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ck2 • yesterday at 3:01 PM • 3 replies • view on HN

wow that's the most repeat fallacy, I even see in political commercials now

we don't use domestic oil, we sell it overseas

and oil until pop-up "ai" datacenters was not used for power production

you are thinking about solar and wind power for coal's demise

which now they are also defunding, even worse reusing the funds for coal investment


Replies

linkregister • yesterday at 5:18 PM

Solar and wind subsidies have been illegally halted, and are the subject of ongoing litigation.

Solar and wind are commercially viable and provide about 30% of the electrical energy in Texas. Around 50% of California's daytime electrical energy is provided by solar and wind power. New projects are typically hamstrung by transmission permitting constraints.

While subsidies would help substantially, they aren't a necessary condition for continued adoption of renewable energy sources. Storage is probably the next big hurdle to displace fossil fuels once there's sufficient progress with transmission.

scottLobster • yesterday at 3:23 PM

No, but we get so much natural gas as a side effect of the fracking that we literally can't distribute it all, it's effectively free. Which is why natural gas plants have been displacing coal plants for the last 20 years.

You... really need to read more before forming your opinions

Vrondi • yesterday at 3:36 PM

No, really, when the fracking boom hit, it was so much cheaper than coal that it made a large dent in the coal industry for energy production. Solar and wind expansion have been far slower to roll out nationwide, but fracking was an almost overnight expansion of gas power production at that time.