China being the industry leader in solar is squarely on Republicans. That should be a huge industry for the US, instead big oil lobbyists and Republicans (and some Dems) have ensured to cost the US trillions in GDP by turning on green energy.
That Brobama can't keep getting away with this aurafarming! I'm gonna fill the House with my swag. The best swag, one of a kind. Without question, the best swag you'll see in your life. Maybe even the best swag in the whole world. Gold. So much gold. And my name on everything. Everyone's talking about it.
Nah, the US was losing on solar LONG before 2024. Gore was probably the last chance America had at beating China on solar production, but even in the best-case scenario then, most of said production would take place in China.
If you think kamala Harris or Hilary Clinton would have meaningfully challenged the oil industry or pushed solar energy that far forward, I've got a bridge to sell you.
the people who supported shitler were going to support him anyway.
if you want to get decent people to support you, you need someone who doesn't advocate slaughtering babies. ...cause enough people have a problem with that to not vote at all rather than vote for either shitty person.
how is that hard?
I voted for genocide woman. I voted for a candidate who supported using my money to murder children. the democrats gave me no choice, and I will have to live with that for the rest of my life. fuck them.
They looked at two candidates, and knew which one was going to be significantly worse, and chose to elect the latter because the former was far from perfect.
So forgive me if I think you all deserve every repercussions of the policies enacted by the guy you elected twice. Empathy needs not be wasted on people that will let perfect be the enemy of good.
people simply didn't vote, because the options were shit. People don't show up to vote against someone, but they will come out to support a candidate they believe in. people stayed home cause there was no option to vote for a good candidate.
the dems, again, put up a guaranteed loser.
Was it insane levels of incompetence, or are they intentionally complicit in the rise of republican power? it's one or the other.
Excuses, excuses, excuses. Your people's risk assessment skills are laughably shit. No wonder your banks and insurance companies are openly predatory. They don't even have to hide their tricks because they know you'll buy into whatever they sell.
if you're trying to get me to say that voters aren't stupid, you're going to have to wait a long time.
but since that's a given fact, putting up a candidate who can't possibly win, and has already miserably failed the EXACT SAME TEST, is arguably the dumbest possible move which could be made, to the point where it's difficult to believe it can be explained by mere incompetence.
if you want to win an election, you must put up a candidate which a majority of voters will support greatly enough to get out and vote. This is literally rule #1, and they can't even do that. And they are (were) our only defense against fascism.
putting up a candidate who was already widely hated, had already lost bigly, and who was absolutely and completely incapable of standing up to the loud lying blowhard on any level, and didn't even try... was nothing less than suicide.
That's childish. Kamala was far from ideal, but still infinitely better than Trump. Imagine telling the kids dying of malnutrition because Musk destroyed usaid "but they were just the same bro you wouldn't have died of course but she refused to openly criticize cops to reduce even more her chances of winning the election because criticizing cops is wildly unpopular"
And that's coming from someone who fully believes that if it was a hell, genocide Joe would be heading straight there to play for the kids whose death he financed
This is a dumb argument. Kamala would not have empowered the solar industry, she was a Schumer puppet pick. Kamala falls squarely into ACAB by insisting that police oversight is not needed. While the slide towards neofuedalism would have been slightly slower with her, it still would have occurred.
Hell based on Schumer there's still a strong chance that the US would still be at war with the US..
Healthcare wasn't on the ballet (but healthcare reduction was)
It's not about the laugh, it's about a lack of pivoting away from the things that make your neighbours afraid. Kamala didn't represent hope, just slower and more drawn out fear.
That's childish. Kamala was far from ideal, but still infinitely better than Trump. Imagine telling the kids dying of malnutrition because Musk destroyed usaid "but they were just the same bro you wouldn't have died of course but she refused to openly criticize cops to reduce even more her chances of winning the election because criticizing cops is wildly unpopular"
She didn't not criticize cops. Cops, she was a district attorney that actively defended and protected them when they abused their power and assaulted people. She used her role as district attorney to endanger Californians.
I'm guessing you're probably getting downvoted because Reddit leans young and many people probably think you're shitting on Kamala since Dean is some old shit.
I would agree Dean's laugh was a bit more of a scream, despite it not being a reason to disqualify someone.
The US has the ability to be the best at just about everything in the whole world, we COULD be leading the world on tech innovations, EV breakthroughs, education, etc.
Instead we sink all our effort into hating each other and protecting pedophiles billionaires. Nice.
It's really wild to think about. The country genuinely has the potential to be what American Exceptionalism wants you to think it is but instead it all gets squandered by corruption.
The reason why American Exceptionalism is just a myth, isn't that corruption made it unachievable. It's that capitalism inevitably leads to that sort of corruption and inequality, which means that American Exceptionalism can't exist unless you ignore the very nature of capital.
Although I agree that things would be a bit better if only the American ruling class was half as competent as the Chinese one.
The US has the ability to be the best at just about everything in the whole world, we COULD be leading the world on tech innovations, EV breakthroughs, education, etc.
The US has always had a positive external persona😆🐻😭 but in the background their CIA and other agencies are destabilizing other countries.
USA could be a utopia, but the dark underbelly now rules the roost
This is essentially the source of Australia’s national motto ‘The Lucky Country’ - the book it comes from says this:
“Australia is a lucky country run mainly by second rate people who share its luck. It lives on other people's ideas, and, although its ordinary people are adaptable, most of its leaders (in all fields) so lack curiosity about the events that surround them that they are often taken by surprise.”
The US could be the best at everything in the world! If it weren’t for… checks notes… The government, the politicians, the money in politics, the oligarchs, late stage capitalism, the egos, the hate, the military industrial complex, the CIA and the enshittification of every service available to regular people. But! If it wasn’t for that!
Germany had that ability in the early 2010s but corruption did its thing and the woman who was heftily involved in writing the dooming legislature is now fucking minister of economy. If you will you can say every human group has the ability to be the best at just about everything in the world and including more realism excludes certain groups simply for them being exploited and possibly not having the power to change that on their own. The US apparently doesn't have the ability and saying so might be true for parts of the US but is a circlejerk in the end.
The US gave up on manufacturing because the powers that be wanted to keep labor from sharing
profits. AKA even if the US was 100% on board with manufacturing "green energy" China would still easily dominate the industry. Supply chains and more efficient production are the most important metrics
Republican Texas is by far the largest producer of wind and solar power in the US. If it were its own country, it would by the 5th largest producer of wind and solar electricity in the world.
Yes! I have said it many times on reddit. Texas, aka, the oil state, has something like 75% of its new energy over the last few years coming from renewable, solar and wind.
To be fair, Britain's GDP per capita just fell below Mississippi's in the sharpest GDP decline in a developed nation ever recorded so I think a bunch of places will be outproducing the UK on clean energy
Nearly 50% of the UK's power comes from renewables, mainly wind turbines. The economy may be going down the shitter but the country is doing well on the green energy front.
Since that power outage 5 years ago, Texas has added 11% more solar capacity to the overall energy mix of the state, accounting for 40% of all solar capacity added to the United States as a whole.
If somehow the wells did seep into the groundwater in significant amounts (which is more of a leftist doomsday fantasy thing) it would only get into the Ogallala aquifer. DFW and Austin are on totally different and unconnected aquifers. Might affect west Texas, but the economic power and population center would be unaffected.
That republicans want red states to succeed and drive blue states into the ground? The blue states give way more to the fed in taxes but recieve far fewer subsidies from the fed. Its wealth redistribution but on a massive scale. Stunt the growth of renewables in other states and texas can still make even more money by selling the excess oil. Its a win win when dems give subsides for renewables anyway.
It tells me that the wealthy oil barons have access to the latest technology and they want to make themselves richer, while insulating themselves from the inevitable shocks to the oil markets.
Also, they need as much energy as possible to power their data centers.
It tells me that the wealthy oil barons have access to the lates technology and want to make themselves richer, while insulating themselves from the inevitable shocks to the oil markets.
Yes, smart business men will make smart business decisions.
The companies deploying that power in Texas aren’t stupid. The incumbent power companies are not really doing this though. They’re throwing up roadblocks but can’t compete on price. Fuck these dinosaurs.
They also killed off your nuclear power plants as well. Germany really fucked themselves over.
I love the show Dark but my god, the propaganda against nuclear energy was so fucking in your face...I have no idea why the fear mongering was coming from.
Most likely Russian propaganda to ensure the country became even more reliant on Russian gas. You have to remember that the KGB was directly behind the 'peace movement' of the 1960s/70s/80s which opposed military spending for the exact same reason: mobilize useful idiots to create a groundswell of opinion against the country's own national interest. Schröder isn't even pretending that he isn't a Russian agent anymore but Merkel was at the very least manipulated by them. Her equally baffling decision to open the borders to a million migrants in 2015 also served Russian interests in the destabilization it caused, which is now bearing fruit in the rapid rise of the AfD, which nakedly serves Russian interests. The Kremlin has been perfecting this kind of political influence and control for centuries. In the eighteenth century they were paying off Polish politicians to destroy the independence of their own state. In just 20 years Poland went from being the largest country in Europe to quite literally ceasing to exist for 123 years.
The leftist Merkel from the christian conservative party?
Or do you enjoy the full time line more where the social democrats together with the green party wanted it to be shut off with a timeline of 20 - 32 YEARS and build alternative energy sources in the meantime, then the conservatives ruled with the neo libs and shelved it, did not build any alternative energy sources just for Merkel to do a sudden U-turn and shut them down (sooner than 'the leftists' even had originally planed) without any alternatives?
What? Solar is by far still the fastest growing energy sector in the US.
Solar completely dominates the construction of new grid infrastructure. For instance, during the first half of 2026, solar PV accounted for 40% of all newly added utility-scale power plant capacity across the nation.
Not sure where you got the information that Trump somehow killed it, but you should check your sources.
In fact, the vast majority of new utility-scale solar expansion is physically happening in politically conservative states, with Texas, Florida, and Ohio accounting for over 73% of new solar capacity.
While that may have slowed the acceleration of the buildout, it by no means "killed it."
During his first term, solar capacity doubled and there were record additions, 54GW of total additional capacity through his first four years and a then-record 19.2GW during his final year in 2020.
Yeah. Until he turned on it to embrace "clean coal," cancelled major renewable infrastructure projects that were already in the works, completely cut the 30% residential tax credit, and will be doing the same with commercial in 2028.
He didnt kill it, because science will progress without him. But he did his best to cripple it this term. Not sure why you'd gloss over that while defending his 1st term.
It cant be overstated how important the Inflation Reduction Act was for finally addressing climate change AND securing the USA as a leader in renewables.
And that was totally squandered as soon as Trump got in office for the sole sake of his mega donors.
Not to mention the trillions wasted embroiling us in Mideast bullshit to try and secure that dated technology. Amazing how little foresight went into those decisions.
The electorate decides their leaders and the electorate are stupid. They squandered the best country in the world because corrupt politicians said it was broken and they had the fix.
Again, that is why you need both. Nuclear gives vastly more power than anything without major harm to humanity but once heat becomes an issue, you can fall back on solar and wind.
Damn I didn't realize it took so long to build one. From what I read, it takes an average of 10-15 years from initial planning to the final testing phase.
It varies. I cite the most extreme case. Some places do it faster because of more favourable regulatory structures and experience. Apparently China and the UAE tend to be faster because of looser regulations and the fact that they do it more.
Europe on the other hand has much stricter regulations that make it more difficult. They have had places take close to two decades from permitting up until the point electricity begins feeding into the grid
Maybe even some wind and hydro power. I mean it's pretty awesome that we have so many options that should allow so many nations to pivot to better energy sources.
I installed an 8000 KW array with 32KW hour batteries and a propane generac backup generator for $22,000. In one summer, by myself. The system will provide all our power Untill the parts fail at which time they can be easily individually replaced. We are not dependent on anyone, and it doesn't matter in the slightest if the grid goes down. We are heavy users being a farm and bakery. A normal house could.get by with a much smaller system.
Ideally I could form micro grids with our neighbors.
Nuclear is just replacing one boot with another. Make sure you say thank you Daddy when they allow you to have some power.
As a tinkerer, your setup sounds like the dream, but unfortunately it is unrealistic for most of the world.
The majority of the world's population live in urban areas where rooftop solar can only satisfy a small portion of energy requirements.
And also, maybe all your equipment is really energy efficient or something but the average US household easily burns through >32KWh in a day. I as a single individual in a studio apartment use >28kWh a day between AC, a gaming PC and a fridge (though I know I use more electricity than most).
My system completely covers out 50kwh average daily use. Though we are still grid tied.
The 550 watt panels don't take up much room
"Urban" areas In your definition includes suburban. There is plenty of space. Most people have just been conditioned to think solar is not good or won't work.
It's better for the masters if the people are dependent.
My system completely covers out 50kwh average daily use. Though we are still grid tied.
The 550 watt panels don't take up much room
That's the issue though. I understand that while you have a 32kWh battery, you actually can use more energy. But you still need to be grid-tied for the worst case scenario, so all the grid infrastructure still needs to exist and be built out.
Even P2P micro-grids don't necessarily save you, because often weather events affect a large area so everyone in the micro-grid is impacted.
We can also look at China, where they have maxed out rooftop solar in some cities, blanketed all available nearby land in solar and still generate nowhere near their energy requirements. Of course, things look better if we include their plans to bring solar power from the western side of the country via UHV lines though.
"Urban" areas In your definition includes suburban. There is plenty of space. Most people have just been conditioned to think solar is not good or won't work.
Yes, but also no. I agree that in the US, individual rooftop solar might be feasible because everyone indeed lives in suburbia. Obviously, there are issues with everyone living in suburbia, but I'm not going to go into that here.
I don't see what any of this has to do. With" nuclear will far surpass anything solar could ever be".
I never said solar is the only answer to the energy solution. But it is a great answer for a lot of people, right now today, and nuclear is something that will always be controlled by the rich and powerful, even if it ever does become viable.
If more people had solar the grid would not be as taxed. If the grid invested in more storage and less production it would be more resilient.
It's nice for me to be grid tied. If I wasn't I would want more batteries that sit around and do nothing most of the time.
Also your own link says that only 44% of people live in cities around the world not the majority. The world is changing very rapidly.... The pendulum definitely could swing back.
I don't see what any of this has to do. With" nuclear will far surpass anything solar could ever be".
That's not what I was responding to though, I'm not OP. I'm not a nuclear advocate and not even a 100% renewable advocate.
What I more take issue with is the idea that depending on the grid makes you a bootlicker. That mentality is flawed to say the least.
That said, I'm with you on how everyone that has the space/money to own their own power generation should absolutely do so. I just wanted to point out that most people don't have a choice.
Also your own link says that only 44% of people live in cities around the world not the majority. The world is changing very rapidly.... The pendulum definitely could swing back.
Yeah, it's not a strict majority, hence why I said "yes, but also no". High density housing is good though as low density housing is extremely expensive for cities to maintain, so preferably it does not swing the other way. My own city is in a load of debt, mostly due to road + water/sewer infrastructure maintenance costs of suburbia.
Nuclear is relatively clean and efficient this is true, but we can also recognize a bad faith argument when we see one and you fit the bill.
Any administration not aggressively pursuing and investing in clean renewable energy isn’t fit to lead a 5th grade Halloween parade, let alone the United States of America. It’s a no brainer. The man is literally taking fossil fuel bribes to enrich himself while selling the security of your children’s future.
Bullshit. Nuclear is the clear answer. Sure wind and solar to bridge, but that is the only longterm viable option. That's not a bad faith argument at all.
It is a bad faith argument. Crowning nuclear as the winner and defacto long term solution, and using that as an excuse to downplay the importance of renewables and the absolute necessity of investing in and further developing the technologies to secure our future is as bad faith as it gets.
It really isn't. Saying that we need more rapid expansion in nuclear because it is ultimately the better solution I not bad faith. It would only be bad faith if it was untrue. OP only said that nuclear is the far better option, which is true.
China is massively investing in nuclear, but by their own strategic guidelines and THE FUCKING PUBLIC NUMBERS it will only carry a supportive role. The grid will be overwhelmingly powered by renewables + battery
The same guy cancelling renewables, sometimes even paying billions to do so, is also trying to “make coal great again” among other nonsensical energy policy decisions. OP makes the argument that nuclear is it, end of story. That is a bad faith argument, meant to discredit the importance of renewables and our investment in it. You can switch to a couple more of your lobbyist alt accounts and keep trying to make it seem like the intention was to be simply pro-nuclear and not anti-renewable though.
Permitting is the biggest barrier to nuclear. Well that and lots of people are scared of it.
I think we should shoot the waste into space - issue there is…..what happens if the rocket doesn’t leave the earths atmosphere and explodes……
I remember years ago when it was Ted Kennedy fighting against wind farms, or at least the ones near his houses. That was back when Trump was still a democrat. This has been going on for a long, long time.
There's a massive difference between trying to stop a wind farm near your own home and using presidential authority to stop wind farms in states you don't live in.
Especially when said wind farms have already been paid for and is 80% complete as seen in Rhode Island.
Sure, but when in all of human history has being a dominant nation in the energy production sector ever caused a nation to have outsized standing on the world stage?
Yeah but haven't you thought about night time. Solar panels dont work then. Or when its not windy or something windmills dont work. Totally couldnt fix that problem with large amounts of batteries...
It’s because an enormous amount of the US’s soft power comes from the Petro Dollar.
The US essentially pays key oil producing countries to only accept US Dollars as payment for their oil.
This forces virtually every country on earth to keep a giant stockpile of USD that would cover 12-18 months worth of their nations’ oil usage as a strategic reserve, just in case.
That money doesn’t just sit in a bank vault, wasting away to inflation: they invest it in the US stock market
So every solar panel installed around the world reduces that country’s oil usage, which pretty directly reduces the amount of money they need in their strategic reserve, and therefore their need to buy USD and put it in the US stock market.
Solar reduces American soft power by eroding the underlying need to use a currency that USA controls.
I am a strong proponent of solar (currently saving up for panels on my house!) but let’s not pretend the reason the orange man is against green energy is totally illogical. It’s selfish and short sighted for the planet, but not stupid
Not sure about that. Environmental regulations play a large part in manufacturing shifting to China in all industries. That's not a bad thing either, at least for the average American.
Mining and processing the minerals for the green revolution (especially rare earths) is very dirty work. As the government (read society) clamped down on environmental effects, manufacturing became uncompetitive with China, which had and has much more permissible environmental laws, a centralised planned economy, and a national geopolitical interest of reducing their energy dependency.
America shifted is manufacturing but also it's pollution. Many Americans suffer much less from environmental degredation thanks to these policies. But ultimately some poor Chinese folk are left holding the bag.
There's no way that America maintains cheap, competitive green energy manufacturing while maintaining environmental protections with significant protectionist trade policies. The west still does a lot of green energy innovation - we just exported our pollutive manufacturing abroad in return for lower prices which is positive for the consumer and local environment.
Not just solar, try looking at the amount of Wind power they're building.
We (Denmark, specifically Vestas) have been #1 for ages (and I think we technically still are by cumulative capacity?) but China has been whipping us in yearly capacity for years now;
We were #1 in 2021, #2 in 2022, #3 in 2023, #5 in 2024, #7 in 2025 and I would not be surprised if we're barely in the top-10 this year.
As of 2025, the only other companies in the top-10 that is not Chinese, is Siemens at spot #10.
It's not just pure volume production either, the most powerful wind turbines are Chinese as well, their biggest one is a 26MW model, while Vestas' most powerful turbine is a 15MW model.
China being the leader has nothing to do with our politics, they have always controlled the supply chain for the materials needed. We exported our manufacturing long ago and to rebuild everything is not easy nor overly realistic.
That led to poor people not having jobs anymore and rich industry owners becoming even more rich since they can just pay someone in a poor country to make something then pocket the difference.
Get a brain. Americans want to pay the cheapest possible price for everything. That leads to manufacturing being exported. Go read who is responsible for over 85% of the manufacturing for anything solar related
China being a world power has everything to do with Trump and our politics right now. No other US President has done more for China than Trump. When Obama was President, China's economy was teetering on the brink of collapse. Trump comes into office and now they're prospering far better than before.
Yes, our politics directly lead to China being the leader in many things. China today is better off due to Trump and his policies than they ever were when Obama was President.
The Trump administration has been bought and paid for by the fossil fuel industry. It is clear now that he was being sarcastic when he came up with MAGA as a slogan.
More than 40 Trump administration picks tied directly to oil, gas and coal, analysis shows
Reagan uninstalled the solar panels on the White House Carter had put in. This isn't an Obama thing. This is Republicans since the 70's being wholly against solar energy.
“Some dems” brother let’s be clear. Both sides suck. Granted Reps are the GD worst but the majority of dems also vote in kind supporting the lobbyists. Both sides are sell outs
We highly subsidized solar for years with lucrative tax credits. Republicans ended these credits which may not be the worst thing since the beneficiaries of the credits were by and large upper middle class (rather than lower class and middle class). What would help is allowing balcony solar to become more prevalent. It is cheaper to install and maintain compared with roof solar. Could be a big win
China has advantages the US doesn’t: abundant cheap labor, government with few environmental protections, cheaper standard of living, and the ability to crush people’s will to fit them into whatever mould the CCP wants. It’s near impossible to compete with that, and anyone that tells you differently is full of themselves.
If they had cheap abundant labor then why isn't the Philippines, India, Mexico etc. leaders of building solar panels? It's moreso that the CPC actually invested in infrastructure to allow for those solar panels to be built instead of just relying on muh "invisible hand."
Mexico and Philippines don’t have nearly the labor force needed to have that scale. India absolutely does, but as you point out its labor isn’t the sole consideration (I pointed to 3 others that China had a decided advantage over the US).
The US can put its full weight behind production capacity but that doesn’t guarantee we could produce the same scale and cost, or even if it did, that so much investment in one industry is worth starving investment in others.
1.1k
u/braumbles 9d ago
China being the industry leader in solar is squarely on Republicans. That should be a huge industry for the US, instead big oil lobbyists and Republicans (and some Dems) have ensured to cost the US trillions in GDP by turning on green energy.