Horrible No Good Very Bad Bill Will Kill US Technological Leadership

Exactly as intended.
Fossil fuel industry has grown weary of democracy and rule of law, and aims to remake the US as an theocratic, authoritarian resource colony.

Arnaud Bertrand on X:

This absolutely stunning chart comparison by the NYT might prove to be the most important geopolitical visualization of the 21st century. The two major superpowers are each cornering a competing energy platform. China bets everything on clean energy, the US on fossil fuels. It’s incredibly rare, probably even unprecedented in history, to see 2 superpowers making completely opposite trillion-dollar bets on the underlying technology that literally powers the world. Let’s see how it plays out… One interesting related statistic: 87% of the Global South’s new energy investments go to clean tech , so it’s pretty crystal clear which future they back.

RMI:

The revolution has begun. In 2024, 87% of Global South capex on electricity
generation will flow into clean energy, and the IEA expects new solar and wind
capacity to increase by 60% to 77 GW. Solar and wind generation has been growing at 23% per year for the past 5 years, supplies 9% of electricity generation, and is only 5 years behind the Global North. Electrification is already at 75% of Global North levels, and growing faster.

Doug Lewin:

The U.S. was finally catching up.

After decades of watching solar manufacturing develop overseas, mostly in China, the Inflation Reduction Act gave domestic producers a fighting chance. Texas responded in a big way. New factories broke ground. OCI and its sister company, Mission Solar, prepared to launch a full supply chain operation in San Antonio, including the rare addition of cell manufacturing, one of the most critical (and missing) links in our solar economy.

Now? All of it hangs in the balance.

New York Times:

“The intentional effort to undermine the fastest-growing sources of electric power will lead to increased energy bills, decreased grid reliability, and the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs,” said Jason Grumet, chief executive of the American Clean Power Association, which represents renewable energy producers.

When asked whether he heard from businesses about the jobs at stake in the wrangling over the clean energy credits, Senator Jim Justice, Republican of West Virginia, said on Tuesday: “Sure I did. But I think we’ve got a good bill.” Mr. Justice, who owns three coal companies, added that he supported eliminating the clean energy subsidies to “make it a level playing field” for all energy sources, including fossil fuels. (The final bill added a new tax subsidy, however, for metallurgical coal, a fossil fuel used in steel making.)

Senator John Curtis, Republican of Utah and a lead negotiator of the bill’s energy provisions, said that the one-year extension for wind and solar companies would preserve some well-paying jobs. Still, he acknowledged that other moderate Republican senators ultimately had “bigger” priorities in the domestic policy package than clean energy, including changes to support rural health care and nutrition assistance.

The vote dealt a severe blow to the nation’s efforts to slow global warming. And it left Democrats and environmentalists to ponder how they had miscalculated the durability of the 2022 climate law, known as the Inflation Reduction Act.

“It is bizarre that Republicans go home and see high-skill, high-wage jobs in their communities, often for the first time, with clean energy sources, and they pretend it doesn’t matter,” said Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, who played a key role in crafting the clean energy tax credits in the last Congress.