Further evidence that the "narrative" progressive Left continues to be a costly drag on the Democratic Party's current and almost certain future political fortunes.
If you can't convince a majority of Americans of the wisdom of your radical ideas, then you can't win elections and govern. About all you can do -- and it's what the Democratic Left does best -- is assume that it is somehow of such superior intellect the unwashed masses simply cannot comprehend. And that's the very definition of an elitist, arrogant snobbery.
"Here are some findings that show why Democrats are warming back up to all-of-the-above"
The less kind but more accurate description is that Democrats are being dragged kicking and screaming to an all-of-the-above. Whether we actually move toward an all-of-the-above approach is a question of pure power politics. My hope is that the current administration has their foot to the floor to accomplish the maximum amount possible before 2026.
Decades of catastrophizing about climate has caused people to tune it out. The media thinks it can blame all natural disasters on climate, but I think people know better. Hurricanes have always happened.
Unfortunately for the left, the face of top-down environmentalist command-and-control is not AOC who is at least attractive.
It is Klaus Schwab, intoning that you will "own nothing, live in ze pod, eat ze bug burger and you will be happy" with all the charisma of the villain in Lethal Weapon 2.
And the tangible effects of environmentalism have been annoying nanny-state stuff like banning gasoline equipment / crappy gasoline cans / low flow toilets / auto shutoff cars, etc. People are generally sick and tired of the Karen State trying to take away your gas stove or lawn mower.
As with so many Democratic Party positions, the message to voters regarding energy and climate is “Don’t believe what your common sense is telling you. Listen to us because we’re the experts.” This message is combined with lies, distortions, and threats designed to silence anyone who questions the policies. Same story with border security, criminal justice, DEI, etc. They are determined to sacrifice our economy and standard of living on the altar of “green energy” policy. Thankfully, most people aren’t buying it.
"This message is combined with lies, distortions, and threats designed to silence anyone who questions the policies." -- and a long list of Dem cronies who are getting rich off massive grants with little or no oversight.
Reps should hope Ruy is never allowed to run the Dem Party. You make far too much sense. Still, there is polling, and then there is reality. Roughly 22% of our energy is now Green and every kWh of solar and wind must be backed up by fossil fuels, to avoid tragedy. In the 80s, 17% of our energy was Green, give or take, much of it hydropower. So in approximately 45 years we have increased our Green production by approximately 5%, at a cost of trillions of dollars.
Then there is the way people live in the West now, as opposed to even 30 or 40 years ago. Most boomers grew up with 1 TV in the house, 2 if they were lucky . Now add phones, computers, multiple TVs. People use to combine trips to the grocery , dry cleaner, mall. . . Now for many, most purchases are delivered, all in individual, separate tranches. AC use, as the population continues to move South, has to have increased massively. All before AI is considered.
Moreover, the majority of Americans still do not realize electricity is not energy. It is just a delivery system. The juice must come from somewhere. In the mid 90s, I barely escaped being hit by Silicon Valley neighbor with a 3 wheel EV prototype, while walking the dog. The EV was nearly silent. When he stopped to check on me, he noted I would have to be careful because soon EVs would be everywhere. 30 years later, EVs make up less than 10% of US registered vehicles.
All of the above, as long as the cost of Green energy is reasonable, is the only rational plan.
More than 1/2 of the world's population resides in Asia, much of it in places far hotter than Texas or FL. Spend a week in Singapore, and the reality of the world's needs, hits home fairly quickly. They do not enjoy mild Springs, Falls or Winters.
The era of Dems preaching the bankrupting of lower and middle earning Americans is OK , if it is in pursuit of Green fantasies is over, whether the Far Left is willing to admit it or not. Affordable and abundant Green energy will eventually exist, but not anytime soon.
The “22% renewables” figure you cite, Ronda, is misleading. Electricity generated is not equal to electricity actually consumed. That figure (renewable energy consumed, including hydro) is about 9%.
This highlights the failure of so called green energy to date. Energy production is unpredictable and inefficient (too much at times, none at other times when needed most). Transmission has to cover long distances, environmental impacts are consequential, especially when one considers disposal costs. Even when they are working, solar only produces energy about 25% of the time, wind perhaps 35%. Solar and especially wind will never play a major (e.g. > 25%) role in energy actually used. They are simply too inefficient for a society that, when it flips a switch, expects the light to come on.
Administrations come and go. The US and the world continues to do more with electricity all the time, and we continue to burn lots of oil and gas. Drilling has slowed tremendously here, a quick look at the price of gas is why. People will buy new electric cars, subsidy or not because they are cheaper to run and the drive trains are simpler.
The IRA was simply a boondoggle for orgs like Earth Justice and the NRDC, in my state orgs were invented simply to qualify for grants which were never used as their only ability was grant proposal writing.
Long run tariffs might be as environmental as anything else. The USA has some of the cleanest manufacturing facilities on the planet. The pump jacks are quiet in Weld County Colorado, but that's ok, good wheat harvest this year and beef is at a high.
"People will buy new electric cars, subsidy or not because they are cheaper to run and the drive trains are simpler." -- people in cold climates and people who regularly make trips over 250 miles aren't going to buy electric cars until the charging stations are up and reliable and the number of miles before charging (including running the A/C and heaters) is greatly increased.
People that drive to the grocery stores once a week love EVs.
I'll probably never buy one. At the rate I'm driving my Cummins I'll be 110 by the time it's average lifespan is up. My little run around even more. Things improve, some batteries can charge in 10 minutes now, and a significant boost in 5 min.
I'd think eventually cars will be able to go a lot further than 250 miles with AC or heat. The biggest improvement I think will be on urban ownership. Self driving might well alleviate the need to own.
I drive around 400 miles every six weeks to visit family, I hate stopping for gas much less hunting for charging station and then sitting there. I often thought if I was just buying EV to drive around town, I'd just Uber. Factoring in the cost of the car, maintenance, insurance - I'd probably come out ahead.
The main issue being, most don’t believe the politicized basis that liberals claim is based on science. It isn’t and if you can’t prove different to the mass’, it will continue to be the loser issue that it is.
People care about what they believe in, people will only take action on what they care about.
How ironic that Ruy runs another piece about how the working class doesn't care about climate change, with us recovering from yet another in a series of climate change-fueled disasters. They may not care about climate change, but climate change cares about them. Insurance companies care about climate change as they raise rates to insure homes facing increased rates of natural disasters:
Anyway, to (re) state the obvious, energy policy under Biden WAS "all of the above". US fossil fuel output reached all time highs after recovering from COVID pandemic price collapse (remember when the price of oil went negative?) While this was going on, Biden adopted incentives for people to adopt solar and wind power and American made EVs, not to mention onshoring semiconductor manufacturing.. Dems and climate activists went all carrot (subsidies) and no stick (carbon taxes/cap and trade) after years of getting no where.
Solar/wind+ battery storage is capable of providing up to 80% of current electricity consumption at current costs and even more as costs drop as technology improves:
The solar panels I just installed are twice as efficient as the once I installed on a previous home.
Like it or not, green energy+batteries and EVs are the technologies of the future. The US can and should subsidize these to counteract the subsidies that the Chinese are giving their companies.. What I fear will happen is that when the US awakens from its current stupor, China will have firmly established itself in control of all the critical technologies and we will be looking at the end of the American Century and the start of the Chinese one, in addition to all the climate-change related weather disasters. MAGAts who are running the country and world into the ground so they can impose their reactionary agenda are neither "liberal" nor "patriots"
I'm not sure I follow the premise of this article. The Biden Admin policy was essentially "All of the Above," they weren't doing anything to restrict fossil fuel production. The new Trump policy, on the other hand, is trying to kneecap renewables and emphasizing only fossil fuel production. Even on nuclear, which they claim to be interested in, they are going to make new nuclear plants harder to initiate if they decimate the Nuclear Regulatory Commision, as some suggest they are.
The Trump Admin is also trying to stifle any and all discussion of climate change, as if not talking about will make it go away.
Biden restricted new leases and slowed drilling permits. He banned drilling on federal lands. The first day of his Presidency, Joe basically announced the US was leaving fossil fuels behind. Oil soared. It is the reason Putin invaded Ukraine instead of just taking pieces piecemeal. He could afford to do so.
Taking away subsidies is hardly “knee capping “ renewables. They simply have to compete on merit. The culture of the NRC shifted over decades from being supportive of nuclear power to actively opposing it. It’s not going away, but it is going to return to its actual mission.
Nope, the Trump crowd. Historically, the left has been less enthusiastic about nuclear but recently they have become more so. The Trump Party talks about nuclear but also is trashing incentives for nuclear.
Ok, I'm seeing conflicting information on this topic. They did fire one of the member of the NRC and I assume that some were citing that as evidence of the agency being "gutted." However, appears the agency is still functioning, so I'm no longer convinced my original statement is correct.
From Lazard's latest Levelized Cost of Energy: "On an unsubsidized $/MWh basis, renewable energy remains the most cost-competitive form of generation. As such, renewable energy will continue to play a key role in the buildout of new power generation in the U.S. This is particularly true in the current high power demand environment, where renewables stand out as both the lowest-cost and quickest-to-deploy generation resource"
DOE favors batteries, geothermal and nuclear. The federal tax credits remain for these technologies. Many batteries will be paired with solar generation.
Further evidence that the "narrative" progressive Left continues to be a costly drag on the Democratic Party's current and almost certain future political fortunes.
If you can't convince a majority of Americans of the wisdom of your radical ideas, then you can't win elections and govern. About all you can do -- and it's what the Democratic Left does best -- is assume that it is somehow of such superior intellect the unwashed masses simply cannot comprehend. And that's the very definition of an elitist, arrogant snobbery.
"Here are some findings that show why Democrats are warming back up to all-of-the-above"
The less kind but more accurate description is that Democrats are being dragged kicking and screaming to an all-of-the-above. Whether we actually move toward an all-of-the-above approach is a question of pure power politics. My hope is that the current administration has their foot to the floor to accomplish the maximum amount possible before 2026.
Decades of catastrophizing about climate has caused people to tune it out. The media thinks it can blame all natural disasters on climate, but I think people know better. Hurricanes have always happened.
Unfortunately for the left, the face of top-down environmentalist command-and-control is not AOC who is at least attractive.
It is Klaus Schwab, intoning that you will "own nothing, live in ze pod, eat ze bug burger and you will be happy" with all the charisma of the villain in Lethal Weapon 2.
And the tangible effects of environmentalism have been annoying nanny-state stuff like banning gasoline equipment / crappy gasoline cans / low flow toilets / auto shutoff cars, etc. People are generally sick and tired of the Karen State trying to take away your gas stove or lawn mower.
As with so many Democratic Party positions, the message to voters regarding energy and climate is “Don’t believe what your common sense is telling you. Listen to us because we’re the experts.” This message is combined with lies, distortions, and threats designed to silence anyone who questions the policies. Same story with border security, criminal justice, DEI, etc. They are determined to sacrifice our economy and standard of living on the altar of “green energy” policy. Thankfully, most people aren’t buying it.
"This message is combined with lies, distortions, and threats designed to silence anyone who questions the policies." -- and a long list of Dem cronies who are getting rich off massive grants with little or no oversight.
Reps should hope Ruy is never allowed to run the Dem Party. You make far too much sense. Still, there is polling, and then there is reality. Roughly 22% of our energy is now Green and every kWh of solar and wind must be backed up by fossil fuels, to avoid tragedy. In the 80s, 17% of our energy was Green, give or take, much of it hydropower. So in approximately 45 years we have increased our Green production by approximately 5%, at a cost of trillions of dollars.
Then there is the way people live in the West now, as opposed to even 30 or 40 years ago. Most boomers grew up with 1 TV in the house, 2 if they were lucky . Now add phones, computers, multiple TVs. People use to combine trips to the grocery , dry cleaner, mall. . . Now for many, most purchases are delivered, all in individual, separate tranches. AC use, as the population continues to move South, has to have increased massively. All before AI is considered.
Moreover, the majority of Americans still do not realize electricity is not energy. It is just a delivery system. The juice must come from somewhere. In the mid 90s, I barely escaped being hit by Silicon Valley neighbor with a 3 wheel EV prototype, while walking the dog. The EV was nearly silent. When he stopped to check on me, he noted I would have to be careful because soon EVs would be everywhere. 30 years later, EVs make up less than 10% of US registered vehicles.
All of the above, as long as the cost of Green energy is reasonable, is the only rational plan.
More than 1/2 of the world's population resides in Asia, much of it in places far hotter than Texas or FL. Spend a week in Singapore, and the reality of the world's needs, hits home fairly quickly. They do not enjoy mild Springs, Falls or Winters.
The era of Dems preaching the bankrupting of lower and middle earning Americans is OK , if it is in pursuit of Green fantasies is over, whether the Far Left is willing to admit it or not. Affordable and abundant Green energy will eventually exist, but not anytime soon.
The “22% renewables” figure you cite, Ronda, is misleading. Electricity generated is not equal to electricity actually consumed. That figure (renewable energy consumed, including hydro) is about 9%.
This highlights the failure of so called green energy to date. Energy production is unpredictable and inefficient (too much at times, none at other times when needed most). Transmission has to cover long distances, environmental impacts are consequential, especially when one considers disposal costs. Even when they are working, solar only produces energy about 25% of the time, wind perhaps 35%. Solar and especially wind will never play a major (e.g. > 25%) role in energy actually used. They are simply too inefficient for a society that, when it flips a switch, expects the light to come on.
The Groups have entered the discussion. They are already blaming the TX floods on Climate Change/Trump.
Administrations come and go. The US and the world continues to do more with electricity all the time, and we continue to burn lots of oil and gas. Drilling has slowed tremendously here, a quick look at the price of gas is why. People will buy new electric cars, subsidy or not because they are cheaper to run and the drive trains are simpler.
The IRA was simply a boondoggle for orgs like Earth Justice and the NRDC, in my state orgs were invented simply to qualify for grants which were never used as their only ability was grant proposal writing.
Long run tariffs might be as environmental as anything else. The USA has some of the cleanest manufacturing facilities on the planet. The pump jacks are quiet in Weld County Colorado, but that's ok, good wheat harvest this year and beef is at a high.
"People will buy new electric cars, subsidy or not because they are cheaper to run and the drive trains are simpler." -- people in cold climates and people who regularly make trips over 250 miles aren't going to buy electric cars until the charging stations are up and reliable and the number of miles before charging (including running the A/C and heaters) is greatly increased.
People that drive to the grocery stores once a week love EVs.
I'll probably never buy one. At the rate I'm driving my Cummins I'll be 110 by the time it's average lifespan is up. My little run around even more. Things improve, some batteries can charge in 10 minutes now, and a significant boost in 5 min.
I'd think eventually cars will be able to go a lot further than 250 miles with AC or heat. The biggest improvement I think will be on urban ownership. Self driving might well alleviate the need to own.
I drive around 400 miles every six weeks to visit family, I hate stopping for gas much less hunting for charging station and then sitting there. I often thought if I was just buying EV to drive around town, I'd just Uber. Factoring in the cost of the car, maintenance, insurance - I'd probably come out ahead.
The main issue being, most don’t believe the politicized basis that liberals claim is based on science. It isn’t and if you can’t prove different to the mass’, it will continue to be the loser issue that it is.
People care about what they believe in, people will only take action on what they care about.
LONG LIVE THE GREEN NEW DEAL!
How ironic that Ruy runs another piece about how the working class doesn't care about climate change, with us recovering from yet another in a series of climate change-fueled disasters. They may not care about climate change, but climate change cares about them. Insurance companies care about climate change as they raise rates to insure homes facing increased rates of natural disasters:
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-is-climate-change-impacting-home-insurance-markets/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Anyway, to (re) state the obvious, energy policy under Biden WAS "all of the above". US fossil fuel output reached all time highs after recovering from COVID pandemic price collapse (remember when the price of oil went negative?) While this was going on, Biden adopted incentives for people to adopt solar and wind power and American made EVs, not to mention onshoring semiconductor manufacturing.. Dems and climate activists went all carrot (subsidies) and no stick (carbon taxes/cap and trade) after years of getting no where.
Solar/wind+ battery storage is capable of providing up to 80% of current electricity consumption at current costs and even more as costs drop as technology improves:
https://www.construction-physics.com/p/can-we-afford-large-scale-solar-pv
The solar panels I just installed are twice as efficient as the once I installed on a previous home.
Like it or not, green energy+batteries and EVs are the technologies of the future. The US can and should subsidize these to counteract the subsidies that the Chinese are giving their companies.. What I fear will happen is that when the US awakens from its current stupor, China will have firmly established itself in control of all the critical technologies and we will be looking at the end of the American Century and the start of the Chinese one, in addition to all the climate-change related weather disasters. MAGAts who are running the country and world into the ground so they can impose their reactionary agenda are neither "liberal" nor "patriots"
I'm not sure I follow the premise of this article. The Biden Admin policy was essentially "All of the Above," they weren't doing anything to restrict fossil fuel production. The new Trump policy, on the other hand, is trying to kneecap renewables and emphasizing only fossil fuel production. Even on nuclear, which they claim to be interested in, they are going to make new nuclear plants harder to initiate if they decimate the Nuclear Regulatory Commision, as some suggest they are.
The Trump Admin is also trying to stifle any and all discussion of climate change, as if not talking about will make it go away.
Biden restricted new leases and slowed drilling permits. He banned drilling on federal lands. The first day of his Presidency, Joe basically announced the US was leaving fossil fuels behind. Oil soared. It is the reason Putin invaded Ukraine instead of just taking pieces piecemeal. He could afford to do so.
Taking away subsidies is hardly “knee capping “ renewables. They simply have to compete on merit. The culture of the NRC shifted over decades from being supportive of nuclear power to actively opposing it. It’s not going away, but it is going to return to its actual mission.
"...if they decimate the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, as some suggest they are..." The "some" are Dems I assume?
Nope, the Trump crowd. Historically, the left has been less enthusiastic about nuclear but recently they have become more so. The Trump Party talks about nuclear but also is trashing incentives for nuclear.
Who specifically has advocated decimating the Nuclear Regulatory Commission?
Ok, I'm seeing conflicting information on this topic. They did fire one of the member of the NRC and I assume that some were citing that as evidence of the agency being "gutted." However, appears the agency is still functioning, so I'm no longer convinced my original statement is correct.
From Lazard's latest Levelized Cost of Energy: "On an unsubsidized $/MWh basis, renewable energy remains the most cost-competitive form of generation. As such, renewable energy will continue to play a key role in the buildout of new power generation in the U.S. This is particularly true in the current high power demand environment, where renewables stand out as both the lowest-cost and quickest-to-deploy generation resource"
DOE favors batteries, geothermal and nuclear. The federal tax credits remain for these technologies. Many batteries will be paired with solar generation.