the US is propping up gas while the world moves to renewable energy
theverge.com
theverge.com
It's astonishing how much impunity US gets on not doing anything of value in regards to the Climate crisis. China leads in solar rollout, China leads in EVs. China leads in HSR. EU leads in building codes/insulation/heat pump adoption (you can't import most of the heat pumps into US because uhh scary refrigerant is being used!).
I get the justification for a carbon border tax is to equalize the cost difference between a country that has a carbon tax vs one that doesn't, so manufacturers from the country with carbon tax isn't disadvantaged, but what's the justification for enacting taxes just because the country's citizens are polluting? Is it just a "we don't like what you're doing" tax?
While "American Imperialism" is an intangible concept, pollution very much is not. What can and cannot be made for an argument depends mostly on economic/geopolitical leverage, not faulty categorical thinking.
With less adversarial framing, you could think of it as finding common ground for an intermingled future.
Explain? Countries invoking "American Imperialism" isn't exactly an unheard of concept. The point isn't whether "American Imperialism" or "pollution" is objectively true, it's whether other countries would invoke those reasons to set up retaliatory tariffs.
>While "American Imperialism" is an intangible concept, pollution very much is not
How about something more concrete like "EU/NATO enlargement", "Chinese spying", or "tech giants (who are mostly American) spreading misinformation"?
>With less adversarial framing, you could think of it as finding common ground for an intermingled future.
That's a nice thing to hope for, but isn't the world we live in. Countries who have the tariffs applied to them aren't going to interpret them as "common ground for an intermingled future", they're going to think it's the opening shot of a trade war.
Seeing p.v., BEV etc prices in China well... That's why EU lag behind, I imaging a similar situation happen in the USA as well.
Our industries led by managers has ceased any substantial research and development since SOME DECADES, so even if we was the best in the world now we are just a little bit more advanced than China in some areas, even a bit behind in some other areas. Trying to compete pushing measures against free trade and keep pushing up prices to try keeping up industry margins will not last longer. Actual devastating management culture should be removed with whatever it takes to annihilate it, and be prepared for a decade at least of recovery, otherwise the "lag behind renewables" will became "lag behind" in general.
(And, in case you're wondering why The Netherlands imports so much LNG: that's where the terminals are...)
The percentage of America's electricity generated by non-renewables is lagging behind others. The crux of the article is that American has replaced coal with natural gas.
1. I live in a state with nuclear power, I love radiation, but I also recognize that the US has basically been super avoidance of nuclear anything since the three mile incident. Even though no direct lives were lost, it created a lot of fear. And nuclear power also gets the PR of nuclear weapons unfortunately
2. Where I live solar might be feasible if the trees were not so dam tall....so we only get like 4 or many 5 hours of direct sunlight on the best days. I'm all for solar and love to see it becoming commonplace in my area over the past 5 years, but I also realize that its still not super affordable or efficient.
3. Regulation is a thing. Its not easy to start a power company that produces electricity. Even if you ignore the capital requirements, their are laws and regulations that need to be followed and these exist for a reason. In addition, you need to be able to generate enough profit so that you can repay the loans you probably took to get your company started, you also need to pay salary, and maintenance bills, and be planning for the future when your current equipment breaks or its lifespan has reached its end. You need to juggle this mess all without charging customers (the consumer and distribution company) to much otherwise they will straight up go out of their way to not do business with you. Sure solar dosnt need to buy physical stuff like a coal factory does or even how a nuclear plant needs to buy fuel....but you need to keep those panels or your wind turbines in running condition. You need to be able to have a battery backup method for the stormy cloudy days with no wind. This all costs money and its not something that can spring up out of nowhere.
3. Renewables are not a basic technology. Just like how a gas factory burn fuel or an engine needs to be made to certain tolerances to work. You have that problem but its 1000× worse. Your solar cells are not something that can easily be fabed. You need extremely specialized equipment similar to a semiconductor boundary or a EV battery maker. Wind turbine blades are massive and very few places can actually make them, what kinda wait time do you think a brand new turbine blade has? All of this to mention that while solar cells have become cheaper, they only last 20 to 25 years tops and we need more efficient cost effective improvements. Turbine blades are a nightmare to make and transport, and can easily break, and we currently don't recycle them.
All of this points to a future that is grey and hazy. These are technical issues were facing, and its not something that gets fixed overnight. R&D isn't free and when coal and gas are much cheaper at the moment, well as much as I dislike the practice I can't blame company's for using what makes economic sense.
Keep in mind, all of this, be it renewables or the most inefficient coal power plant is still impacting the environment. Those renewables like solar or nuclear are expensive, require high precision, and use expensive metals.
Hell the power lines alone.....just imagine how much co2 was produced refining the metal cables and insulation. Now remember that energy transmission is inefficient and nowhere near close to lossless.
I think were seeing a buildup of our current limits in technology given our current solution. Things like better solar or wind, or small breader reactors have potential, but it's going to take Time, money, and a lot of innovation to get to a better greener future where we can meet future energy needs while drasticly reducing our impact on earth.
https://ember-climate.org/app/uploads/2024/05/Report-Global-...
Perhaps a nuanced detail out of scope for the article, but I continue to be frustrated that the Government is legislating solutions, not outcomes. Because we're primarily focused on CO2 balance I should be allowed to emit + sink as much as I please so long as the net is <= 0 .
Additionally reading between the lines this article could be titled "World free to use renewables, knowing US gas is a backup plan" . Again the US is being a world good guy by ensuring that Russian gas has less geo-politcal power than it did in the past. (how quickly we forget the German crisis in 2022)
regarding blowing up pipelines of other nations -- no comment
The law is what can get through the process. Unfortunately that may not always result in the best approach.
I'm not sure that's really what you want. There wouldn't be any room to say, "I wanted to be net-zero, but I couldn't force the local power company to stop using coal". You'd either have to cut your energy use, a lot, or suffer whatever punishment was in the government's purview.
This is a coordination problem. That's precisely the kind of situation that governments are good for.
Perhaps the legislation either excludes inputs (meaning it's the power company's responsibility to be net zero), or it allows you to simply purchase the carbon credits required. (This effectively is a carbon credit system, i guess?)
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/germans-turning-to-wood-to-h...