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Comment by macspoofing | Hacker News Reader

I am flabbergasted how much governments, media and institutions lie to the public about the feasibly of wind and solar as a replacement for fossil fuels.

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What motivation do you think they have to lie?

Hard to say. Hard to say who is even knowingly lying. It started as a hopeful message, that turned into a feedback loop where one group repeats the talking point of another, that is picked up and repeated by another, etc.

At this point, it's part of 'common knowledge' that we are transitioning to solar/wind and big oil/big gas and corrupt politicians are preventing that transition.

So the government is both promoting the lie and preventing the transition?

The government isn't preventing any transition. There is no transition. Wind/Solar cannot replace fossil fuels. But it is a talking point of every politician that wants to be seen as environmentally conscious to talk about a potential transition. I think some of those politician know that can't happen and they are lying about it. I think some of those politicians don't know that it can't happen and will never work.

You realize you said this in your previous comment right?

> ...and corrupt politicians are preventing that transition.

Oil, gas and nuclear companies are among the most wealthy and powerful is the world and have been actively lobbying for decades.

Natural gas companies are some of the biggest backers of wind and solar projects. Care to guess why?

Nuclear as a lobby is dead. Do they have any institutional power? America can't even keep existing nuclear power plants open, much less build new ones.

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