To sum it up. The inital thought was that the bill would be a public investment of $385 billion in renewables, but it seems it will be more in the line of $1.2 trillion, so about three times more money. Certainly a big change and extremly good news.
this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2023
251 points (98.1% liked)
Climate - truthful information about climate, related activism and politics.
5212 readers
402 users here now
Discussion of climate, how it is changing, activism around that, the politics, and the energy systems change we need in order to stabilize things.
As a starting point, the burning of fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent deforestation and release of methane are responsible for the warming in recent decades:
How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world:
Recommended actions to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the near future:
Anti-science, inactivism, and unsupported conspiracy theories are not ok here.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
I don’t like any politicians but I am willing to put this guy or his party back in in 2024. IDC what happens. Another liar zombie conservative is a waste of time and life.
No doubt. I mean I look back and carter, reagan, bush, clinton, bush bugaloo, obama, trump, and biden and only half of those administrations ever did anything useful for me. I remember when the bush tax cuts allowed me to afford a drink at the bar. woohoo.
This combined with the fact that utilities like renewables due to their cheaper deployment and opex and you've got something going. Now all you have to do is accelerate and cap the depreciation of old equipment. Thanks Joe.
Goldman Sachs expects higher-than-expected private investment in all green energy categories affected by the IRA, but sees the biggest gains in two areas: electric vehicle production and advanced manufacturing.
Neither of these are green energy.
Electric vehicle production is green energy in the same way that renewable powerplant construction is green energy. Both enable the US to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels and move towards a more sustainable energy grid.
load more comments
(19 replies)
No true Scotsman doesn't help us.
They're greener than the existing alternatives.
Im not saying theyre green energy that dont deserve the title, im saying theyre literally not energy production. EVs are an energy use.
You don’t think green energy use qualifies as a green energy “category” that one could invest in?
it's not green energy use. it's just energy use. EV's predominantly run on fossil fuel energy in the US.
True. EVs plus those crappy fossil fuels power plants though are still more efficient at using energy, and thus better environmentally, than ice cars. We really need more nuclear and renewables here though. It's pretty bad and it doesn't have to be.
It’s the capability for green energy use, in a very energy-intense application. That possibility is not there with combustion engines.
We cannot have a green energy economy unless all the usage endpoints consume clean energy rather than hydrocarbons.
most things that use energy are capable of using green energy, you wouldnt call an investment in a coffee machine company a green energy investment. We need the green energy first.
Anything that already runs on electricity isn’t really part of the discussion then, because there’s no need to change anything at the point of use.
A better analogy to the car thing might be investing in (or subsidizing) heat pump production over natural gas furnaces.
load more comments
(1 replies)
They are ways to use green energy, just not ways to create it.
Love the idea, but: A lot of rich people will get much more rich. There will be a lot of money wasted on things, that will not work and the grifters will know that it was not gonna work. There are numerous examples from the „green coal“ projects that siphoned off a lot of money with unrealistic ideas without repercussions. The more desperate the world get for fast solutions regarding climate change, the more money will be thrown around unvetted.
Mind you, a lot of is getting spent on things we know work, such as wind, solar, storage, and electrification.
don't forget insulation. Its the cheapest, easiest, quickest return on investment green thing there is.
The alternative is doing nothing, and we know how that's gonna turn out
I recently listened to a podcast where the guest made the argument that the untied states is set up to benefit the petty elite. That means the guy who owns a car dealership or six McDonald's franchises. Suddenly these people love free government money when they're getting their hands on it.
According to this article, much of these tax breaks will go towards electric vehicles. This means that business owners and other 1099 workers like realtors will bend over backwards to justify getting these credits. Overall, this will help shift people away from using gas cars. Not the best outcome to still have all these cars on the road, but it's a compromise at least.
It also makes manufacturers build more energy efficient appliances, and solar panels. It will drive the cost of these things down over time as it becomes the default to put in a heat pump HVAC or water heater. We will see more changes in the design of things which makes them more efficient as demand for less efficient units falls off.
The all or nothing approach was never going to work in the system we have now. It is a dumb compromise, but, it is at least a compromise. It gets the petty elite, that guy with a car dealership or six McDonald's, to embrace something that is better than what we have now.
This is good news.
Finally some good news from the US now that the orange idiot is gone
view more: next ›