It's really ironic I think that Donald Trump, despite his "drill baby drill" rhetoric and paying billions of dollars to halt wind projects, will likely be responsible for the largest surge in clean energy developments in history.
Trump has shown that the US can not be trusted and is not a reliable ally, and his Iran-scapade, like Russia's invasion of Ukraine before it, has shown every other country that the absolute worst thing you can do is be dependent on energy imports from despotic nations (US now included) and volatile areas of the world. All these countries are racing to wean themselves off fossil fuels as fast as possible, largely due to Trump.
I know the US has a main character syndrome but this has been going on for decades now, Donald Trump is not responsible for what happens in the rest of the world regardless of what US news says.
China has been adding a United Kingdom's worth of solar for several years now, Pakistan replaced 40% of its energy supply with solar after floods in recent years, Germany over the last 30 days produced 70% of its energy from renewables etc.
"Drill Baby Drill" in 2026 was already the mentality of a Japanese holdout soldier years after the war is over. It's a purely ideological thing.
At the end of the day, nothing beats hydro electric power. It's hidden, consistent and the technology is very mature. Really the OG of renewable energy. If we could get our appliances running efficiently enough, I think we could run the whole grid on it.
One problem with hydro is we've long ago exhausted the easy wins, and then went on to build the kinda wash outs. See the fight over Glen canyon, which even its architect went on to admit was a mistake. The wins now are in closed loop pumped hydro; see https://www.volts.wtf/p/whats-the-deal-with-pumped-hydro
Hydro power (dams) causes massive declines in native fish populations in the affected rivers, which is especially significant for salmonids. There have been attempts to mitigate these issues with 'fish ladders' (as well as more complicated schemes), but they haven't been very effective.
Huh? Solar has all of that and doesn't even have moving parts. The only arguable downside is it increases more sunlight absorbed by the earth (as opposed to reflecting it).
A major contributing factor to what is being described is the development of superconducting technology. This is includes high temperature superconducting wind turbines, superconducting hydroelectric turbines, and superconducting transmission lines. From reading the outline, it looks like this project will capitalize on these new technologies.
Even without these superconducting technologies, it’s shrewd capital investment policy. This decarbonizes the last 20% of Canada’s electrical generation, replaces any demand growth with clean energy instead of fossil fuel, and allows more domestically produced (Alberta) fossil gas to be exported if needed. Importantly, just like China, it enables self sufficiency and potentially eliminating any dependency on the US for energy needs (with optionality to export excess clean energy to northern US states in the future).
Per ElectricityMaps, all of Canada has less than 20GW of fossil generation capacity, as of this comment. China, on average, installs ~1.75x that much wind and solar in a month.
TLDR Capital is the bottleneck slowing global decarbonization.
It would be more accurate to say "better investment opportunities bias investment away from the weak returns of allegedly clean energy" capital is not the bottleneck anymore than it has always been the bottleneck. Higher returning things to choose instead are the bottleneck
Fossil fuels receive trillions of dollars in subsidies per year even when less cost efficient than renewables. Markets can remain irrational longer than you can stay solvent. It’s government’s job to step in and correct market failures, when appropriate.
Well, finally!
One of the reasons I voted for him were his environmental credentials. But what he did since elected was cozying up with Alberta and their oil barons.
It's really ironic I think that Donald Trump, despite his "drill baby drill" rhetoric and paying billions of dollars to halt wind projects, will likely be responsible for the largest surge in clean energy developments in history.
Trump has shown that the US can not be trusted and is not a reliable ally, and his Iran-scapade, like Russia's invasion of Ukraine before it, has shown every other country that the absolute worst thing you can do is be dependent on energy imports from despotic nations (US now included) and volatile areas of the world. All these countries are racing to wean themselves off fossil fuels as fast as possible, largely due to Trump.
>largely due to Trump
I know the US has a main character syndrome but this has been going on for decades now, Donald Trump is not responsible for what happens in the rest of the world regardless of what US news says.
China has been adding a United Kingdom's worth of solar for several years now, Pakistan replaced 40% of its energy supply with solar after floods in recent years, Germany over the last 30 days produced 70% of its energy from renewables etc.
"Drill Baby Drill" in 2026 was already the mentality of a Japanese holdout soldier years after the war is over. It's a purely ideological thing.
At the end of the day, nothing beats hydro electric power. It's hidden, consistent and the technology is very mature. Really the OG of renewable energy. If we could get our appliances running efficiently enough, I think we could run the whole grid on it.
One problem with hydro is we've long ago exhausted the easy wins, and then went on to build the kinda wash outs. See the fight over Glen canyon, which even its architect went on to admit was a mistake. The wins now are in closed loop pumped hydro; see https://www.volts.wtf/p/whats-the-deal-with-pumped-hydro
> which even its architect went on to admit was a mistake.
Who are you referring to? A quick Google search didn't confirm what you wrote.
Hydro power (dams) causes massive declines in native fish populations in the affected rivers, which is especially significant for salmonids. There have been attempts to mitigate these issues with 'fish ladders' (as well as more complicated schemes), but they haven't been very effective.
And they fill up with silt and generate less power over time.
Lakes Powell and Mead would like a word...
Huh? Solar has all of that and doesn't even have moving parts. The only arguable downside is it increases more sunlight absorbed by the earth (as opposed to reflecting it).
A major contributing factor to what is being described is the development of superconducting technology. This is includes high temperature superconducting wind turbines, superconducting hydroelectric turbines, and superconducting transmission lines. From reading the outline, it looks like this project will capitalize on these new technologies.
Even without these superconducting technologies, it’s shrewd capital investment policy. This decarbonizes the last 20% of Canada’s electrical generation, replaces any demand growth with clean energy instead of fossil fuel, and allows more domestically produced (Alberta) fossil gas to be exported if needed. Importantly, just like China, it enables self sufficiency and potentially eliminating any dependency on the US for energy needs (with optionality to export excess clean energy to northern US states in the future).
Per ElectricityMaps, all of Canada has less than 20GW of fossil generation capacity, as of this comment. China, on average, installs ~1.75x that much wind and solar in a month.
TLDR Capital is the bottleneck slowing global decarbonization.
It would be more accurate to say "better investment opportunities bias investment away from the weak returns of allegedly clean energy" capital is not the bottleneck anymore than it has always been the bottleneck. Higher returning things to choose instead are the bottleneck
Fossil fuels receive trillions of dollars in subsidies per year even when less cost efficient than renewables. Markets can remain irrational longer than you can stay solvent. It’s government’s job to step in and correct market failures, when appropriate.