At a federal level the US is moving backwards. But at a local and personal level, for the first time in generation, a huge number are waking up to the direct consequences of their dependency on the global oil markets and it's impacts their daily lives.

People in the US still don't like feeling like hostages, and this episode is a stark reminder of that.

The last geopolitical oil shocks of the 1970s resulted in huge efficiency increases in transportation and energy - this will likely do the same, but with current technologies.

It will again eventually, will just take more time than it otherwise would've taken.

https://electrek.co/2026/03/25/eia-new-solar-wind-storage-ca...

https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/clean-energy-manufactur...

https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/solar/balcony-solar-tak...

https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/solar/were-harvesting-t...

https://www.brightsaver.org/publicly-filed-states

From the stats I've seen, people in the US are doing it. A huge amount, and more each year.

The economics of it are just too good. Adding grid connectivity seems to be the bottleneck right now.

I like that y'all are hopefull. It's nice that someone is.

Solar power is 10000x as hard to permit where I live. I was able to connect to the grid without anyone looking at it. Laterally just hooked up a 200amp secondary connection straight to the grid without anyone from the government batting an eye and on the power in the house went. If I wanted even a 200W solar panel it requires a code inspection, a marked roof plan (my house doesn't even have building plans, so how to even do this?), license, special solar bond, and a special warranty and then clearance from the power company.

Fuck that.

Many counties have made it so that solar only makes sense if you are wildcatting it out in some remote place where the planning and zoning fascists won't find you out. In such case you can install it for an order of magnitude cheaper and then it actually makes sense.

Meanwhile I can build a 200 foot tall oil derrick on my land with NO PERMIT WHATSOEVER because of course the oil companies had the political influence to exempt oil related infrastructure from requirements.