there is enough installed power the demand will drop off sharply as the refresh cycle is too long. The feedback loop of capitalism means we are likely to reach that point sooner than you would expect. That said, don't think I'm like the nuclear power guys of the 50s who claimed that electricity would be so abundant that we wouldn't even bother to meter it. There are still costs with maintenance, repair, administration, debt servicing, and profits. If you look at your power bill today it will probably list generation, distribution, and taxes. Renewables only eliminate the generation costs, which are usually about half of the bill.
- ViewTrick1002 8mo agoAn interesting prospect is the grids getting smaller. Becoming distributed again. Why pay the enormous maintenance cost for a continental scale grid when you can in your neighborhood have a small local grid with solar, wind and storage followed by a tiny diesel/gas turbine ensuring reliability through firming. When deemed necessary decarbonize the firming by running it on carbon neutral fuels.
- xbmcuser 8mo agoTrue but there are 2 technology converges that are happening at the same time cheap energy that is getting cheaper. And automation powered by that energy that also gets cheaper as energy gets cheaper as well as efficiency gains. The current world economic systems and most government systems are unlikely to survive the upheaval that this will cause in the next 15-20 years.
- citrin_ru 8mo ago> Even the solar panel market is self defeating. Once there is enough installed power the demand will drop off sharply as the refresh cycle is too long. It's not going to happen soon - solar is still just 8% of world energy production. Even if solar will cover 100% of consumption on a sunny day it still would make sense to buy more panels to have enough output on a cloudy day or in the morning/evening. It's likely production of solar panels will be a good business till at least 2050 and oil business will start to decline before that unless will be propped by corrupt politicians.
- pksebben 8mo agoI think you've misunderstood the term 'petrodollar'. Petrodollars are the American currency in circulation abroad because we bought other people's oil (principally Saudi), not exported our own. The 'export' that made the US powerful was finance and political manipulation - toppling socialist / populist leaders to install puppets and controlling economies by manipulating trade. I think your original point kind of stands, though - we are seeing a decline and independence from our supply chain is going to be a deciding factor in 'who's the next top dog', but I think the decline is going to be a lot uglier than a simple "they have it now and we don't" - it's going to be all the thrashing about that an aggressive international power does when the grift no longer works.
- mbgerring 8mo agoNo, it's the US dollars circulating globally because all transactions for oil anywhere in the world are dollar-denominated, giving the US control over the entire global financial system.
- JumpCrisscross 8mo ago> because all transactions for oil anywhere in the world are dollar-denominated This was sort of true in the 1970s only because we ignored the Soviet Union and its allies, which included a lot of petroleum production. It's totally untrue now, in a world where America exports oil. (I traded contracts in Connecticut in the early 2010s. Oil was priced in all sorts of currencies. British and Norwegian oil, for example, is sold for local currency.)
- samrus 8mo agoWhat about iranian or russian oil? Can british and norweigian buy iranian oil in currency other than dollars?
- JumpCrisscross 8mo ago> Can british and norweigian buy iranian oil in currency other than dollars? Both Russia and Iran are heavily sanctioned by the U.S. Neither sells its oil for dollars by default, though either will accept them, of course. Note, too, that pricing and settlement are different. If I’m Russia selling oil to India, I can “sell” at $50/barrel and accept payment in rupees or rubles. (Indian refineries were not paying Russia dollars for oil.)
- samrus 8mo agoSolaryuan? How does that work? You dont need to buy sun. Just the initial infrastructure. Even if, in a post oil world, china refuses to let you buy the latest panels down the line, a country could just coast on its existing solar infra. Theres no need to use the yuan to sell of buy the energy
- ksec 8mo agoOH wow. American Petrodollar and Chinese SolarYuan are great terms.
- WarmWash 8mo agoSomeone desperately needs to build the largest solar farm on earth, nakedly as a direct affront to China, and call it the "The Grand Trump Sun Energy Complex", with a large statue of him standing at the center of the massive radial field of panels. The dude would have no choice but to approve it and provide funding for it.
- dalyons 8mo agoYou’re joking but that would probably actually work
- jiggawatts 8mo agoWith what panels? The vast majority are made in China.
- oblio 8mo agoSo are MAGA hats.
- jiggawatts 8mo agoThe irony of proudly wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat made overseas to support a renowned grifter… I have no words.
- philipkglass 8mo agoThe US manufactures more solar panels now than it ever has before. It just looks small because Chinese solar manufacturing has grown enormously. First Solar makes panels in the US and is the single largest supplier for utility scale solar farms in the US. If someone wanted to build the world's largest solar farm in the US as a stunt, domestic First Solar capacity alone could do it: https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2025/11/03/first-solar-to-open-its-fifth-u-s-factory-adding-3-7-gw-of-annual-production/ https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2025/11/03/first-solar-to-open-i... The current single largest solar farm is 15.6 gigawatts of nameplate capacity. It would take a bit more than a year of First Solar domestic manufacturing to surpass that.
- tokenless 8mo ago"Drill baby drill" as he said this week.
- mlsu 8mo agoIt's just so breathtakingly OBVIOUS. And it has been for a decade. Yet we have done nearly nothing. I mean it doesn't really matter, does it? Even with 200% tariffs solar panels will still be cheapest. The entire global supply chain will move towards electrification. The only question is whether we will be left behind or not.
- nerdralph 8mo agoPanels prices bottomed about a year ago below many manufacturer's cash cost, and have gone mostly sideways since. https://www.pvxchange.com/Price-Index https://www.pvxchange.com/Price-Index If silver stays above $70/oz, prices will likely go up by 5-10%. Until Perovskite tandem technology matures, there's unlikely to be any significant reduction in PV module prices.
- Tade0 8mo agoManufacturers already reacted and intensified efforts to replace silver in panels with copper: https://finance-commerce.com/2026/02/solar-panels-silver-to-copper-price-surge/ https://finance-commerce.com/2026/02/solar-panels-silver-to-...
- nerdralph 8mo agoI know. AIKO has been using copper in their BC cells, and LONGi is making the transition. Many TOPCon cell manufacturers are using silver-coated copper pastes, but full copper metallization is unlikely to happen in the next year or two.
- jandrese 8mo agoEven if they got stuck at that price point and never went down again it's already over. 30 years of buying natural gas can't compete with that.
- chipsa 8mo agoI got panels last year because I’m pretty confident that the majority of the cost of putting panels on my roof is the stuff besides the actual panels. So pricing won’t go down much for getting an actual installer to do it.
- blitzar 8mo ago> the majority of the cost of putting panels on my roof is the stuff besides the actual panels and installation / wages dont seem like they are going down anytime in the foreseable future
- viewtransform 8mo agoCalifornia power generation profile yesterday showing solar and battery proportion. https://engaging-data.com/california-electricity-generation/?date=2026-02-24 https://engaging-data.com/california-electricity-generation/...
- margalabargala 8mo agoIs California enough to drag the rest of the country with them, though?
- 8ytecoder 8mo agoTexas, technically, generates more TWh than California. I think a data center boom followed by a bust would help a lot more than what California can do. Unlike in cars, CAs market size or regulations can’t help/hinder other fuel sources as much. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_renewable_electricity_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_renewab...
- mlrtime 8mo agoInteresting this doesn't get passed around as much, not only does Texas generate more than California, it's twice as much. The % is lower, but still higher than the countries average.
- margalabargala 8mo agoGood point. Are Texas and California enough to drag the rest of the US with them?
- manacit 8mo agoGrid-connected PV in Texas has grown between 33% and over 100% every year since 2008, which outpaces the growth of solar in the US in the same timeframe. California's percentage of solar generation as a share of the entire solar generation in the USA has shrunk every year since 2016. It's not been accurate to say that California is dragging the rest of the country with them for a long time when it comes to energy generation.
- dylan604 8mo ago> The trump administration by refusing to admit the superior metrics of solar, they're just burying their heads in sand. I don't think I agree with this as it suggests they are doing it because they can't be bothered about it. Instead, they are doing it specifically because their (and/or their friend's) pockets are getting filled. To me, the latter is much more sinister.
- yoyohello13 8mo agoIt such obvious corruption. Trump ordered the pentagon to buy coal power specifically.
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- _DeadFred_ 8mo agoThe crazy thing is coal mining is 40,000 jobs. I have never seen such a tiny industry given such preferential/oversized treatment. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CES1021210001 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CES1021210001 Lyft is 10% of the size of big coal and Amazon is over 20x larger.
- WD-42 8mo agoMeanwhile the areas where the coal jobs used to exist (or still do) just had their food stamps removed or reduced. It's such a charade.
- SlightlyLeftPad 8mo agoThere’s such an amount of implied or perceived shame attached to using these government safety nets in America. I’d be surprised if anyone who was benefiting from them worked in coal.
- PearlRiver 8mo ago
- Buttons840 8mo agoAlso, the US has a lot of influence over the flow of oil in the world. A world of cheap solar energy removes that influence.
- kennyloginz 8mo agoTrue, but until we reach a global state, everyone’s militaries require much oil.
- kilroy123 8mo agoHe doesn't care about solar because it does nothing to boost his narcissism. Simple as that. He can't take credit for it. It doesn't boost his image. It's just a simple quiet thing sitting there working.
- hunterpayne 8mo agoYou refuse to understand the difference between capacity and utilization. That mass of solar still only makes about 1/6th the actual number of watts of power delivered to the grid. Anyone who shows you capacity numbers about energy generation is intentionally lying to you. Capacity factor matters. The capacity factor of nuclear is .9. For Hydro and FF, its .6. For solar its .1. That means 9 watts of solar capacity generates the same amount of power as 1 watt of nuclear capacity or 1.5 watts of Hydro capacity. That's why you keep getting shown capacity instead of utilization (the number that matters).
- _whiteCaps_ 8mo agoCapacity factor solar is highly variable. AFAIK in Arizona it's something like 0.3.
- WhompingWindows 8mo agoParent didn't mention either capacity or utilization? The article itself is mentioning generation. Not sure where you're getting what you're responding to?
- hunterpayne 8mo agoThe article reports capacity (which doesn't matter) not utilization (which does). Not sure why you are responding about a topic about which you literally don't know the first thing.
- fsckboy 8mo ago>the Portuguese | Dutch - mastered wind to power their ships. the British mastered coal to power Industrial Revolution the British were world-beating masters of sailing technology before they were masters of anything else, and that enabled them to leverage their advances in other areas (including mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the noonday sun) to become a mercantile behemoth.
- mr_toad 8mo agoThey cut down their forests to build ships; they needed coal to keep the lights on.
- thelastgallon 8mo agoChina will replace Oil (+Fossil fuel) based ecosystems and applications of energy. Think about all the Oil wealth, but add on energy storage, an unsolved problem of mankind, and all the applications of energy production+storage. We already see this dominance in EVs. Soon, everything else will be replaced. We live in interesting times!
- kennyloginz 8mo agoThe worlds militaries will always require oil.
- dyauspitr 8mo agoThe Trump administration is intentionally trying to kill solar so that their oil buddies can make money for another 5-10 years. It’s insane to think that close to 80% of cars in shenzen are electric. I don’t even understand how that works. These EV cars have been around for about a decade. How has the entire population of the city purchased a new vehicle in that short span of time.
- dranudin 8mo agoI guess most just did not have a car before...
- ZeroGravitas 8mo agoIt's quadrupled in population in the last two decades and gone from a manufacturing hub to China's Silicon Valley, so it's probably the least surprising place to be full of EVs.
- pjc50 8mo ago> These EV cars have been around for about a decade. How has the entire population of the city purchased a new vehicle in that short span of time. As one comment says, many of those are going from 0 cars to 1 car. But also the average age of cars in China is less: https://min.news/en/auto/6ebd7edbc7df2c10102b857be9c06a47.html https://min.news/en/auto/6ebd7edbc7df2c10102b857be9c06a47.ht... It's also worth questioning what wealth and poverty look like in China; the changes in family structure; savings, investment, and credit; and so on. Shenzen is a rich city.
- toss1 8mo agoAnd for a regime claiming to support jobs, sustainable energy provides/requires orders of magnitude more workers than the obsolete, expensive, and dirty coal they are pushing again for no reason. Moreover, no semi-smart coal miner would wish a coal mining career on their sons. They'd want them to have honest work that is clean and won't likely kill them either quickly in a disaster or slowly by breathing in coal and rock dust all day.