[tedggh]

A lot of comes from state initiatives too. Texas being conservative also happens to be very pro solar. I’m in the business and we have some great projects there. The US military is also pushing solar at their facilities. Then you have many private-state partnerships like tolls investing a lot in solar. The outlook in general is pretty positive in the US, a lot more than what people would think.

[wavemode]

Anyone who still even views this as a conservative/liberal issue, is someone who is in the pocket of the fossil fuel lobby. Solar is simply a very cheap and realiable way to generate electricity. Much cheaper than gas and coal nowadays. Pure economic incentive is going to continue to drive its adoption.

[pornel]

As someone from another continent, I giggle when I see doomsday-prepping anti-govmint fiercely-independent cowboys hating EVs and loving gas.

Gas has a 6-month shelf-life, and is attached to a whole geopolitically volatile military-industrial complex. Meanwhile an EV + solar can be actually self-sufficient and last for a decade or two. A realistic Mad Max would have been EV battles over solar panels.

[glenstein]

I also recall a New York times article from many moons ago suggesting that a lot of Texas oil wealth got repurposed into a large-scale wind energy infrastructure, but my info might be out of date.

[rtkwe]

True though one of the major things they have been able to do because it's mostly in the federal purview is killing offshore wind.

[gimmeThaBeet]

It's sort a "broken clock right twice a day" thing, but I agree with not doing offshore wind in the US. The divergence immediately follows in that I wish they would just push onshore wind.

It's sort of a circular issue, it's madly expensive because we haven't built a lot and aren't super good at it, and we don't get much of it built because we aren't great at it and it always is ludicrously expensive.

The US has a uniquely underdeveloped maritime sector, we don't build a lot of the massive turbines you use offshore. You drive through central and west texas, it feels like there might be more wind turbines than people. We've kind of already made the decision based on what works.

[_carbyau_]

I think the idea of offshore wind is nice. There is a lot of ocean out there and by putting the "ugly" (I don't mind them.) turbines out of sight we get the best of both worlds.

But the realities of the idea - the engineering - is problematic.

The ocean is a harsh environment and maintaining something deliberately put out of the way in a harsher environment is far more expensive.