Yeah, I experience a bit of cognitive dissonance whenever I remember conservatism and conservation have very little overlap.
It’s almost like most conservatives are after something else…
In conservation, you want to protect and restore the natural world.
In conservatism, you want to protect and restore the social hierarchy.
Seems to fit?
I used to challenge conservatives on their nationalism and patriotism whenever it came to infrastructure and renewable energy. The idea was they should get behind efforts to beat, say, China at building rail and ports. We should be the standard bearer for solar, wind, and nuclear!
Turns out they aren’t patriots and they’re bad at nationalism. They’re just lazy and racist.
If you’re falling to the myth of being a strong independent … person …. Pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps, solar and wind are local energy sources without foreign dependencies, and scale both up and down. This should be right up their ally.
I don’t want to be on the Texas electrical grid because of all their blackouts: Deisel generators are noisy and I have to depend on someone to fill the tanks, but I can put solar on my roof and batteries on the side of the garage and be independent. Zero fuel costs. zero have to depend on anyone. —— why isn’t this their line?
I work in municipal development and permitting.
Texas has had a HUGE surge in solar panel and backup generator installation over the past 4 years.
But the power companies have taken notice. The biggest part of a lot of power bills now isn’t usage, but fees for being connected to the grid at all. And connection to the grid is required for a Certificate of Occupancy if you’re in a city, and to get insurance or a mortgage even if you’re in the county where permits aren’t required.
You can’t even create a legal lot in Texas without having electrical service to the lot.
Freedumb!
Texas conservatives making rational decisions based on real properties of the physical world?
At least Texas can still give us great comedians too!
Because it is change and visibility they are concerned with. Not the things they claim.
I’m not sure if there is a word for fundamentalist in the context of economics the way there is for religion. What ever it is that is the answer to:
—— why isn’t this their line?
A fundamentalist needs certain axioms and won’t come back to check if they line up with reality. This makes it nessesary for certain things to just be false no matter what.
Maybe if we change the angle like “WE’RE TAKING THE SUN’S ENERGY AND THERE’S NOTHING IT CAN DO ABOUT IT” if we’'re being mean to the sun maybe they’ll like it better.
wind and solar are not popular for conservatives because they were left talking points first. which obviously means it’s wrong, libtards owned yet again
Their biggest problem is that there’s not big money in them. Once you have solar power on your house, you don’t need to keep paying them every month. Where’s the fun in that for the rich?
Donald Trump also said that they’ll run out of wind if they start wind power farms.
So he thinks humans can affect the environment? Sus
You might find you can fuel your car with solar. This is America, if you don’t make more money to pay your extortionist, you’re a douchebag.
Ding ding ding
If you go far enough right, solar and wind are extremely popular. Very much leads to some weirdness when I was researching solar for my house, and kept stumbling into prepper communities and the like.
Go far enough left, get your guns back. Go far enough right, get your clean energy back.
Horseshoe theory in action!
To be fair, wind is also a form of solar power. (Wind being caused by the difference in heat between the different hemispheres/poles & the rotation of the earth)
So wind & solar power are indirect & direct long-range nuclear energy sources, respectively.
In the end, all power is solar power
Tides and nuclear power aren’t.
That comes from the energy from earth’s rotation. That energy is left over from the formation of the sun.
Plus nuclear wouldn’t work without fissionable elements, which wouldn’t be here without supernovae aka dying suns.
Which is why we need to finally develop fusion, to free us from the tyranny of power of stellar origin!
…if you ignore the fact that fusion is basically replicating what a star does, that is
“Watch and dispair, oh mighty stars, how we have enslaved your children to release us from your tyranny!”
So nuclear power is not like solar at all…… it’s GALACTIC POWER! maybe COSMIC POWER!
I suppose it depends on the definition, but yeah - GALACTIC POWER
Sometimes even extragalactic
And you always need to say it in that booming overly enthusiastic voice. It works whether you’re a superhero or a supervillain
Left over from the formation of the solar system, not the sun.
Erm, the solar system formed because of the sun
Where do you think that solar accretion disk went to?
Erm, the sun was formed in the center of a nebula and the planets formed out of the remaining mass that didn’t collapse into the sun. Yes, the gravity of the sun influenced how the remaining mass interacted and formed into planets with rotation, but it is not wholly a direct result of the sun itself, rather the angular momentum of the original nebula.
lol this is so pedantic it’s mindbogglingly fun. I would argue you’re confusing “gravitational effects” with what people are describing as “the sun’s output from nuclear fusion”.
Gotta love the hoax that Windmills and Solar “Aren’t feasible”
Energy independence should just be renamed foreign-free energy
Rebranding “let’s stop using oil to save the planet” into “let’s stop using oil because fuck those arabs” might convince some conservatives
Raw air and bleach ray collector.
“Actually Natural Gas” “Orbital Fusion”
I mean Natural Gas is as natural as Iron or Coal. The problem is extracting and burning it is causing issues.
They’re both Orbital Fusion.
We should try to harness the power of the tides, since that’s lunar gravity driven.
um…
Moon Rodeo Power?
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.
This. Tbh most conservatives I’ve talked to say shit like “solar would be great if it were viable/cheaper to install,” they’re not against it really, they just don’t think it works well enough yet, which is largely due to the efforts of lobbyists.
I firmly believe that without lobbyists pushing us into red or blue boxes, we’d all find common ground on a lot of important issues.
I’ve known some conservatives who are very much into solar power in a sort of independent/self-sufficient/pseudo-prepper type of way.
I agree. I’m sure there’d still be some contentious issues but a large portion of it is entirely manufactured.
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.
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.
They don’t like nuclear either. Too green. You only need a little drilling and everyone can do it.
They only like things they can regularly drill or mine for so it’s tied to owning special land.
Anyone can set up nuclear, solar, and wind power. They’re not getting rich off those.
The “right” aren’t right though, they’re wrong. They should be called “far-wrong” instead of “far-right”, imo, as their stances on many things show.
Supporters likes kickback from oil subsidies, fossil fuel deregulation, and supression of competitive technology. That’s the angle.
…Maybe solar/wind companies should name themselves things like “Exon”
