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I'm honestly wondering this. Renewables reduce dependency on foreign countries, so using them can be interpreted as a patriotic act. They make sense, geostrategically, not just for saving earth but also for reducing the leverage other countries have over yours. This could be something that both, green activists and nationalists, can jointly agree on. I don't get it.
I think the problem, as it often is, is big businesses lobbying for continued relevancy at the cost of societal progress.
Energy Dominance! is new buzz word. You are right that "energy security" best solution is to never have to pay for fuel again. Such talk is woke radical left climate alarmist talk, even though that was the word the O&G industry told us to reduce reliance on energy imports.
Energy dominance means the goal is to destroy the planet, but think of the shareholder value created by extorting the planet into US approved energy consumption. War and extortion are just more radial left woke words to distract from achieving energy dominance.
Still, wouldn’t it make sense in their logic to take more like the Norway route? Locally sourced renewables for me, while snaring other countries awith GLOBAL ENERGY DOMINANCE. ( sorry but I can’t write this without the booming evil villain cartoon voice)
Locally sourced renewables for me, while snaring other countries with GLOBAL ENERGY DOMINANCE.
Biden used this approach, but US empire plan was always to prefer energy dominance at cost of global destruction. There was just some naive hope that US could dominate clean energy too, no matter how slow it was. Biden's choice of a war on Russia is purposeful global destruction to enrich US oil industry so that they could fund GOP harder, and have "democracy to blame" for all of the alternate drilling done in world.
While US made solar/wind and batteries is still cheaper than new FF plants+ fuel costs, subsidizing them to not buy even cheaper Chinese options, is preferring climate terrorism to energy security. War, and warmongering choices for war, is climate terrorism prioritizing anti human massive diesel use and new production instead of considering human sustainability.
That Americans pay more for energy and insurance and rebuilding, is good for oligarchy and "superficial" (GDP) economy. Genuine American manufacturing and personal cost of living are sacrificed.
The logic of subsidizing uncompetitive local industry is only valid if it creates a future of competitiveness. Otherwise there is no export potential, though almost competitive status is enough to get legitimate sales with shipping time/cost advantages over imports. The logic of political bribery from oligarchs who prefer to protect the asset values and profits means that "national/human good" has zero relevance to outcomes.
Maybe we never could have competed with the much cheaper cost of manufacturing in China, but clean energy production in the US has been a comedy of errors, a pattern of throwing out our advantages, a habit of outsourcing to China
- You might think the huge investments from the infrastructure act of 2022 are too little too late to competed with a well established supply chain elsewhere, and you’d be right.
- You might think Trump's tariffs are not useful but more out of personal ego and you’d be right.
But the US funded a lot of research and development in clean energy technology over decades, we funded manufacturing over decades. Then we gave up on domestics manufacturing. We outsourced. Instead of staying the course to build a domestic industry, We threw away our investment and our advantages, leaving it to someone else to build the industry. Now we tried paying for it again, now that the cost is much higher, but oops, we did it again: we throw away the billions that have been spent, the goal that made it worth those billions.
The key is power of O&G industry over both Electric monopolies who are not interested in lowering consumer prices, and auto manufacturers who both have bribable executives. Goal was always to treat renewables/EVs as a PR stunt, and adopt slowly, and hoping world would look at US for energy leadership and wait for its pace. Hubris that US would always dominate everything no matter how much it sabotaged disruption.
Even works down to the state level. My state, Wisconsin, has no coal mines, no oil wells, and no natural gas wells. The closest thing we have to any of it is the best sand for fracking. Otherwise, every dollar of energy we spend ends up leaving the state one way or another.
Unless, that is, we do something intelligent, like building an offshore wind farm on Lake Michigan. Though I'm sure someone will complain that we're killing the whales.
The mistake was applying logic to a position they didn’t use logic to arrive at. Their talking heads say renewables bad. The thought process ended there.