[weakened_malloc]

> I agree with your main point: "just go renewable" is both naive and utterly useless advice. That's a decades-long project. Also, who makes all the solar panels (and probably windmills)? China.

This is the key point a lot of people miss, the vast majority of equipment needed to actually use renewables requires Chinese products. If you go 100% renewables, you're only replacing one form of dependence (oil) for another,

[Krssst]

Once you get NREs set up you don't need a constant uninterrupted supply of replacements as fossil fuels do (we burn them after all).

We'd need replacements as old infrastructure ages out but it seems much easier to wait out a supply disruption compared to oil since this just means using old equipment while the supply is cut; sure some might break after a while but electricity production wouldn't fall immediately.

[genxy]

I can't believe they made an account for that comment. Like each action carries the same weight. Renewables, esp solar are super low maintenance. When you buy panels, barring some manufacturing defect, you buy them for the life of the project, not the panel.

Solar lasts so long, it is a one time purchase.

[tzs]

Once you have a sane people in charge of policy the building out of renewables quickly using Chinese panels and turbines can be accompanied by incentives do build up domestic manufacturing for them.

Solar and wind equipment lasts a long time so it is OK if it takes a decade or two to ramp up domestic production to the point that it can handle all our needs.

[dbtc]

US post colonial empire method was to create markets overseas, China was watching and learning!