Renewables

 I know I basically have turned this exercise into a reflection of whatever Heather Cox Richardson and Paul Krugman wrote about for today, but apparently I'm going to do it again.

Richardson is writing about how Trump's war on renewables is actually a war on workers. Krugman is writing about stagflation as part of his series on the topic and mentions rising energy costs.

There are just so, so many ways that the Trump administration is deeply stupid that trying to catalog them is pointless. The war on renewables is just so fucking pointless that it boggles the imagination. There could be a (poor) argument for withdrawing subsidies or making permitting harder. That would be within the normal parameters of political stupidity. The Right not wanting to subsidize solar and wind because budgets; the Left wanting more permitting to protect the environment from new building. It's dumb, but it's normal dumb.

Trump's killing of existing renewable projects is just stupid in ways that rival RFK Jr's assault on public health. Meanwhile, SURPRISE!, electrical costs are skyrocketing, as data centers create a building bubble and a need for massive amounts of gigawatts. Also, SURPRISE!, China is set to leapfrog the US in renewable building and use, because if Trump wasn't an agent of the Russian and Chinese he really wouldn't be doing anything differently.

It is true that these actions will make stemming climate change harder. I'll be curious to see what the impact is on rooftop solar. We are building a house, and hopefully we will get the panels in before December 31st, because the tax credit is going away. However, given rising and unpredictable electrical costs, we will be putting them in regardless. 

Richardson makes a key point. Extraction industries have always been highly plutocratic. Whatever the substance being extracted - even cotton, as she mentions - it focuses economic power in the hands of a few people. Renewables - at least solar - can be more "democratic" in their dispersal.

This could be a helpful way to counterattack Republicans on this issue. "They are raising your electrical costs to benefit their billionaire friends."