Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by dnautics 22 days ago
> the U.S. administration has chosen to actively fight against it

the biggest producer of renewables is Texas, by a longshot. and the state of california just created insane NEM laws that favor the pockets of pg&e (and are shit for the environment) and as a result solar home installations have cratered.
4 comments
ceejayoz 22 days ago
> the biggest producer of renewables is Texas

That doesn't refute the point at all.

link
dnautics 22 days ago
no, but renewables do speak for themselves in dollars and cents, even if they dont have subsidy. now should petrochem subsidies end too? probably yes.
link
ceejayoz 22 days ago
> renewables do speak for themselves in dollars and cents

Yes. But administration opposition can change that math, as they have with the tariffs.

link
dnautics 21 days ago
they're not going to. solar and wind producers in texas are rich republicans.
link
toast0 22 days ago
From the CalISO graphs, there doesn't seem to be a shortage of solar power for most of the day. It doesn't seem reasonable to incentivise production in the same way as it was when that wasn't the case.

I think NEM 3.0 incentivises storage now? Which seems to be what the (California) grid is looking for.

link
some-guy 22 days ago
Both NEM 2.0 and 3.0 have serious issues, but for different reasons. NEM 2.0 was basically a early adopter's rich person's subsidy that heavily distorted the market, and NEM 3.0 does not have nearly enough subsidies to justify the cost unless you pay cash up front for a large system. (For the record, I am on NEM 3.0 and got such a system).

At the end of the day, the best case scenario is large scale renewable / battery storage to bring costs down as much as possible, and for those of us who want battery backup / solar can choose to invest in it, but it shouldn't be "the" solution.

link
dnautics 20 days ago
i thought the new NEM screws the homeowner because the city sells electricity at market price and buys electricity back strictly at the worst possible price, even if you're producing at peak demand.
link
ZeroGravitas 22 days ago
Texas barely scrapes into the top ten red states by percentage of wind and solar, despite its ideal geography.
link
wallst07 21 days ago
Texas produces more wind and solar than any other state, what are you talking about?
link
ZeroGravitas 21 days ago
Not by percentage. They're just bigger and generate more electricity total.

So you could flip the stat and say they produce more fossil energy than any other state.

I can't quickly find 2025 stats but in recent years they've been 50% higher than the next state in both coal and gas fired electricity (in absolute terms).

Wikipedia has tables sortable by column by source by total and percentage from 2022 to get a rough idea:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_electri...

Texas was 33% or so wind plus solar last year. There are 6 states who had a higher percentage just from wind 3 years ago.

link
wallst07 21 days ago
Absolute values matter more IMO. Any time people use % or per capita, it means they live in a city. I see this quite often, and it's just a way to skew rhetoric.

Just my opinion.

link
ZeroGravitas 21 days ago
That's fine, but that means the absolute value of all the coal and gas they burn matters more too.
link