As a Dane and European it now feels downright patriotic to install solar panels! And if you have an EV, the V2X technology could virtually turn your home into a small power station. Which is exactly what we have decided to do. No more reliance on energy from volatile and hostile powers. And in case of a crisis we will be part of the solution by being able to send energy into the central system rather than tapping it
And the US is a volatile and hostile power. If the US were to maximize its renewable energy potential, how many military bases would we need in the Middle East? Not many. Maybe none.
I feel a profound sadness that I even have to consider the US a potential volatile and hostile power. All through my rather long and happy life I have considered the US a strong ally. It was never perfect, no country is, but I always had a feeling that at least it shared an aspiration for a better world and to improve. Now it’s just bullying and not getting that soft power is staying power. I have walked (yes, on my feet) from one end of Europe to the other, from Lisbon to Istanbul, and seen traces and shadows of European history. What has been clear is that sheer force may win the battle but never the war. The Chinese get that. Putin and Trump don’t. And never in my life did I think that I would have to view China as the lesser evil …
I'm 73 years old. I live in Minneapolis , Minnesota. Please believe me when I tell you that I fully understand how you feel. The fact that enough fellow US citizens were able to elect this psychopathic regime and have enough elected republicans to support it is so overwhelming to me, and frankly many many others, that I am left without words to describe it. Worse for me is the fact that many right wing "Christians" support this Satanic influence on our country. I am a Christian. But I am trying to follow Christ's teachings. The right wing Christian culture ARE NOT of Christ. They are that, a cult. I'm explaining my position not trying turn anyone from what they believe. My hope, our hope is that it will be Blue 26 come November. Like always, it will be up to democrats to clean up the republican mess they always create. I hope we can restore some of trump and lackys have destroyed.
I am not religious myself but grew up the daughter of clergy. Your statement is so very true. While things can be misinterpreted or intentionally twisted, what the right wing Christian and evangelical Christian coalitions do is use it as both a shield to hide ugly things behind and a rubber stamp to do ugly things. But what they want, believe, and do has nothing to do with the Bible, God, Jesus, or anything else Christian. It is purely self serving, with an awful lot of fear and shame thrown around, as a means of duping others and justifying their utterly unchristian views. If Jesus descended from the heavens right this very minute, he would absolutely be on the opposite side of the line from those people.
In both public and private settings, I believe it is all about power. Once it is ceded or seized, those having it feel they were somehow ordained to have it. That best explains the politicians that say they're running for one term of office and end up staying "forever." A close friend that achieved a high position in private industry told me after retirement that he most missed the "noblesse oblige," the deference from others and the perks.
Noblesse oblige is actually the obligation of the upper classes to look after the overall health of society, something sadly missing among today's oligarchs. Kind makes you yearn for a good, old aristocracy. At least they were aware of the concept.
FOX has been propagandizing to them for decades and now it's bearing fruit. If we want to point a finger at individuals, the Murdochs should be first.
It's interesting how different the news coverage is in the Wall Street Journal. The opinion pages are absolutely pro-MAGA but they report the financial news fairly straight.
As an American, i could not agree with you more. However, please know that most of the hostility we project onto the rest of the world comes from conservatives - from the Republican party.
If Americans only had the sense to elect Dems we would have a smaller military, be less aggressive and more supportive to the rest of the world. We would not have attacked Iraq and would not be mugging Iran. Sadly, (R)s are so adept at distracting voters with meaningless side issues like the teeny, tiny number of Trans kids in our schools.
Shockingly, the latest yougov.com polls show that 86.6% of Republican voters STILL support the fascism of this "christian" Nationalist MAGAtte gov't. That stands in stark contrast to 30% of Independents and less than 4% of Dems.
The conservative I've-got-mine-so-screw-you worldview is becoming increasingly toxic as it becomes increasingly obvious that we are sucking Ma Earth dry of resources and supplies are getting tighter.
All true. And these Republicans (they were once called Democrats) that have been working hard to get control of the US since the end of the Civil War believe they are finally in control of the US. They have gone out of their way to destroy the Constitution, its Amendments, and the Declaration of Independence. That means equity among all The People, as well as all the structures of the US government and our growing green energy systems. The evidence is overwhelming that this is so.
Umm... I think you forgot FDR and way before that. If I recall it was the Hayes administration that sold out to big business and Democrats became the working man's party. Before that Democrats were the villains particularly during the Civil War and Republicans were the party of Lincoln. However, there were always the racist Dixiecrats who switched sides in the Nixon era, maybe that's who you're thinking of.
the gop and maga have perfected the wedge issue strategy to fool the minions and as once famously said, it is easier to fool people than to convince them they have been fooled
Miss Anne, Others have already made some of the point. I want to assert my two cents, though. And hoping NOT to sound too much like Dire Larder, let me say their have been good people in both of the two major parties over the years.
The switching sides on labor/corporations, Blacks/nonBlacks, et cetera, have occurred several times and have not always taken the same sets of folks from one party designation to the other. More recently a growing number of people have found neither party very wonderful and a growing number, myself included, have decided they are independent — even if usually forced by reality to choose one or the other party candidate in the end.
This is a longer than intended piece already, but I think you will find that many independents and even some who still consider themselves Democrats find the leadership and movement of the Democratic Party too conservative — to the point of becoming Republican Light!
Too many upper echelon Democrats and older Democrats are neo-liberal; that is, not really Liberal at all.
Sorry Stefan, but in the US we just have another approach to shutting down free speech. We allow certain people to take over the outlets of information, then they use their monopoly power to ensure that the masses are only feed a "healthy" information diet. That would include the narratives that Chinese cannot say anything, whereas we in the US are free. In both countries you can say whatever you want at the dinner table - but certain information and narratives are not allowed to get a wider audience.
When is the last time you saw someone claim that Putin doesn't have a "pee-pee tape", but he has some of the Epstein tapes - with child rape committed by some very important people? Why do you think that particular "free speech" has been locked in a cage?
Stefan have you seen the video of a US Senator (Sheehey from Montana) breaking the arm of a Marine veteran who attempted to exercise his right of free speech at a Senate hearing this week?
I don’t know that this is true…”treasured” by “all” Americans? Probably the majority, but it has become clear that a shocking and sad amount want to send us back 200 years to when only white men with money had rights, including those found in the first amendment. And to make matters worse, those are currently the people overtly and covertly leading our country. People who hold money, power, and self-interest higher than life itself, stability, the very planet we live on.
I've read the back and forth re: free speech here vs. China and I think one point is missing: Few people truly understand the First Amendment, especially the MAGA cult. They generally don't understand the 1st is meant to shield them from government retribution, prosecution, persecution. Worse, they revel in ICE's brutality, and the religious corruption taking place in the military and government as high as the Supreme Court Six.
The MAGAs and Cult Christians, and there are millions upon millions of them, don't treasure free speech unless it's their freedom to use words and deeds to oppress, silence or destroy those they don't like, or force their religious dogma onto everyone - basically taking away everyone else's right to free speech.
But you're right that here we sit on our computers and phones reading Krugman, and on cheap social media (e.g., Facebook) voicing our opinions (for now) against the government in a public arena with safety. The Chinese can't do that. Dr. Krugman would have been silenced long ago.
China has a big problem controling free speech. People use coded messages to express their disagreement with govt, and even though the govt understands, the coding is indirect so difficult to counter.
(One example is sending a blank page, in a conversation about some govt poicy. Even the govt knows it means disagreement, but what can they do ?)
The current US admin is using overt violence, much like China did before. China stopped using the old method because it didn't work very well.
Any authoritarian system has problems controlling whatever people want to say, so people must restrict themselves and self-censor their speech to pass through censorship and their consequences. It was the same in old days where people for example placed the postage stamps in a certain way to pass a predefined message, but this is not freedom of speech.
The current US administration is using bullying, coercing and in some cases overt violence to make people comply, but the difference to China is that the US administration is breaking several laws and some amendments to the constitution with their behaviour.
Please remember that only about 30% of Americans are the root of the problem. When combined with enough others motivated by greed, ignorance or despair you end up with a trump.
The US military presence in the Gulf states is an anachronism. It's not there because the US needs their oil, 85% of the oil goes to Asia. The US military in the Gulf is the World's largest rent-an-army, mainly sponsored by the Gulf countries to keep safe.
Well, there is Mashabim. But that's kind of the point, the deliberate downplaying of US/Israeli military involvement belies the closeness of the relationship, albeit in a weird way.
Mashabim escaped my attention, but it seems more like a supporting role than an active combat role, like the US base in Greenland as an example. The bases in the Gulf countries has active combat roles and more than 5,000 permanent US troops.
Sadly, the main reason we have military bases all over the world is to extend our hegemony, not to get oil - the US is a net energy exporter. It's about the Power of a wannabe empire more than anything else
Afraid it IS about oil. You see, the US does export more than it imports -- get that key word, 'net'. US refining infrastructure is tuned to the heavy sour crude from the Middle East; the US produces, on the other hand, a light sweet crude that our refineries are not set up to process.
ERGO: we export the light sweet; we IMPORT the heavy sour to keep our schtick going.
We are very much dependent of oil flow through the Strait of Hormuz, and at the mercy of the Gulf producers.
Saudi Aramco: Through its subsidiary Motiva Enterprises, the Saudi Arabian state-owned company is the sole owner of the Port Arthur Refinery in Texas, which is the largest oil refinery in North America.
Brent crude hit $90/barrel today. The Oil Minister of Qatar said if the war drags on, oil will hit $150/barrel and, quote: "destroy the world economy." Iran is not Venezuela and I don't see a quick end to this, only more human misery.
There should be no need for millons or hundreds of millions of ordinary people to have to add elaborate new systems to their homes. I spend enough time and money maintaining my home as it is. Dominion and the other power companies need to get going with renewables on a large scale. All commercial buildings with large roofs, including data centers, need to be required by law to install them. But no, as usual the expense and trouble falls on ordinary people while the corporations skate away and Trump has done all he can to kill the EV and renewable energy business in service to his fossil fuel donors. We were on the brink of an EV revolution until he took office. Now car companies are pulling back. But China marches ahead and we are going to rue the day.
Imagine how glorious it would be to have both! What if new homes were built with things like solar panels, heat pumps, EV plugs, etc. Buildings and parking lots were covered with panels? Parks had wind sculptures, hydroponics, vertical gardens? The list could go on and on. Fat chance here in America. But I hear we’re super great again…the hottest country in the world… He’s got that second part right, but not in any of the ways he thinks.
We did create the TVA and spread electricity to the more rural parts of the country. We mobilized on a massive scale to build the atomic bombs and revamp industry for the war effort - energy is no different given climate change
We did that in a world where our government was not owned lock stock and barrel by a military industrial complex, and the man who created it warned us about that.
I wouldn't give up just yet. Sure the Republicans have put the brakes on government incentives, but the economic momentum is building where it doesn't make sense to use fossil fuels. I hope we're just in a four year hiatis but maybe I'm overly optimistic.
No you are not too optimistic as WE THE PEOPLE are coming tens of millions strong for an overwhelming anti-Trump efficient future. Let’s start with a succession of NO KINGS DAY marches culminating in a HUGE victory! WE can and will do it! Right? Please organize your neighborhood! And the most efficient and effective way to mobilize the pro-democracy young voters is TAX DEDUCTIBLE www.TurnUp.US.
While I don't disagree with the need for large-scale renewable energy production, Distributed energy production (down to the individual home level) has many advantages. The list is long, including reduced grid strain, individual independence from Big Electricity monopolies, reduced operating costs for homeowners and many more
I’d like to see a multiplicity of power generation, from home backup, to neighborhood areas and towns, to rooftop on every flat warehouse, to big corporate and governmental projects - wherever it makes sense. But when you feed power back into the system, you have to have careful moderation systems in place, or you blow transformers all over with uneven surges and drops of electricity.
Yes, but retro-fitting homes with PV systems is extremely cost prohibitive. The tax credits made it more affordable, but still not for the average homeowner (yet); they require battery bank back-up systems and maintenance. What does make sense is perhaps large community PV systems, PPAs, and utility scale farms working together.
To note just two incorrect or distorted points in your post, PV systems do not REQUIRE battery backup, and one might reply to the assertion about maintenance with a puzzled, 'Huh?!'
We've run our system for years now, with the closest thing to 'maintenance' being a grin when the occasional rain rinses the panels. Otherwise not the least even hint of a trace of a concept of a remote sign of a -- hiccup.
With appropriate financing, and inflation what it is, a homeowner installing as we did, a passive system even without battery backup will likely stare with zero down and a fixed loan payment comparable with what they currently pay the utility -- or less. That delta will only grow as the years pass.
Utilities have gutted net metering -- that should change, and they should pay PV owners a fair rate for power they send back to the grid. As to batteries, for the sake of efficiencies of scale utility installation of the big battery packs to level the load makes a lot of sense. And it's coming.
There hardly exists a reasonable objection to expanding PV -- anywhere there's a roof with southerly exposure.
We were able to persuade the underwriters to accept our rooftop solar array as a fixture, part of the house, and fold our separate short-term note into our refi mortgage balance, dropping the interest rate substantially and amortizing it over 30 years.
And our system cost about $16k when it was installed in late 2019. Compare that to new car prices (and used car prices), kitchen remodeling, and any number of other home investments. Hardly prohibitive.
I lived in a net-zero house. When you don't have a battery back-up system and you're dependent on being connected to the grid and the grid goes down, you have no power in your house.
And if a heavy limb falls on your system - boom - maintenance. And cleaning them once a year or so is a good idea. It's amazing how much film builds up that you can't see.
You're lucky that you can afford a system. Many people can't. They take a number of years for ROI. Some people don't have the credit rating or income for a loan or are too old to wait for the system to pay off. Believe it or not, it can effect the resale value of your home. Not everyone understands how PV works and, sorta like a pool, not everyone wants one. I realize it can also increase the potential for selling, but not necessarily what you'll get for the house.
Some states have gutted net metering. Yes, it "should change" but hasn't and the utility companies aren't likely to willingly pay a fair price for energy being returned to the grid if they aren't forced.
I'm a staunch advocate of PV, all renewable energy. But to say "wherever there's a roof with southern exposure" is simplistic. My roof, for example, doesn't have southern exposure and I live on the side of a mountain on an acre of HEAVILY wooded lot, so a ground mount would be impractical.
I'm not against solar, but it's just not that easy to retro-fit a house. Hopefully that will change sooner rather than later. Until then it's more practical to focus on installations on new homes, businesses and farms combined with Power Purchase Agreements to grow.
You don’t and shouldn’t need a net-zero house, if that means preferring to insist that a battery is essential. We might do well to work for better coordination among stakeholders whether homeowners and renters with PV, the utilities, or other actors providing renewable resource infrastructure, i.e. battery farms.
Where has ‘we’re all in this — together’ gone?
As to ‘lucky’ to afford? Our annual income puts us just barely into middle-class non-poverty status: adjusted gross around 60K. We live adjacent to the Bishop Paiute Reservation — hardly and sadly not an upper crust estate — and have lost count of the PV installations there littering rooftops.
On your assertion we ‘need to wait’ for this or that parameter to line up, consider that our system cost us zero up front. During the first year our loan payments were just slightly more than what we saved in direct bills from the utility. From here on out we are paying less, and less than what our bill would be without the PV system.
Maintenance? Trees falling? Sure. We have a routine for the first (we mow the lawn and oil the hinges too on a regular basis) and insurance for the second. And can’t help but note, respectfully, that you are an expert fisherperson — of red herrings.
A better design would start with a renewed grid. Dominion would focus on that and be paid for that alone, not for monopoly central generation. Distributed generation makes more sense. Campus microgrids can integrate, avoid transmission loss, employ waste heat, etc., and the whole is far more secure. Requires Federal authority and direction, however, so crazy quilt will persist. Dominion can complete in generation, such as with its offshore wind.
Not just commercial buildings. Every public building for which rooftop solar is feasible (e.g., not the Capitol) should have solar. Every post office; state, county, and municipal buildings; schools; jails. Every roof. Lots of jobs, big payoff over time. Tie it to modernizing the grid and making it more robust and flexible.
But no, the Orange Menace demands a ballroom, a grotesque arch, and now the absurd fantasy of a 100,000-seat stadium "near the White House" for a fake fighting match on his birthday. Yeah, something bigger than the average NFL stadium will go up where there's no space, in a few months. That's the mental acuity of our demented dictator.
Wind and solar work if you don't need electricity every day of the year. They are OK if you are happy going through cold spells in winter with no electricity or heat. Your home battery doesn't store anywhere near enough to get you through a long cold spell.
Our EV (which BTW is the BEST vehicle we've ever owned) is our backup battery. It has an 84 kWh battery and cost $43k OTD as opposed to $80k or so it would have cost us for equivalent stationery battery capacity.
Right! I saw a capture from a closed-circuit camera in a garage when floodwaters reached the battery of a Lexus. It looked like a small napalm bomb went off in there.
Stefan, as you probably already know, Enphase, Emporia and others hope to introduce V2H later this year. In the meantime, we can (and have) used a V2L adaptor, a long extension cord and a heavy-duty power strip to run essential appliances during outages. It's not as elegant as V2H, but it's cheap and it works in a pinch.
I installed rooftop Solar two years ago and reduced my electric cost by 2/3. Of course there is the initial investment in the system, which means my payback is about 10 years, but only if the cost of power I buy from the utility does not rise which it inevitably will.
I also put in rooftop solar about two years ago. The company used to send me a check for power fed to the grid. Last Fall they switched to a method in which that power goes into a "bank", from which I draw during Winter. All Summer, my bill was $0. Until last month. The bill for January was a little over $500 and the bill for February was a tad less than $950. That's nearly double what my bill was like this time of year before I put the panels in. With that sort of increase in costs from the company, I think we'll break even on the installation costs next year.
Isn’t the US’s core problem with reducing the world’s dependence on oil that the US benefits from a market traded in dollars (and often intervenes when countries (e.g., Venezuela) offer to trade in different currencies), because the resulting demand for dollars props us our currency and borrowing power?
Well, yes the socalled Petrodollar. The World is moving away from this while the US would like to keep the Petrodollar, so the US can prolong their treasury bonds indefinitely. The main problem is that very few Americans wants to pay taxes (which could help minimize the borrowing of money), and the government prefers to wage war and finance a huge military - than paying off their debts.
I think the ideal is not to settle on one thing but to use what is viable in given situations. Thermal is ideal in some places, less so in others. In the meantime solar and wind tend to rhyme with the prices of electronics - exponentially down - because the main cost is the hardware whereas the energy itself is free and abundant. Very different mechanics from fossil fuels. But yes, absolutely thermal as well. Some very promising projects in different places.
However, what I do like about solar and wind is the fact that it can be small scale and decentralised. We have about one billion people globally with no access to a reliable source of energy. They are off-grid because there is no way that it will ever be feasible to get them on-grid. They are in remote locations, or in geography that makes it almost impossible to reach them. For those kind of places we need small-scale, decentralised solutions.
We have had solar in Alberta since 2009, put on more in 2017, bought a Kona EV in 2019 and installed a heat pump last summer.........we're independent, and saving for a Chinese EV when they arrive in Canada.............as soon as we're off fossil gas and unconventional oil........the better for our pocketbooks, our health, our grandchildren and the godesses green earth.
“President Donald Trump said Thursday he has 'no concern' about rising gas prices as the Iran war sends crude to its highest levels in nearly two years. 'If they rise, they rise,' he told Reuters.”
Yeah, so what? Republicans in all three branches of the US government have been breaking their oaths to uphold the US Constitution for a long time, now. (The worst being SCOTUS partisan hacks.)
I think we cannot forget that Trump made promises to the oil companies. His actions belie those promises, but oil companies don’t wait for permission. They will use and are using any old excuse to raise prices. Needless to say Trump’s irrational hatred of alternative energy sources is right now hurting consumers. But it’s just another brick in the wall against him. ((I’m quoting Pink Floyd here. They are my nephew’s favorite group.)
Oil is sold on the global market. Via auctions. Oil providers don't raise prices. Oil buyers do. Those oil buyers produce the final product and pass the increased costs on to us.
It's always been legal for US producers (like the many refineries along the Gulf coast) to export refined fuels like diesel and gasoline. There's a very good chance that domestic gasoline and diesel prices in the US will increase ·faster· (due to global buyers) that the world prices of crude.
When a station is told that the next tank truck will cost them more, that station raises prices. Keep in mind. They aren't selling oil. They're selling gasoline and diesel; IOW, the finished product that oil buyers produce.
But that truck will arrive within a few days. It's perfectly normal, acceptable, and reasonable as long as prices are stable or rising. What's not reasonable is that, when prices are falling, stations set prices based on what they paid for the last truckload; not the next one. But gas stations aren't the only businesses to do this.
We finished installing solar in December. The project took far longer than it should have (9 months) between permits, approvals, inspections, etc. but whenever the sun shines, we’re off the grid. When this regime ends, we need to make the process simpler. And we need to start with low income citizens who are becoming priced out of electricity (and groceries and rent and health insurance).
Yup! Biden's IRA was simultaneously the biggest renewables bill ever and still largely inadequate, thanks to WV's coal baron/gadfly Senator Manchin - and all the (R)s, of course. The incentives were far too small for lower-income folks so all they did was make it cheaper for relatively rich people to go solar. That was still helpful for Ma Earth but didn't help those who could have benefited most. The IRA included incentives for landlords to add renewable to rentals, but again too small to matter.
We live in rural Maine so the only inspections we needed was a septic field inspection and a final occupancy permit for the house I built for my daughter last year. She installed solar panels with a battery backup. It took two weeks from the time the panels/batteries were delivered to start-up of the system.
The electrician, besides wiring her house installed our solar system and our heat pump none of which required an inspection here in rural Maine. He did need to consult with the battery manufacturer a few times. Our biggest electrical delay was from the for profit power company waiting for them to oversee running the underground line to the house. They didn't provide any of the labor except to hook up the line to the transformer on the pole.
In Australia you can get solar installed and hooked up much faster because of the streamlined permitting process. I really don’t understand with all the pressure on electricity companies from increased demand from data centers they don’t encourage people to install solar.
It’s because the US has sustained a total moral collapse. But new growth emerges from every wildfire, regardless of the magnitude of the destruction. That new growth will reflect the dominant value system. Which wolf will we feed? https://www.nanticokeindians.org/about/the-tale-of-two-wolves/
Power companies must build generation facilities to supply power for all of their customers when the sun doesn't shine. In other words, they need plants capable of supplying the net as if nobody has solar. One way to look at it is that rooftop solar users are using the grid as a giant battery. So, the companies' capital investments remain high, as do their expenses, but income decreases. They either raise rates or go out of business.
We live in New Jersey. Installation of our system took about two weeks (actual work on the house took about a day). It then took several weeks more for the power company to install the special meter required to get the full benefit. Before that meter went in, the old meter would run backwards on sunny days. That would've given the meter reader headaches at times.
China is providing solar panels to countries that don't have reliable electrical grids. America took away poorer nations food and medicine by ending USAID. America's new exceptionalism is that we were exceptionally stupid in picking a president.
China's oil imports depend not only on passage through the Strait of Hormuz but also on passage through the Malacca Strait (Singapore). A strong recognition that dependence on petroleum imports is a strategic weakness has driven China's development of EV's and solar panels for decades.
Your comment about countries with weak electrical grids importing Chinese solar panels reminds me of a saying: "We like to think we succeed when we build on our strengths; but actually, we progress the fastest when we share our weaknesses and ask others for help."
I was involved in 2014 in a bid on work relating to offshore wind in Taiwan. When I asked what the driver was for the project as cost were high (keep in mind there was no offshore wind capability in Asia at that time) the answer was simple: Energy Independence, cost was not important as Taiwan depended 100% on imported energy.
The US had a LOT of help from Russia in picking a president. We have hard data from 2016, but since the Father of Lies has kneecapped security investigations and created so much noise we may never know how much they affected 2024.
And they probably think the Carter Doctrine was an initiative to build affordable housing for the poor when it was actually a declaration that the U.S. would use military force to defend its “vital interests” in the Persian Gulf beginning a major shift toward direct military intervention to secure Oil supplies and creating security arrangements with Middle East “governments” that flooded the region with U.S. Weapon systems.
I’m an Independent who will never who will never vote Republican, but Democratic voters just look at little surface highlights they like about their side and pay no attention to what they actually do once they are in office that has directly built the massive systemic wealth transfer to the Corporate OnePercent that has weakened Democracy and the Rule of Law to the point where we are where we are now.
T***p is just the cherry on top of decades of Democratic Party capitulation to Republican depravity.
Patrick Knight, do you really think you can present so distorted a thesis absent at least a précis of the articles to which you refer? And expect your reader to time out and follow the links? Common courtesy suggests the former.
As well as even a skim reader picking up from keywords in the URLs you list as belonging to strongly biased and distorting opinion sources.
Maybe it’s because I don’t want to waste my time dragging people who can’t question their own assumptions out of the dark and into the light. It was generous enough of me to provide you with links since the algorithm running your feed would never pop them up on its own.
Just because these sources have a point of view… doesn’t make them wrong. Why don’t you fire up a little précis disputing them and defend how well the neoliberal orthodoxy ushered in by Carter, put on steroids by Clinton and has been the Democratic Party lodestar ever since has worked out for us. Look around you... all the results are in.
Here’s why it matters…
Whatever the Democrats have been doing hasn’t been enough to prevent us from landing where we are now and discouraging criticism of what Democrats have been doing prevents the party from making the changes it needs to make to make the changes the country needs to make.
Sorry to wake you up. You can go back to sleep now.
Oh, oh my goonness!!! (Not sure how you spell it, so please insert here the sound of a hearty Bronx cheer.)
Yes yes yes. Dems are the demons-du-jour. I'm sorry you seem to be so unindustrious as to leave the field as-is. One may reply by turning your petulance back upon you -- one supposes -- to repeat the tickle for your -- that is your own -- argument plainly stated. Or are you un-confident in that, and reach for authority, in the articles for which you list URL addresses? But -- not even a title for any of them. How silly.
In the event I might be pleased to respond, directly. For now, I do think I get the drift. Yes, back to sleep!! zzzzzzzzzzzzz
And they probably think the Carter Doctrine was an initiative to build affordable housing for the poor when it was actually a declaration that the U.S. would use military force to defend its “vital interests” in the Persian Gulf beginning a major shift toward direct military intervention to secure Oil supplies and creating security arrangements with Middle East “governments” that flooded the region with U.S. Weapon systems.
I’m an Independent who will never who will never vote Republican, but Democratic voters just look at little surface highlights they like about their side and pay no attention to what they actually do once they are in office that has directly built the massive systemic wealth transfer to the Corporate OnePercent that has weakened Democracy and the Rule of Law to the point where we are where we are now.
T***p is just the cherry on top of decades of Democratic Party capitulation to Republican depravity.
"Unforeseen consequences" is pretty much the entirety of Donald Trump's existence. The only thinking applied to anything is "how much money can I get out of this?" or "will this scratch whatever itch I have at the moment?"
Going to war is the most serious thing any leader can ever do. Trump has taken us to war, and as he has repeatedly told reporters, he has no plan for anything other than dropping bombs. Oh, and he thinks he "have a say" in whoever Iran picks as its new leadership.
And the MAGAs put him there because he's a raging racist and they want to racist their hearts out. The White Supremacists put him there because he promises dominance over anyone non-white male. The Christian Right put him there because he'll give them whatever they want as long as he's in the center and making gazillions of $.
Yes, the Iranians will indeed ‘have a say’ on many issues: the strait of hormuz, cyber attacks, asymmetric retaliation and which ayatollah leads them forward. Seems quite naive and clueless to imagine otherwise
Exactly! Trump is using the Venezuela experience as a template for Iran. It made sense in Venezuela. The US replaced one thug (Maduro) for a bigger thug, Trump. That will not work with the theocratic totalitarians in Iran.
If only those who declare wars, and their entourage, could go and lead from the front lines too instead of sending others to be killed off..... That might give them more perspective. And it might solve the issue of undesirable regimes too at the same time...
Spectacular article as usual, Dr. Krugman! I've been writing a lot about the renewables revolution, and I would be profoundly honored if I could interview you sometime!
Thank you! I know Dr. Krugman must be incredibly busy, but if he has a free timeslot anytime in the upcoming weeks or months, I'd absolutely love to speak with him!
It was what Carter said back in the ‘70s but then Reagan got elected, the media bowed down and Republicans began their long fight against renewables starting with St. Ronnie took Carter’s solar panels off the roof of the White House and Republicans opposed every effort to strengthen Carter’s energy policies. Trump finally succeeded in destroying Carter’s car fuel efficiency standard. The Republicans are the Regressive Party, always looking backwards.
Well, the Republicans are in the pocket of the fossil fuel industry, and have been for a while. I used to joke that whenever someone decided to become a Republican, there was a ceremony in which half their brains were removed. Now I wonder if that wasn't so much of a joke after all ... .
Thank you for the article, Professor. It seems Russia is making a lot of money in oil? We are in dire straits financially in this country with this country! Bye Noem ! I grew up with hearing, Peter , Paul and Mary. Bless their sweet natured souls for singing for many years to the American people and others. Many thanks for the music coda!
Paul (Noel Stookey) attended the last No Kings Protest with guitar in hand and led the crowd in singing a couple of songs.
A little known thing about Paul is that he started a radio station in ME which was ranked the number one station in the US by Esquire Magazine several years ago. WERU is the call letters and it still operates here in Hancock County Maine.
My power isn’t completely free …. But my solar panels offset much of the bill from Eversource, and my energy bills don’t upend the entire household budget
I live in a 1600 square foot house and my solar panels generate more energy than I use--even in hot summers running the AC. That excess energy gets sold as carbon offset credits on a market, and the money from those sales cover the $5 I pay to my utility mainly for taxes and fees.
Renewables are the obvious and unstoppable future for all nations. In the short run, the US is motivated to promote fossil fuel since it is priced in dollars globally. This forces the world to buy US debt, a key to propping up our enormous deficit spending.
Nah! Don't need it... Neither the renewables or the security.
(Tongue in cheek, I'm not here often)
We also don't need alternate supplies or stockpiles. The American way is to "cross that bridge when we get there"
And, ,as for plans: build that bridge... A BIG Beautiful Bridge. Nevermind that you could also get by with a boat.
Republican history... Balanced budgets under Clinton were scuttled by Bush. Surveillance was ignored : 9/11 took place... and nevermind Air Quality, we can pay survivors benefits *forever* (thanks, Wittman)
Regulations were ignored and the credit crunch bankrupted millions (some of whom were plundered by Mnuchin).
So, winging it is the Republican way.... Everyone ready for storm seasons? Floods? Too bad.
And Power? Just one of those things! Whether oil or electric, why bother making things reliable?
We should never forget that the W Bush administration was concerned that the Clinton budget SURPLUSES were going to pay down the national debt "too fast". So we got tax cuts for the top and a cluster of stupid, endless wars. Nearly $40 trillion ago. Republican economic expertise at its finest!
You should also write an article on which companies and donors will profit off of higher oil prices im taking a wild guess that it’s MBS and all of his oil company donors
Donald Trump doesn't understand his own base. They drive ginormous pick up trucks and feel entitled to cheap gas. If there's one thing they hate more than Democrats, it's high fuel prices. MAGA turned a blind eye to his corruption, his crimes, and he Epstein files, but they'll hunt him with pitchforks if gas sniffs $6.00 a gallon.
As a Dane and European it now feels downright patriotic to install solar panels! And if you have an EV, the V2X technology could virtually turn your home into a small power station. Which is exactly what we have decided to do. No more reliance on energy from volatile and hostile powers. And in case of a crisis we will be part of the solution by being able to send energy into the central system rather than tapping it
And the US is a volatile and hostile power. If the US were to maximize its renewable energy potential, how many military bases would we need in the Middle East? Not many. Maybe none.
I feel a profound sadness that I even have to consider the US a potential volatile and hostile power. All through my rather long and happy life I have considered the US a strong ally. It was never perfect, no country is, but I always had a feeling that at least it shared an aspiration for a better world and to improve. Now it’s just bullying and not getting that soft power is staying power. I have walked (yes, on my feet) from one end of Europe to the other, from Lisbon to Istanbul, and seen traces and shadows of European history. What has been clear is that sheer force may win the battle but never the war. The Chinese get that. Putin and Trump don’t. And never in my life did I think that I would have to view China as the lesser evil …
I'm 73 years old. I live in Minneapolis , Minnesota. Please believe me when I tell you that I fully understand how you feel. The fact that enough fellow US citizens were able to elect this psychopathic regime and have enough elected republicans to support it is so overwhelming to me, and frankly many many others, that I am left without words to describe it. Worse for me is the fact that many right wing "Christians" support this Satanic influence on our country. I am a Christian. But I am trying to follow Christ's teachings. The right wing Christian culture ARE NOT of Christ. They are that, a cult. I'm explaining my position not trying turn anyone from what they believe. My hope, our hope is that it will be Blue 26 come November. Like always, it will be up to democrats to clean up the republican mess they always create. I hope we can restore some of trump and lackys have destroyed.
I am not religious myself but grew up the daughter of clergy. Your statement is so very true. While things can be misinterpreted or intentionally twisted, what the right wing Christian and evangelical Christian coalitions do is use it as both a shield to hide ugly things behind and a rubber stamp to do ugly things. But what they want, believe, and do has nothing to do with the Bible, God, Jesus, or anything else Christian. It is purely self serving, with an awful lot of fear and shame thrown around, as a means of duping others and justifying their utterly unchristian views. If Jesus descended from the heavens right this very minute, he would absolutely be on the opposite side of the line from those people.
In both public and private settings, I believe it is all about power. Once it is ceded or seized, those having it feel they were somehow ordained to have it. That best explains the politicians that say they're running for one term of office and end up staying "forever." A close friend that achieved a high position in private industry told me after retirement that he most missed the "noblesse oblige," the deference from others and the perks.
Noblesse oblige is actually the obligation of the upper classes to look after the overall health of society, something sadly missing among today's oligarchs. Kind makes you yearn for a good, old aristocracy. At least they were aware of the concept.
Sad.
FOX has been propagandizing to them for decades and now it's bearing fruit. If we want to point a finger at individuals, the Murdochs should be first.
It's interesting how different the news coverage is in the Wall Street Journal. The opinion pages are absolutely pro-MAGA but they report the financial news fairly straight.
https://www.facebook.com/reel/1214056870842031
🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏
https://www.facebook.com/reel/1214056870842031
As an American, i could not agree with you more. However, please know that most of the hostility we project onto the rest of the world comes from conservatives - from the Republican party.
If Americans only had the sense to elect Dems we would have a smaller military, be less aggressive and more supportive to the rest of the world. We would not have attacked Iraq and would not be mugging Iran. Sadly, (R)s are so adept at distracting voters with meaningless side issues like the teeny, tiny number of Trans kids in our schools.
Shockingly, the latest yougov.com polls show that 86.6% of Republican voters STILL support the fascism of this "christian" Nationalist MAGAtte gov't. That stands in stark contrast to 30% of Independents and less than 4% of Dems.
The conservative I've-got-mine-so-screw-you worldview is becoming increasingly toxic as it becomes increasingly obvious that we are sucking Ma Earth dry of resources and supplies are getting tighter.
All true. And these Republicans (they were once called Democrats) that have been working hard to get control of the US since the end of the Civil War believe they are finally in control of the US. They have gone out of their way to destroy the Constitution, its Amendments, and the Declaration of Independence. That means equity among all The People, as well as all the structures of the US government and our growing green energy systems. The evidence is overwhelming that this is so.
Righto! It sure confused things when the (D)s and (R) swapped sides after LBJ's ERA. We need scorecards 🤯
Umm... I think you forgot FDR and way before that. If I recall it was the Hayes administration that sold out to big business and Democrats became the working man's party. Before that Democrats were the villains particularly during the Civil War and Republicans were the party of Lincoln. However, there were always the racist Dixiecrats who switched sides in the Nixon era, maybe that's who you're thinking of.
That swapping began in 1953 with the McCarthy era.
What happens if we go even further back…would Lincoln be an R or D in 2026?
the gop and maga have perfected the wedge issue strategy to fool the minions and as once famously said, it is easier to fool people than to convince them they have been fooled
Add A.I. to that. It makes stupid appear unstupid.
Miss Anne, Others have already made some of the point. I want to assert my two cents, though. And hoping NOT to sound too much like Dire Larder, let me say their have been good people in both of the two major parties over the years.
The switching sides on labor/corporations, Blacks/nonBlacks, et cetera, have occurred several times and have not always taken the same sets of folks from one party designation to the other. More recently a growing number of people have found neither party very wonderful and a growing number, myself included, have decided they are independent — even if usually forced by reality to choose one or the other party candidate in the end.
This is a longer than intended piece already, but I think you will find that many independents and even some who still consider themselves Democrats find the leadership and movement of the Democratic Party too conservative — to the point of becoming Republican Light!
Too many upper echelon Democrats and older Democrats are neo-liberal; that is, not really Liberal at all.
Fortunately, freedom of speech is still treasured by all Americans, which differs from the Chinese.
Sorry Stefan, but you haven't been paying attention. The MAGAttes are attacking Free Speech in this country and around the world.
Sorry Anne, but I can read you and Mr. Krugman. They might be attacking, but free speech has not been closed down - like in China.
Sorry Stefan, but in the US we just have another approach to shutting down free speech. We allow certain people to take over the outlets of information, then they use their monopoly power to ensure that the masses are only feed a "healthy" information diet. That would include the narratives that Chinese cannot say anything, whereas we in the US are free. In both countries you can say whatever you want at the dinner table - but certain information and narratives are not allowed to get a wider audience.
When is the last time you saw someone claim that Putin doesn't have a "pee-pee tape", but he has some of the Epstein tapes - with child rape committed by some very important people? Why do you think that particular "free speech" has been locked in a cage?
not yet but maga is surely trying
Apologies Stefan. Poor choice of words. I didn't mean to sound insulting ✌️
Stefan, you are correct, let's fight to keep it that way
Yet.
Stefan have you seen the video of a US Senator (Sheehey from Montana) breaking the arm of a Marine veteran who attempted to exercise his right of free speech at a Senate hearing this week?
I don’t know that this is true…”treasured” by “all” Americans? Probably the majority, but it has become clear that a shocking and sad amount want to send us back 200 years to when only white men with money had rights, including those found in the first amendment. And to make matters worse, those are currently the people overtly and covertly leading our country. People who hold money, power, and self-interest higher than life itself, stability, the very planet we live on.
It is treasured by all Americans, for some Americans only for themselves, but that's nothing new under the Sun. It still differs from the Chinese.
I've read the back and forth re: free speech here vs. China and I think one point is missing: Few people truly understand the First Amendment, especially the MAGA cult. They generally don't understand the 1st is meant to shield them from government retribution, prosecution, persecution. Worse, they revel in ICE's brutality, and the religious corruption taking place in the military and government as high as the Supreme Court Six.
The MAGAs and Cult Christians, and there are millions upon millions of them, don't treasure free speech unless it's their freedom to use words and deeds to oppress, silence or destroy those they don't like, or force their religious dogma onto everyone - basically taking away everyone else's right to free speech.
But you're right that here we sit on our computers and phones reading Krugman, and on cheap social media (e.g., Facebook) voicing our opinions (for now) against the government in a public arena with safety. The Chinese can't do that. Dr. Krugman would have been silenced long ago.
Yes, but for how much longer?
China has a big problem controling free speech. People use coded messages to express their disagreement with govt, and even though the govt understands, the coding is indirect so difficult to counter.
(One example is sending a blank page, in a conversation about some govt poicy. Even the govt knows it means disagreement, but what can they do ?)
The current US admin is using overt violence, much like China did before. China stopped using the old method because it didn't work very well.
Any authoritarian system has problems controlling whatever people want to say, so people must restrict themselves and self-censor their speech to pass through censorship and their consequences. It was the same in old days where people for example placed the postage stamps in a certain way to pass a predefined message, but this is not freedom of speech.
The current US administration is using bullying, coercing and in some cases overt violence to make people comply, but the difference to China is that the US administration is breaking several laws and some amendments to the constitution with their behaviour.
Please remember that only about 30% of Americans are the root of the problem. When combined with enough others motivated by greed, ignorance or despair you end up with a trump.
End citizens united and the electorial college and return to democracy
Neither did we, the sane face of Americans who oppose this fascist takeover. Our Congress has abandoned its oath of office . It is up to us.
Thank you, Susanne for your very thoughtful comment.
As an American I'm right there with you.
what I hate most about your post?
every word is accurate... indeed understates the coming shitstorm... please post links so Americans can apply for refugee status
when a son of Holocaust survivors would ever ask Germany about their process for applying refugee status? this is not the right timeline
that being the Jewish Holocaust to be precise... been so many others...
"And never in my life did I think that I would have to view China as the lesser evil …"
----
I am ·so· with you on that, sister.
And between planning and self-interest, China is our best hope to save the planet from the worst version of climate change.
The US military presence in the Gulf states is an anachronism. It's not there because the US needs their oil, 85% of the oil goes to Asia. The US military in the Gulf is the World's largest rent-an-army, mainly sponsored by the Gulf countries to keep safe.
And of course to keep Israel safe.
Yes, but there are no US bases in Israel since the Israelis have a quite potent military and military industry.
Well, there is Mashabim. But that's kind of the point, the deliberate downplaying of US/Israeli military involvement belies the closeness of the relationship, albeit in a weird way.
Mashabim escaped my attention, but it seems more like a supporting role than an active combat role, like the US base in Greenland as an example. The bases in the Gulf countries has active combat roles and more than 5,000 permanent US troops.
and israel has nukes, should we trust them?
You are not wrong. The middle eastern countries have given Trump personally billions Disgraceful and despicable corruption
Sadly, the main reason we have military bases all over the world is to extend our hegemony, not to get oil - the US is a net energy exporter. It's about the Power of a wannabe empire more than anything else
Afraid it IS about oil. You see, the US does export more than it imports -- get that key word, 'net'. US refining infrastructure is tuned to the heavy sour crude from the Middle East; the US produces, on the other hand, a light sweet crude that our refineries are not set up to process.
ERGO: we export the light sweet; we IMPORT the heavy sour to keep our schtick going.
We are very much dependent of oil flow through the Strait of Hormuz, and at the mercy of the Gulf producers.
Saudi Aramco: Through its subsidiary Motiva Enterprises, the Saudi Arabian state-owned company is the sole owner of the Port Arthur Refinery in Texas, which is the largest oil refinery in North America.
I didn't know that. Thank you for posting it.
Brent crude hit $90/barrel today. The Oil Minister of Qatar said if the war drags on, oil will hit $150/barrel and, quote: "destroy the world economy." Iran is not Venezuela and I don't see a quick end to this, only more human misery.
Donnie would still stay there to help his buddies Bibi and MBS.
There should be no need for millons or hundreds of millions of ordinary people to have to add elaborate new systems to their homes. I spend enough time and money maintaining my home as it is. Dominion and the other power companies need to get going with renewables on a large scale. All commercial buildings with large roofs, including data centers, need to be required by law to install them. But no, as usual the expense and trouble falls on ordinary people while the corporations skate away and Trump has done all he can to kill the EV and renewable energy business in service to his fossil fuel donors. We were on the brink of an EV revolution until he took office. Now car companies are pulling back. But China marches ahead and we are going to rue the day.
Imagine how glorious it would be to have both! What if new homes were built with things like solar panels, heat pumps, EV plugs, etc. Buildings and parking lots were covered with panels? Parks had wind sculptures, hydroponics, vertical gardens? The list could go on and on. Fat chance here in America. But I hear we’re super great again…the hottest country in the world… He’s got that second part right, but not in any of the ways he thinks.
The "all of the above" approach would indeed be glorious. And "fat chance" is exactly right.
We did create the TVA and spread electricity to the more rural parts of the country. We mobilized on a massive scale to build the atomic bombs and revamp industry for the war effort - energy is no different given climate change
We did that in a world where our government was not owned lock stock and barrel by a military industrial complex, and the man who created it warned us about that.
I wouldn't give up just yet. Sure the Republicans have put the brakes on government incentives, but the economic momentum is building where it doesn't make sense to use fossil fuels. I hope we're just in a four year hiatis but maybe I'm overly optimistic.
No you are not too optimistic as WE THE PEOPLE are coming tens of millions strong for an overwhelming anti-Trump efficient future. Let’s start with a succession of NO KINGS DAY marches culminating in a HUGE victory! WE can and will do it! Right? Please organize your neighborhood! And the most efficient and effective way to mobilize the pro-democracy young voters is TAX DEDUCTIBLE www.TurnUp.US.
These things are increasingly common here in Australia.
While I don't disagree with the need for large-scale renewable energy production, Distributed energy production (down to the individual home level) has many advantages. The list is long, including reduced grid strain, individual independence from Big Electricity monopolies, reduced operating costs for homeowners and many more
I’d like to see a multiplicity of power generation, from home backup, to neighborhood areas and towns, to rooftop on every flat warehouse, to big corporate and governmental projects - wherever it makes sense. But when you feed power back into the system, you have to have careful moderation systems in place, or you blow transformers all over with uneven surges and drops of electricity.
Yes, but retro-fitting homes with PV systems is extremely cost prohibitive. The tax credits made it more affordable, but still not for the average homeowner (yet); they require battery bank back-up systems and maintenance. What does make sense is perhaps large community PV systems, PPAs, and utility scale farms working together.
To note just two incorrect or distorted points in your post, PV systems do not REQUIRE battery backup, and one might reply to the assertion about maintenance with a puzzled, 'Huh?!'
We've run our system for years now, with the closest thing to 'maintenance' being a grin when the occasional rain rinses the panels. Otherwise not the least even hint of a trace of a concept of a remote sign of a -- hiccup.
With appropriate financing, and inflation what it is, a homeowner installing as we did, a passive system even without battery backup will likely stare with zero down and a fixed loan payment comparable with what they currently pay the utility -- or less. That delta will only grow as the years pass.
Utilities have gutted net metering -- that should change, and they should pay PV owners a fair rate for power they send back to the grid. As to batteries, for the sake of efficiencies of scale utility installation of the big battery packs to level the load makes a lot of sense. And it's coming.
There hardly exists a reasonable objection to expanding PV -- anywhere there's a roof with southerly exposure.
We were able to persuade the underwriters to accept our rooftop solar array as a fixture, part of the house, and fold our separate short-term note into our refi mortgage balance, dropping the interest rate substantially and amortizing it over 30 years.
And our system cost about $16k when it was installed in late 2019. Compare that to new car prices (and used car prices), kitchen remodeling, and any number of other home investments. Hardly prohibitive.
I lived in a net-zero house. When you don't have a battery back-up system and you're dependent on being connected to the grid and the grid goes down, you have no power in your house.
And if a heavy limb falls on your system - boom - maintenance. And cleaning them once a year or so is a good idea. It's amazing how much film builds up that you can't see.
You're lucky that you can afford a system. Many people can't. They take a number of years for ROI. Some people don't have the credit rating or income for a loan or are too old to wait for the system to pay off. Believe it or not, it can effect the resale value of your home. Not everyone understands how PV works and, sorta like a pool, not everyone wants one. I realize it can also increase the potential for selling, but not necessarily what you'll get for the house.
Some states have gutted net metering. Yes, it "should change" but hasn't and the utility companies aren't likely to willingly pay a fair price for energy being returned to the grid if they aren't forced.
I'm a staunch advocate of PV, all renewable energy. But to say "wherever there's a roof with southern exposure" is simplistic. My roof, for example, doesn't have southern exposure and I live on the side of a mountain on an acre of HEAVILY wooded lot, so a ground mount would be impractical.
I'm not against solar, but it's just not that easy to retro-fit a house. Hopefully that will change sooner rather than later. Until then it's more practical to focus on installations on new homes, businesses and farms combined with Power Purchase Agreements to grow.
You don’t and shouldn’t need a net-zero house, if that means preferring to insist that a battery is essential. We might do well to work for better coordination among stakeholders whether homeowners and renters with PV, the utilities, or other actors providing renewable resource infrastructure, i.e. battery farms.
Where has ‘we’re all in this — together’ gone?
As to ‘lucky’ to afford? Our annual income puts us just barely into middle-class non-poverty status: adjusted gross around 60K. We live adjacent to the Bishop Paiute Reservation — hardly and sadly not an upper crust estate — and have lost count of the PV installations there littering rooftops.
On your assertion we ‘need to wait’ for this or that parameter to line up, consider that our system cost us zero up front. During the first year our loan payments were just slightly more than what we saved in direct bills from the utility. From here on out we are paying less, and less than what our bill would be without the PV system.
Maintenance? Trees falling? Sure. We have a routine for the first (we mow the lawn and oil the hinges too on a regular basis) and insurance for the second. And can’t help but note, respectfully, that you are an expert fisherperson — of red herrings.
Facility level solar is about half the cost of residential rooftop solar.
Facility battery storage has about the same advantage and much lower fire risk than residential or commercial battery systems.
Rooftop solar is great if you have the money, but it is not the most cost efficient way to deploy solar power at large scale.
The distributed grid benefits are real but minor. Even if the local grid is inadequate, facility solar and upgrading the grid is cheaper.
Bur of course there are lots of places where energy policy is pennywise and pound foolish.
Also the power companies pass on their costs to the consumer. There's no free lunch.
unfortunately, Murika will fall further behind this transition while maga rules and much to all of our detriment
A better design would start with a renewed grid. Dominion would focus on that and be paid for that alone, not for monopoly central generation. Distributed generation makes more sense. Campus microgrids can integrate, avoid transmission loss, employ waste heat, etc., and the whole is far more secure. Requires Federal authority and direction, however, so crazy quilt will persist. Dominion can complete in generation, such as with its offshore wind.
Not just commercial buildings. Every public building for which rooftop solar is feasible (e.g., not the Capitol) should have solar. Every post office; state, county, and municipal buildings; schools; jails. Every roof. Lots of jobs, big payoff over time. Tie it to modernizing the grid and making it more robust and flexible.
But no, the Orange Menace demands a ballroom, a grotesque arch, and now the absurd fantasy of a 100,000-seat stadium "near the White House" for a fake fighting match on his birthday. Yeah, something bigger than the average NFL stadium will go up where there's no space, in a few months. That's the mental acuity of our demented dictator.
Wind and solar work if you don't need electricity every day of the year. They are OK if you are happy going through cold spells in winter with no electricity or heat. Your home battery doesn't store anywhere near enough to get you through a long cold spell.
You can also put a backup battery (Powerwall) on your solar system. No more power outages.
We did that and love it. Also get credits for giving power back so that we only had to pay a small bill in January !
Our EV (which BTW is the BEST vehicle we've ever owned) is our backup battery. It has an 84 kWh battery and cost $43k OTD as opposed to $80k or so it would have cost us for equivalent stationery battery capacity.
I’m waiting for the next generation of sodium-ion batteries. Salt, not lithium.
Safer and cheaper than early-generation Li+ batteries, but bulkier.
We can live with that.
Right! I saw a capture from a closed-circuit camera in a garage when floodwaters reached the battery of a Lexus. It looked like a small napalm bomb went off in there.
We put in a gas-powered generator years ago. That took care of the power outages.
Good for you. I say the more renewables , the better.
As A Brit I totally agree!
Incidentally I saw this article last evening:
"Ex-Nato commander slams 'Trump as 'Gung-ho nutter' for Iran bombing"
If you google the headline you should find the article.
Crooked Trump is the laughing stock of the world now and will cause a bigger paradigm shift in control than has happened for 100s of years.
Hey America - you've just lost control of the world and the Chinese are waiting to take over, as well as Europe....
I Love Britain and Europe xxxxxx
Ex-NATO Commander Slams Trump As 'Gung-Ho Nutter' For Iran Bombing
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/ex-nato-commander-slams-trump-as-gun-ho-nutter-for-iran-bombing_uk_69a99d8ee4b0c2a35a6efe90
Another take by Mallen Baker - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWwUGKYUDmk
Sådan! Same here, PV and EV and when feasible V2H.
Stefan, as you probably already know, Enphase, Emporia and others hope to introduce V2H later this year. In the meantime, we can (and have) used a V2L adaptor, a long extension cord and a heavy-duty power strip to run essential appliances during outages. It's not as elegant as V2H, but it's cheap and it works in a pinch.
Thanks, definitely going to get these for our EVs!
"A V2L (Vehicle-to-Load) adapter allows electric vehicle owners to use their car's high-voltage battery to power external 120V or 240V AC devices.
It plugs into the charging port, enabling on-the-go power for camping, power tools, or emergency backups during outages.
It typically provides up to 15A-20A (approx. 1.8-2kW).
The adapter converts DC power from the EV battery to AC power for standard household outlets, offering a 'mobile' socket."
💯
I installed rooftop Solar two years ago and reduced my electric cost by 2/3. Of course there is the initial investment in the system, which means my payback is about 10 years, but only if the cost of power I buy from the utility does not rise which it inevitably will.
I also put in rooftop solar about two years ago. The company used to send me a check for power fed to the grid. Last Fall they switched to a method in which that power goes into a "bank", from which I draw during Winter. All Summer, my bill was $0. Until last month. The bill for January was a little over $500 and the bill for February was a tad less than $950. That's nearly double what my bill was like this time of year before I put the panels in. With that sort of increase in costs from the company, I think we'll break even on the installation costs next year.
Isn’t the US’s core problem with reducing the world’s dependence on oil that the US benefits from a market traded in dollars (and often intervenes when countries (e.g., Venezuela) offer to trade in different currencies), because the resulting demand for dollars props us our currency and borrowing power?
Well, yes the socalled Petrodollar. The World is moving away from this while the US would like to keep the Petrodollar, so the US can prolong their treasury bonds indefinitely. The main problem is that very few Americans wants to pay taxes (which could help minimize the borrowing of money), and the government prefers to wage war and finance a huge military - than paying off their debts.
For some the thinking is “Once we’ve ushered in the Biblical End TImes, national debt won’t matter.”
Just the right thing for MAGA survivalists :)
Susanne, do you take boarders?
Longer comment down thread, but
"The wind and the sun don’t need to transit the Strait of Hormuz....that means wind and solar (and, yes, nuclear.)"
Neither does deep geothermal, and like nuclear, it's 24/7 power, widely feasible AND less than half the price.
Total LCOE or LCOS including tax credit ($6.52 for nuc, $2.20 for GT) 2021$ per megawatthour
Advanced nuclear 90% $88.24 -$6.52 =$81.71
(deep) Geothermal 90% $39.82 -$2.20 =$37.62
https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/electricity_generation.pdf
https://www.smu.edu/-/media/site/dedman/academics/programs/geothermal-lab/graphics/temperaturemaps/smu_2011_10kmtemperature_small.png
I think the ideal is not to settle on one thing but to use what is viable in given situations. Thermal is ideal in some places, less so in others. In the meantime solar and wind tend to rhyme with the prices of electronics - exponentially down - because the main cost is the hardware whereas the energy itself is free and abundant. Very different mechanics from fossil fuels. But yes, absolutely thermal as well. Some very promising projects in different places.
However, what I do like about solar and wind is the fact that it can be small scale and decentralised. We have about one billion people globally with no access to a reliable source of energy. They are off-grid because there is no way that it will ever be feasible to get them on-grid. They are in remote locations, or in geography that makes it almost impossible to reach them. For those kind of places we need small-scale, decentralised solutions.
Sadly, renters don't have the options we homeowners do.
We have had solar in Alberta since 2009, put on more in 2017, bought a Kona EV in 2019 and installed a heat pump last summer.........we're independent, and saving for a Chinese EV when they arrive in Canada.............as soon as we're off fossil gas and unconventional oil........the better for our pocketbooks, our health, our grandchildren and the godesses green earth.
Hej Susanne!
I am combined Swedish American and Finnish American.
Some of us have solar panels here in the USA. We did
not ask for permission from Trump, since it is not any
of his concern. My only complaint is that Musk bought
out the company that sold us the system.
I believe that Trump is attempting to secure a large source
of campaign contributions for the Republican Party from
the fossil fuel industry, especially oil and gas, and to a
lesser extent coal. Coal is a dying industry, in spite of
Trump's claims to coal miners that he is going to "revive"
that industry. Coal is dirty, and the coal ash that results
from its use for electric power generation is toxic and
has to be buried.
Touche!
7 in 10 Americans are against the war and it's already driving up fuel prices around the world. We need renewables and we need peace.
What we need is for the Republicans in Congress remember that they took an oath of office.
They literally swore to prevent the very things that Trump does on a daily basis.
But Trump cares! “If they rise, they rise”
“President Donald Trump said Thursday he has 'no concern' about rising gas prices as the Iran war sends crude to its highest levels in nearly two years. 'If they rise, they rise,' he told Reuters.”
America First!
Yeah, so what? Republicans in all three branches of the US government have been breaking their oaths to uphold the US Constitution for a long time, now. (The worst being SCOTUS partisan hacks.)
I think we cannot forget that Trump made promises to the oil companies. His actions belie those promises, but oil companies don’t wait for permission. They will use and are using any old excuse to raise prices. Needless to say Trump’s irrational hatred of alternative energy sources is right now hurting consumers. But it’s just another brick in the wall against him. ((I’m quoting Pink Floyd here. They are my nephew’s favorite group.)
Oil is sold on the global market. Via auctions. Oil providers don't raise prices. Oil buyers do. Those oil buyers produce the final product and pass the increased costs on to us.
It's always been legal for US producers (like the many refineries along the Gulf coast) to export refined fuels like diesel and gasoline. There's a very good chance that domestic gasoline and diesel prices in the US will increase ·faster· (due to global buyers) that the world prices of crude.
But don’t filling stations raise prices at the pumps too?
When a station is told that the next tank truck will cost them more, that station raises prices. Keep in mind. They aren't selling oil. They're selling gasoline and diesel; IOW, the finished product that oil buyers produce.
But they don’t wait for the truck to arrive. They increase the cost now! And, they know the station across the street will do the same.
But that truck will arrive within a few days. It's perfectly normal, acceptable, and reasonable as long as prices are stable or rising. What's not reasonable is that, when prices are falling, stations set prices based on what they paid for the last truckload; not the next one. But gas stations aren't the only businesses to do this.
And we need to get rid if the morons running the government administration.
We finished installing solar in December. The project took far longer than it should have (9 months) between permits, approvals, inspections, etc. but whenever the sun shines, we’re off the grid. When this regime ends, we need to make the process simpler. And we need to start with low income citizens who are becoming priced out of electricity (and groceries and rent and health insurance).
Yup! Biden's IRA was simultaneously the biggest renewables bill ever and still largely inadequate, thanks to WV's coal baron/gadfly Senator Manchin - and all the (R)s, of course. The incentives were far too small for lower-income folks so all they did was make it cheaper for relatively rich people to go solar. That was still helpful for Ma Earth but didn't help those who could have benefited most. The IRA included incentives for landlords to add renewable to rentals, but again too small to matter.
At least it was a start in the right direction. Now though we’re peddling backward and doing it faster.
💯
We live in rural Maine so the only inspections we needed was a septic field inspection and a final occupancy permit for the house I built for my daughter last year. She installed solar panels with a battery backup. It took two weeks from the time the panels/batteries were delivered to start-up of the system.
The electrician, besides wiring her house installed our solar system and our heat pump none of which required an inspection here in rural Maine. He did need to consult with the battery manufacturer a few times. Our biggest electrical delay was from the for profit power company waiting for them to oversee running the underground line to the house. They didn't provide any of the labor except to hook up the line to the transformer on the pole.
In Australia you can get solar installed and hooked up much faster because of the streamlined permitting process. I really don’t understand with all the pressure on electricity companies from increased demand from data centers they don’t encourage people to install solar.
Entrenched bureaucracy.
Power companies want to keep control, and residential solar attacks their business growth.
Same reason they prefer nonrenewable power plants. Construction, maintenance, fuel supply are great when you run a cost plus business.
Solar is cheaper to build and run, so they make much less money per megawatt.
It’s because the US has sustained a total moral collapse. But new growth emerges from every wildfire, regardless of the magnitude of the destruction. That new growth will reflect the dominant value system. Which wolf will we feed? https://www.nanticokeindians.org/about/the-tale-of-two-wolves/
It’s because they don’t make money on it
Power companies must build generation facilities to supply power for all of their customers when the sun doesn't shine. In other words, they need plants capable of supplying the net as if nobody has solar. One way to look at it is that rooftop solar users are using the grid as a giant battery. So, the companies' capital investments remain high, as do their expenses, but income decreases. They either raise rates or go out of business.
We live in New Jersey. Installation of our system took about two weeks (actual work on the house took about a day). It then took several weeks more for the power company to install the special meter required to get the full benefit. Before that meter went in, the old meter would run backwards on sunny days. That would've given the meter reader headaches at times.
China is providing solar panels to countries that don't have reliable electrical grids. America took away poorer nations food and medicine by ending USAID. America's new exceptionalism is that we were exceptionally stupid in picking a president.
China's oil imports depend not only on passage through the Strait of Hormuz but also on passage through the Malacca Strait (Singapore). A strong recognition that dependence on petroleum imports is a strategic weakness has driven China's development of EV's and solar panels for decades.
Your comment about countries with weak electrical grids importing Chinese solar panels reminds me of a saying: "We like to think we succeed when we build on our strengths; but actually, we progress the fastest when we share our weaknesses and ask others for help."
I was involved in 2014 in a bid on work relating to offshore wind in Taiwan. When I asked what the driver was for the project as cost were high (keep in mind there was no offshore wind capability in Asia at that time) the answer was simple: Energy Independence, cost was not important as Taiwan depended 100% on imported energy.
The US had a LOT of help from Russia in picking a president. We have hard data from 2016, but since the Father of Lies has kneecapped security investigations and created so much noise we may never know how much they affected 2024.
https://www.nbcnews.com/specials/russian-disinformation-2024-election-storm-1516/index.html
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/03/connections-trump-putin-russia-ties-chart-flynn-page-manafort-sessions-214868/
How cheaply US elections and media are corrupted!
https://apnews.com/article/russian-interference-presidential-election-influencers-trump-999435273dd39edf7468c6aa34fad5dd
A lie goes round the world before the truth gets its boots on.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c72ver6172do
If only Jimmy Carter had been reelected.
He was the first president I ever voted for.
It really was the turning point.
It really WAS the turning point...
I love how people just remember the Fireside chat about turning down your thermostat and the solar panels on the roof of the White House, but have no idea about this https://truthout.org/articles/neoliberal-policies-associated-with-reaganomics-actually-started-with-carter/ or this https://jacobin.com/2024/12/jimmy-carter-obituary-neoliberalism-foreign-policy or this https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/jimmy-carters-ruinous-neoliberal-legacy/!
And they probably think the Carter Doctrine was an initiative to build affordable housing for the poor when it was actually a declaration that the U.S. would use military force to defend its “vital interests” in the Persian Gulf beginning a major shift toward direct military intervention to secure Oil supplies and creating security arrangements with Middle East “governments” that flooded the region with U.S. Weapon systems.
I’m an Independent who will never who will never vote Republican, but Democratic voters just look at little surface highlights they like about their side and pay no attention to what they actually do once they are in office that has directly built the massive systemic wealth transfer to the Corporate OnePercent that has weakened Democracy and the Rule of Law to the point where we are where we are now.
T***p is just the cherry on top of decades of Democratic Party capitulation to Republican depravity.
Patrick Knight, do you really think you can present so distorted a thesis absent at least a précis of the articles to which you refer? And expect your reader to time out and follow the links? Common courtesy suggests the former.
As well as even a skim reader picking up from keywords in the URLs you list as belonging to strongly biased and distorting opinion sources.
Maybe it’s because I don’t want to waste my time dragging people who can’t question their own assumptions out of the dark and into the light. It was generous enough of me to provide you with links since the algorithm running your feed would never pop them up on its own.
Just because these sources have a point of view… doesn’t make them wrong. Why don’t you fire up a little précis disputing them and defend how well the neoliberal orthodoxy ushered in by Carter, put on steroids by Clinton and has been the Democratic Party lodestar ever since has worked out for us. Look around you... all the results are in.
Here’s why it matters…
Whatever the Democrats have been doing hasn’t been enough to prevent us from landing where we are now and discouraging criticism of what Democrats have been doing prevents the party from making the changes it needs to make to make the changes the country needs to make.
Sorry to wake you up. You can go back to sleep now.
Oh, oh my goonness!!! (Not sure how you spell it, so please insert here the sound of a hearty Bronx cheer.)
Yes yes yes. Dems are the demons-du-jour. I'm sorry you seem to be so unindustrious as to leave the field as-is. One may reply by turning your petulance back upon you -- one supposes -- to repeat the tickle for your -- that is your own -- argument plainly stated. Or are you un-confident in that, and reach for authority, in the articles for which you list URL addresses? But -- not even a title for any of them. How silly.
In the event I might be pleased to respond, directly. For now, I do think I get the drift. Yes, back to sleep!! zzzzzzzzzzzzz
Carter was re-elected, it’s just that his name was Ronald Reagan.
I love how people just remember the Fireside chat about turning down your thermostat and the solar panels on the roof of the White House, but have no idea about this https://truthout.org/articles/neoliberal-policies-associated-with-reaganomics-actually-started-with-carter/ or this https://jacobin.com/2024/12/jimmy-carter-obituary-neoliberalism-foreign-policy or this https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/jimmy-carters-ruinous-neoliberal-legacy/!
And they probably think the Carter Doctrine was an initiative to build affordable housing for the poor when it was actually a declaration that the U.S. would use military force to defend its “vital interests” in the Persian Gulf beginning a major shift toward direct military intervention to secure Oil supplies and creating security arrangements with Middle East “governments” that flooded the region with U.S. Weapon systems.
I’m an Independent who will never who will never vote Republican, but Democratic voters just look at little surface highlights they like about their side and pay no attention to what they actually do once they are in office that has directly built the massive systemic wealth transfer to the Corporate OnePercent that has weakened Democracy and the Rule of Law to the point where we are where we are now.
T***p is just the cherry on top of decades of Democratic Party capitulation to Republican depravity.
"Unforeseen consequences" is pretty much the entirety of Donald Trump's existence. The only thinking applied to anything is "how much money can I get out of this?" or "will this scratch whatever itch I have at the moment?"
Going to war is the most serious thing any leader can ever do. Trump has taken us to war, and as he has repeatedly told reporters, he has no plan for anything other than dropping bombs. Oh, and he thinks he "have a say" in whoever Iran picks as its new leadership.
I think that Trmp has one foreseable consequence from his life, chaos destruction and suffering imposed on others
And the MAGAs put him there because he's a raging racist and they want to racist their hearts out. The White Supremacists put him there because he promises dominance over anyone non-white male. The Christian Right put him there because he'll give them whatever they want as long as he's in the center and making gazillions of $.
While increasing his own power and wealth.
Yes, the Iranians will indeed ‘have a say’ on many issues: the strait of hormuz, cyber attacks, asymmetric retaliation and which ayatollah leads them forward. Seems quite naive and clueless to imagine otherwise
Don’t forget terrorism
Asymmetrical warfare, such as cyber attacks, are probably on the horizon
Watch Dr Jiang's lectures on that
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5oisJiorsU
Exactly! Trump is using the Venezuela experience as a template for Iran. It made sense in Venezuela. The US replaced one thug (Maduro) for a bigger thug, Trump. That will not work with the theocratic totalitarians in Iran.
Watch this on asymetric warfare
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5oisJiorsU
If only those who declare wars, and their entourage, could go and lead from the front lines too instead of sending others to be killed off..... That might give them more perspective. And it might solve the issue of undesirable regimes too at the same time...
Spectacular article as usual, Dr. Krugman! I've been writing a lot about the renewables revolution, and I would be profoundly honored if I could interview you sometime!
That would be so cool!
I love your substack, as well.
Thank you! I know Dr. Krugman must be incredibly busy, but if he has a free timeslot anytime in the upcoming weeks or months, I'd absolutely love to speak with him!
This is what Bill McKibben has been saying for ages. Check him out on Substack.
It was what Carter said back in the ‘70s but then Reagan got elected, the media bowed down and Republicans began their long fight against renewables starting with St. Ronnie took Carter’s solar panels off the roof of the White House and Republicans opposed every effort to strengthen Carter’s energy policies. Trump finally succeeded in destroying Carter’s car fuel efficiency standard. The Republicans are the Regressive Party, always looking backwards.
Well, the Republicans are in the pocket of the fossil fuel industry, and have been for a while. I used to joke that whenever someone decided to become a Republican, there was a ceremony in which half their brains were removed. Now I wonder if that wasn't so much of a joke after all ... .
What is blowing in the wind is Americas good reputation. It is blowing away like a tumble weed in a sand storm.
Thank you for the article, Professor. It seems Russia is making a lot of money in oil? We are in dire straits financially in this country with this country! Bye Noem ! I grew up with hearing, Peter , Paul and Mary. Bless their sweet natured souls for singing for many years to the American people and others. Many thanks for the music coda!
Paul (Noel Stookey) attended the last No Kings Protest with guitar in hand and led the crowd in singing a couple of songs.
A little known thing about Paul is that he started a radio station in ME which was ranked the number one station in the US by Esquire Magazine several years ago. WERU is the call letters and it still operates here in Hancock County Maine.
They were my first live concert, 1962, Santa Barbara Bowl.
I installed solar panels on my house four years ago. Electricity has been free for me ever since.
My power isn’t completely free …. But my solar panels offset much of the bill from Eversource, and my energy bills don’t upend the entire household budget
I live in a 1600 square foot house and my solar panels generate more energy than I use--even in hot summers running the AC. That excess energy gets sold as carbon offset credits on a market, and the money from those sales cover the $5 I pay to my utility mainly for taxes and fees.
My home is about the same size, which is fine for two people. Love my little love shack!!
You're lucky with only $5 base fee. Here in Fl, FPL hits us up for $30, even when we produce more than we consume.
Renewables are the obvious and unstoppable future for all nations. In the short run, the US is motivated to promote fossil fuel since it is priced in dollars globally. This forces the world to buy US debt, a key to propping up our enormous deficit spending.
Nah! Don't need it... Neither the renewables or the security.
(Tongue in cheek, I'm not here often)
We also don't need alternate supplies or stockpiles. The American way is to "cross that bridge when we get there"
And, ,as for plans: build that bridge... A BIG Beautiful Bridge. Nevermind that you could also get by with a boat.
Republican history... Balanced budgets under Clinton were scuttled by Bush. Surveillance was ignored : 9/11 took place... and nevermind Air Quality, we can pay survivors benefits *forever* (thanks, Wittman)
Regulations were ignored and the credit crunch bankrupted millions (some of whom were plundered by Mnuchin).
So, winging it is the Republican way.... Everyone ready for storm seasons? Floods? Too bad.
And Power? Just one of those things! Whether oil or electric, why bother making things reliable?
We should never forget that the W Bush administration was concerned that the Clinton budget SURPLUSES were going to pay down the national debt "too fast". So we got tax cuts for the top and a cluster of stupid, endless wars. Nearly $40 trillion ago. Republican economic expertise at its finest!
Another perfect choice for musical coda! The song took me right back to 1963…and made me realize we haven’t come as far as we think since then.
You should also write an article on which companies and donors will profit off of higher oil prices im taking a wild guess that it’s MBS and all of his oil company donors
Donald Trump doesn't understand his own base. They drive ginormous pick up trucks and feel entitled to cheap gas. If there's one thing they hate more than Democrats, it's high fuel prices. MAGA turned a blind eye to his corruption, his crimes, and he Epstein files, but they'll hunt him with pitchforks if gas sniffs $6.00 a gallon.