Factual btw

You have some of the world's cheapest electricity wholesale. You also have a huge variance in prices to end-user, with the people that complain on the internet being among the most expensive in the world... because, of course, people that get cheaper prices don't complain.

Also, yes, electricity in Germany is expensive as fuck.

It's also one of the oldest and poorly maintained for much of the country. As the data centers keep going up it's making it harder and harder to meet customers energy needs.

Does the person deny the human rights violation of USSR and China? Then they're tankies. Simple as that.

The reciprocal word I've typically seen is "liberal".

I am pretty sure 90% of people who get called tankies on Lemmy are not communists

It's funny, because the term was coined back in the 1950s to describe British progressives who opposed NATO intervention in Eastern Europe.

If anti-interventionism is what passes the bar for Communism, I suspect Lemmy might be flush with the little red bastards.

We need an unjustifiably smug sounding pejorative for people who call everyone tankies, to call them in exchange so that they can see how not epic their insult is.

A lot of people dont deserve a reply. Works great for me. I'm sure thats been me many times in the past. (And future)

Probably an offshoot of just how many tankies there are on Lemmy. Some people are definitely getting caught in the crossfire.

This is sounding like you're trying to do a socialism over here.

Many states have very regulated utility prices: you may need just a half dozen buddies and get appointed to the oversight board that approves rates

Yes. It's like big telecom. When people install panels at home, power companies start inventing additional fees. If communities start looking for local grids, companies start lobbying to outlaw this.

The main problem with that is the large power consumption by industry. This is ensuring continued profits for the company and thereby weakens your influence, similar to hiring scabs.

In the short term, yes. The money you've saved is now considered "disposable income" and will be absorbed by the next person in line.

If a paycheck could make you wealthy, no one would give you a paycheck. A retirement account CAN make you wealthy but only after the machine has squeezed 40+ years out of you. But one way or another that money is leaving your hands and flowing back into the system.

Ok, sure. There are theoretical and convoluted ways to disconnect from the electric grid. You're still buying solar panels. Your out of pocket costs don't change. The river of money still flows into and out of your life. It's called currency for a reason. The whole system is designed to stop you from keeping your money.

The dark secret about money is that it only works when there's isn't enough for everyone. Despite what politicians want you to believe, you are SUPPOSED to live paycheck to paycheck- at least under a western capitalist economy. This is why poor people are both the most valuable citizens, and easiest to control. It's slavery with more steps.

Plus methane is a much stronger greenhouse gas than CO2, even with the shorter lifetime. We seem entirely unable to reduce methane leaks or even measure them against natural gas usage.

But from a consumer perspective.

• where I live, electricity is much more expensive than natural gas, maybe double the cost per unit of energy
• and I pay even more for 75% renewables
• I just got a heat pump installed for my addition. So far temps have gotten just a bit under freezing and it has no problems keeping up

But that adds up to a reality where the cost threshold is mid-40°F’s. While it may be an argument in favor of solar, I don’t have enough unshaded roof to generate more than half my usage

It is what it is. The world is arguably better with them than without

You can't say bad things about the government in China.

This might sound like an absurd restriction of free speech, but consider that it's also considered highly illegal in germany to ask for the abolishment of democracy. Many far-right groups do this, and the Verfassungsschutz (basically a kind of special police force) keeps a close eye on them because of that, calls them "verfassungsgefährdend" (going against the constitution). Monarchies like england had similar laws around 1900, where you could say everything except talk badly about the monarchy in power. That was known as the "english liberalism" because in many other countries, you could say even less. China does the same today, just that instead of the german constitution or the english monarchy it's the Communist Party.

awful and effective?

It's bad to do green energy when you're Chinese because... ?

What's the awful everything else? China has consistently some of the highest government satisfaction rates in the world

As a Spaniard, it's hard to conceive 90+% of the population being satisfied with the central government, everyone here hates our government and politicians.

Are you sure you're speaking for Chinese people when you criticize whatever "everything else" you refer to?

You seem to assume that mergers and acquisitions are not an essential part of a market economy. Left to their own devices, capitalists will always end up trying to form monopolies. You need a strong regulatory state to keep them in check. But then because they are inexorably pulled towards maximizing profitability, they will try to capture the state and deregulate. So, unless you go to a very aggressively anticapitalist set of policies a market economy will never be "functioning" for long.

thorium is nuclear too...... (and doesnt seem to have the same runaway problems!)

Why is your model for nuclear Japan? China is the world's forefront of nuclear energy research and development, keeps expanding its capabilities, and has a clean record with no accidents.

Regardless, you're overestimating the damage that nuclear has done in comparison with other energy sources. You could have one Chernobyl per year and you wouldn't come close to the death toll coal or oil have worldwide. Regarding Fukushima for example, since you brought up Japan: some recent studies suggest that more people have died as a consequence of the upending of their lived by the evacuation of the whole region, than would have died according to realistic statistical models of radiation damage to humans. The main problem is that fossil fuel lobbies have successfully made people completely intolerant of radiation damage while they happily live in cities breathing in NO2 and particulate matter without one complaint.

Humans would never cheap out on health and safety, or reduce regulatory red tape just to try to bring costs (and maybe, though less likely, prices) down. Unheard of.

Would you feel better about nuclear if we expanded these rebreeder reactors I've heard of (uses spent nuclear waate) to the point there is no spent fuel sitting around?

Except nuclear is not very pilotable. More than Solar or Wind. But can't really be turned off either

Holy shit, I always just assumed it was John Brown

Which reverse image search do you use? I use Tineye.

Have you considered inventing a time machine, going back in time, becoming a general contractor, and then building your house but smaller? Smh, people won't go the slightest bit out of their way to make things better these days.

Hilariously my 1200 sq foot 125 year old home is much less energy efficient than my in-laws 3000 sq foot 3 year old home due to the greatly improved insulation and sealing practices in modern structures. On the other hand my house is so drafty I don't have to worry about things like mold growth due to improper vapor barriers nor the air becoming too stale due to insufficient circulation

Both Europe and US are big enough to have a huge variety in building codes for different climates in different states/countries.

Its not all about insulation though. A terrace has much less exterior wall than a row of spread out detached homes. Some still insulate the party wall. but more for sound reasons. But the main advantage of terraces , fossil fuel-wise, is that the medium-density is more likely to give you a walkable grocery + other stuff and a somewhat useful bus service or other public transport.

Though modern suburbs here can be pretty sparse too with more detached homes.

So you paid the same amount you thought you were going to pay, your bill didn't increase that whole time, your carbon footprint was lower and you didn't give any money to the ratfuckers? Where is the downside?

I had a whole thing about my setup here, but it was more than I want to share. Short version, panels are cheaper, easier to deal with, and longer lasting than you think. Most manufacturers guarantee 80% capacity after 30 years, area covered is more important than max output, there's no need to buy the whole thing at once, 3-5k no more than 1200 at a time over a few years can get a lot of people all they need

Also to add to what you wrote, another reason is that their North Sea oil reserves became pretty much depleted in the last decade or two with gas following it, which has pushed gas prices higher and hence pushed people to user more electricity (gas prices in Britain were famously low) and along with exporting all industry to places like China and Bangladesh that has naturally brought down Britain's direct CO2 emissions.

Yet another reason is that the Crown makes money from licensing space for offshore wind farms since they're the ones who officially own the seabed around Britain.

I used to live as an immigrant in Britain and, still today, it still never ceases to amaze me how so many of them keep falling for the "Britain is leading..." bullshit they're constantly fed by the media and politicians over there, not just in this but in pretty much everything (Brexit didn't happen in a vacuum).

Even my shitty shit country - Portugal - has long been beating Britain in this (as it's a much poorer country, badly managed and with lots of problems) purelly because even in the time of Salazar (the Fascist dictator) there was a lot of investment in Hydro-generation, which continued after the Revolution in 74 and expanded into Wind-generation (actual in-shore wind, because unlike in Britain the NIMBYs don't have the power to just push it to be the much more expensive offshore kind) and later Solar, so whilst Britain was mismanaging their North Sea reserves and burning oil and gas like there's no tomorrow (part of the reason why Norway has a massive sovereign fund and the UK does not - the Norwegians didn't just burn it like crazy and wasted the money of whatever was sold) my country was already generating a lot of its power from hydro and it just became more so since.

Shitty shit Portugal is now in the 75%+ bracket on renewables.

The idea that Britain is leading anybody in renewables adoption is hilariously wrong.

Hence why I said "in all likelihood". There are always exceptions to the rule. Apparently you are one of them.

heating bills runs close to $800 a month

You are spending WAY too much per month on heat. Upgrade the insulation in your home and seal air leaks.

Also, do not use resistive heat. It is the most expensive heating solution by a wide margin.

Im open to hearing your argument.

You opened by insulting me instead of addressing my point, which says more about your argument than mine.

Claiming solar is automatically cheaper ignores system level costs. Wind and solar need storage, backup, and major grid upgrades, and those costs are still high. That is why renewables depend on large subsidies and mandates, just as fossil fuels have historically.

If solar were truly cheaper in a complete sense, companies would switch on their own because profit is a powerful incentive. The fact that adoption still relies on policy pressure shows the picture is more complicated than the simple claim that fossil fuels only survive through inertia.

You forget capitalism is about making money first and foremost. Ask your self if there's money in a cure for anyone in the market.

If only the government would government me out of this!

See also: accessible health care. When the gov is the only consumer - ie no private monopoly and no dual-market slippery-slope - then healthcare becomes accessible and supported by regular income tax.

*is

green alone isn’t going to support our society

Let’s find out. When I started advocating for increased renewables, the expected limit was the grid destabilizing at 30% renewables. Now many places are there. I recently read a piece expecting the limit to be about 95% renewables based on scalability of todays grid storage. Were a long way from that, so let’s work toward it and see what improvements we can make along the way

Note: one of the more difficult areas to greenify will be the military, but imagine instead shrinking that as we no longer have to defend petrostates or fossil fuel trade routes