- Joined
- Jun 18, 2018
- Messages
- 79,286
- Reaction score
- 83,770
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Progressive
"The Chinese simply can’t believe their luck: at the dawn of the electricity-guzzling era of artificial intelligence, the U.S. president and his party have decided to engage in one of the greatest acts of strategic self-harm imaginable. They have passed a giant bill that, among other craziness, deliberately undermines America’s ability to generate electricity through renewables — solar, battery and wind power in particular. And why? Because they view those as “liberal” energy sources, even though today they are the quickest and cheapest ways to boost our electricity grid to meet the explosion of demand from A.I. data centers. It is exactly the opposite of what China is doing. Indeed, Beijing may have to make July 4 its own national holiday going forward: American Electricity Dependence Day.
...Even Saudi Arabia is doubling down on solar power to meet the needs of the A.I. data centers it wants to recruit from the West, while Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” actually does just the opposite. It quickly phases out tax credits enjoyed by utility-scale solar and wind — as well as electric vehicle tax credits. This virtually guarantees that China will own the future of solar energy, wind power and electric cars and trucks, as well as autonomous vehicles.In sum, this dog’s breakfast of a bill — rushed through without a single congressional hearing with independent energy experts or even one scientist — is sure to put at risk billions of dollars of investments in renewable energy, mostly in Republican states, and potentially kill the jobs of tens of thousands of U.S. workers. By the way, the bill also bans for 10 years a first-ever fee on excess methane emissions from oil and gas production, a key driver of global warming.
...there has never been a more intimate connection between the amount of cheap, clean electricity a nation can generate for A.I. models and its future economic and military might.I was struck by a quote from an energy expert in The Wall Street Journal the other day. “The big-picture outlook for energy is we are going to be less competitive because of this law,” said Nick Nigro of Atlas Public Policy. “Ten years from now we could look back on this moment as the time in which the U.S. pulled back and essentially lost the transition to clean energy.”As for Trump’s goal of making America globally energy dominant during his term of office, his bill just made that impossible. There is no path to energy dominance in the next five years without renewables.
....For all of these reasons, I am certain there are only two political parties in the world today cheering the passage of this bill: Trump’s Republican Party and the Chinese Communist Party — because nothing is more destined to make China great again than Trump’s “big, beautiful, America surrenders the future of electricity to Beijing” bill."
Link
The dawn of a Lost Generation
...Even Saudi Arabia is doubling down on solar power to meet the needs of the A.I. data centers it wants to recruit from the West, while Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” actually does just the opposite. It quickly phases out tax credits enjoyed by utility-scale solar and wind — as well as electric vehicle tax credits. This virtually guarantees that China will own the future of solar energy, wind power and electric cars and trucks, as well as autonomous vehicles.In sum, this dog’s breakfast of a bill — rushed through without a single congressional hearing with independent energy experts or even one scientist — is sure to put at risk billions of dollars of investments in renewable energy, mostly in Republican states, and potentially kill the jobs of tens of thousands of U.S. workers. By the way, the bill also bans for 10 years a first-ever fee on excess methane emissions from oil and gas production, a key driver of global warming.
...there has never been a more intimate connection between the amount of cheap, clean electricity a nation can generate for A.I. models and its future economic and military might.I was struck by a quote from an energy expert in The Wall Street Journal the other day. “The big-picture outlook for energy is we are going to be less competitive because of this law,” said Nick Nigro of Atlas Public Policy. “Ten years from now we could look back on this moment as the time in which the U.S. pulled back and essentially lost the transition to clean energy.”As for Trump’s goal of making America globally energy dominant during his term of office, his bill just made that impossible. There is no path to energy dominance in the next five years without renewables.
....For all of these reasons, I am certain there are only two political parties in the world today cheering the passage of this bill: Trump’s Republican Party and the Chinese Communist Party — because nothing is more destined to make China great again than Trump’s “big, beautiful, America surrenders the future of electricity to Beijing” bill."
Link
The dawn of a Lost Generation