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Discussion of climate, how it is changing, activism around that, the politics, and the energy systems change we need in order to stabilize things.

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Trump Wins, Planet Loses | With control of the White House and the Senate, Republicans are poised to upend US climate policy. (grist.org)

submitted 2 weeks ago by silence7 to c/climate

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[–] dontgooglefinderscult@lemmings.world 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Individual solar is nice, but it's a fraction of a percent of solar capacity. No one is talking about that. Actual solar plants and installations are run by dedicated companies with huge profit margins that currently are all in expansion phases. They make up the majority of solar power installed and operated.

That market is competitive, but not hyper competitive and dirt has a decent lobbying budget, hence Dems including solar subsidies to appease Texas of all states.

[–] sonori@beehaw.org 1 points 2 weeks ago

I also wasn’t talking about individual solar. Utility solar is nearly always divided between manufacturing, installation, and the operator. The operator is the only one benefited by solar’s long term return on investment. Everyone else makes their money in construction, which is very much price competitive.

In my experience none of these groups however have even a fraction of the cash of a company like BP or Exxon Mobile, and what piles of cash they do have tends to be investment in rather than profit from. As it’s a lot harder to spend investors cash on buying regulators than it is to spend incoming profit on it this limits the amount that they can spend on such an endeavor.

There are also a lot more places banning utility scale solar and wind than are oil and gas, so delaying renewables rollout seems like an evidently effective strategy for limiting their lobbying power.