One of the main reasons we as a society care about renewables is that we need to reduce CO2 emissions (and I’d like to think we care about others too). This article doesn’t mention anything about how much less CO2 is now being released. If we take EPA numbers from 2022, assume that they represent 100% non-renewable energy, take the 25% of those numbers that represent electricity generation and reduce the total.of that proportion we have a reduction of approximately 8% CO2 emissions. Great!
So why do our emissions keep increasing year over year?
A political economic system which requires infinite growth to sustain itself, requires growth in consumption, and production. If emissions go down, some industry will suffer (namely oil and gas), so their products must be used elsewhere. A collapse of the oil and gas industry would be an economic nightmare the way we currently organize our economy.
And that is why we need to move beyond capitalism.
And to celebrate that fact, Europe is joining the US in imposing massive tariffs on China’s electric vehicles and solar cells. Yay.
That’s a good thing imo. We do this so we can build up an industry for these things at home. That’s an important long term goal, too. If the last years have shown us anything it’s that being solely dependent on another state for certain critical stuff is a bad idea. And I’d say this is especially true for China.
Edit: btw German talking here, not American.
That’s a good thing imo. We do this so we can build up an industry for these things at home.
Unfortunately, most countries haven’t really done much to invest into the production of solar cells in their home country in the last twenty years (Germany is a noteworthy exception), so why would they start now?
Realistically, imposing tariffs on chinese PV cells will only slow the energy transition, instead of building up domestic production.
Gandalf, hast du gerade auf nen 2 Monate alten Beitrag von mir geantwortet? :)
Ja, ist ja immer noch relevant. :-)
Do you want to know how many cars in China are from European car manufacturers?
Rebalancing trade is not some big bogeyman.
I largely welcome restricting massproduced mobile surveillance machines made by a chinese hq’d company. Don’t misunderstand me I hate teslas too for this, but we don’t need more of this shit.
We are not restricting the surveillance, just making it more expensive.
What we need is forced inspections of the source code and other ways to actually mitigate the security risks.
Just making things more expensive does nothing to mitigate actual the risk.
Electricity vs. energy. Electricity is only part of energy.
Pretty ironic that it took Putin invading Ukraine to make Europe invest into renewables.
And not to save the planet but to be less dependent on energy from fossil fuels…
I don’t like being cynical like this, but:
Putin’s war really did something for the climate.
I suppose greenwashing works? in the sense creates favorable stats, not that it helps the environment.
You really don’t like to admit even the smallest bit of positive news, do you?
Liek the other commenter said, this could be read as 70% of electricity still relyingnon non renewables, which is a bad metric.
Reasonable people understand that transition is not an overnight process. Also adoption isn’t linear which is why they say the first third is the biggest half.
Overnight? We’ve been implementing and talking about renewables since I was in high school, which was like more than 10 years ago already. Only 30% in 10 years is VERY slow. Being happy with 30% is not being reasonable, it’s being in denial.
Infrastructure takes time, now factories and infrastructure is in place we’ll see faster installation rates.
Obviously I don’t see this as good news because I can’t see how ecology and capitalism can work together, unless it is greenwashing. Environmentalism/ecology/etc want sustainability, capitalism is all about eternal growth of the business, and I don’t see corporations and other financial entities changing their business model? Do you?
Capitalism is helping destroy fossil fuels. Solar and hydro electricity is cheaper than fossil fuels.
Government subsidies - interference with he capitalist market - are propping up the oil industry (and the meat industry, while we’re at it).
Properly regulated capitalism is perfectly capable of fixing the climate crisis. Ecology and capitalism work together when going green is cheaper than using fossil fuels.
