Huge Volts fan, but Dave, I've got to caution you about American politics coverage.
There's already a lot of it, and Volts seems to get back to it, every couple of episodes these days. I'm skipping listening to nearly half of them.
I'm a foreign customers, who's just checked out on American politics, after decades of watching from the sidelines, well-wishing. Now that America is threatening my country, I just can't spare bandwidth for worrying about American Democrats, American immigrants, American's civil rights, America's level of corruption. They're frankly your problems, and good luck.
But the climate problem is global. All the best work against it right now is being done in China. The right response to Trump is to just ignore America, and cover the real progress being made in other countries.
If you turn into another American politics blog, I'll have to check out from Volts, too.
MAGA Republicans vote to protect the narrow, short-term interest of the wealthy 1% Investor Class: Bankers&HedgeFunds, BigOilGas&Chemicals, BigAg&CornEthanol, BigPharma, BigRealEstate&Insurance, etc. Musk made a futile, failed attempt to buy leverage with Trump, and instead got a cheesy Tesla Promo Event on the White House lawn that tanked Tesla's Brand dominance. Now MAGA is killing all the democratic IRA renewable energy & EV subsidies while boosting fossil fuel and utility monopoly favored subsidies. It's a race to the back of the pack in any electrification that benefits ordinary people, the not-so-wealthy 99%. China has already reached 30% electrification, while the US is stuck at 22%, according to Oilprice.com. The only option is to vote MAGA out of office ASAP.
David, in contrast to the guy below, I do like hearing a bit more from actual legislators who are trying, have tried, to get some good climate/energy policy done. Clearly the FF/"Baseload" dominance folks have all the passion right now. I went to the festive No Kings rally in Santa Fe, where there were many signs for "Chinga Tu MAGA," "More Queens, Less Kings," some "Don't Sell Our Public Lands," maybe a couple "Stop Polluter Give Aways," but not a one sign for "Clean Energy" or the equivalent. In a state that now is 50% wind and solar. (If anyone is in the area, take a tour from Clines Corners to Corona. The 1000 turbines of North America's largest wind farm are nearing completion, along with the east end of the Sun Zia HVDC line.)
I think Mike avoided your question about whether the wind/solar biz is any good at PR. He went back to how he was inspired in 2005. Real answer. NO. Totally inept. That's like their PR, which seems like it's hoping it's 2005 and the enviros love them and the GOP is even OK, cause it seems like renewables are doing something about imports from ayatollahs.
For the last ten years, most of the solar biz political energy has apparently been spent battling between the SEIA, who want cheap imported panels, and SEMA, who want protection 'cause they'll never match Chinese prices. (Solar Energy Industry Association, and Solar Energy Manufacturers Association.) The wind industry made a fatal mistake of joining the "American Clean Power Association," where they play second fiddle to nuke, CCS, geo, fusion stuff. I receive their "Renewable Energy Smart Brief" email blast which often includes anti-renewable stories w/o any response or comment. It's just put together by some Beltway Bandit consultants with a web-trawling algorithm.
Many "enviros," at least grassroots ones in the hinterlands, have become renewable-skeptics. My 350 branch sends me links to "The Great Simplification" site which disses renewables. It's sort of vax-skeptic style. Much "concern" about side effects. Land, wildlife, toxics, slave labor, "complexity"... These libs are getting owned. One thing about wind and solar: we're drilling up, so all of our warts are there for the world to see.
I totally disagree with this "Don't emphasize the climate benefits." While it might prevent some "Red" voter from checking out, I think the Dems, or clean power biz, biggest problem right now is losing their own base. Those climate kids on the "Great Simplification" site, who yearn for "social transformation," instead of just carbon free power (like that's "just" a walk in the park); they need to know that the solar farm in AZ has a six month payback on embodied emissions, because otherwise they focus on farm or tortoise land being "covered" with panels for a PPA with Amazon, etc.
While I greatly appreciate Rep. Levin’s support for clean energy, he demonstrates in this interview what poor communicators our Democratic leaders are. He throws out a whole bunch of inside baseball acronyms from FMAP to SALT (even beyond ones readers of this blog might be expected to know, like COP and CAFE ), refers obliquely to particular members’ names as if we all have those memorized too and just generally lacks a sharp, compelling message. Isn’t there any communications training these guys can take to get better?
Huge Volts fan, but Dave, I've got to caution you about American politics coverage.
There's already a lot of it, and Volts seems to get back to it, every couple of episodes these days. I'm skipping listening to nearly half of them.
I'm a foreign customers, who's just checked out on American politics, after decades of watching from the sidelines, well-wishing. Now that America is threatening my country, I just can't spare bandwidth for worrying about American Democrats, American immigrants, American's civil rights, America's level of corruption. They're frankly your problems, and good luck.
But the climate problem is global. All the best work against it right now is being done in China. The right response to Trump is to just ignore America, and cover the real progress being made in other countries.
If you turn into another American politics blog, I'll have to check out from Volts, too.
MAGA Republicans vote to protect the narrow, short-term interest of the wealthy 1% Investor Class: Bankers&HedgeFunds, BigOilGas&Chemicals, BigAg&CornEthanol, BigPharma, BigRealEstate&Insurance, etc. Musk made a futile, failed attempt to buy leverage with Trump, and instead got a cheesy Tesla Promo Event on the White House lawn that tanked Tesla's Brand dominance. Now MAGA is killing all the democratic IRA renewable energy & EV subsidies while boosting fossil fuel and utility monopoly favored subsidies. It's a race to the back of the pack in any electrification that benefits ordinary people, the not-so-wealthy 99%. China has already reached 30% electrification, while the US is stuck at 22%, according to Oilprice.com. The only option is to vote MAGA out of office ASAP.
David, in contrast to the guy below, I do like hearing a bit more from actual legislators who are trying, have tried, to get some good climate/energy policy done. Clearly the FF/"Baseload" dominance folks have all the passion right now. I went to the festive No Kings rally in Santa Fe, where there were many signs for "Chinga Tu MAGA," "More Queens, Less Kings," some "Don't Sell Our Public Lands," maybe a couple "Stop Polluter Give Aways," but not a one sign for "Clean Energy" or the equivalent. In a state that now is 50% wind and solar. (If anyone is in the area, take a tour from Clines Corners to Corona. The 1000 turbines of North America's largest wind farm are nearing completion, along with the east end of the Sun Zia HVDC line.)
I think Mike avoided your question about whether the wind/solar biz is any good at PR. He went back to how he was inspired in 2005. Real answer. NO. Totally inept. That's like their PR, which seems like it's hoping it's 2005 and the enviros love them and the GOP is even OK, cause it seems like renewables are doing something about imports from ayatollahs.
For the last ten years, most of the solar biz political energy has apparently been spent battling between the SEIA, who want cheap imported panels, and SEMA, who want protection 'cause they'll never match Chinese prices. (Solar Energy Industry Association, and Solar Energy Manufacturers Association.) The wind industry made a fatal mistake of joining the "American Clean Power Association," where they play second fiddle to nuke, CCS, geo, fusion stuff. I receive their "Renewable Energy Smart Brief" email blast which often includes anti-renewable stories w/o any response or comment. It's just put together by some Beltway Bandit consultants with a web-trawling algorithm.
Many "enviros," at least grassroots ones in the hinterlands, have become renewable-skeptics. My 350 branch sends me links to "The Great Simplification" site which disses renewables. It's sort of vax-skeptic style. Much "concern" about side effects. Land, wildlife, toxics, slave labor, "complexity"... These libs are getting owned. One thing about wind and solar: we're drilling up, so all of our warts are there for the world to see.
I totally disagree with this "Don't emphasize the climate benefits." While it might prevent some "Red" voter from checking out, I think the Dems, or clean power biz, biggest problem right now is losing their own base. Those climate kids on the "Great Simplification" site, who yearn for "social transformation," instead of just carbon free power (like that's "just" a walk in the park); they need to know that the solar farm in AZ has a six month payback on embodied emissions, because otherwise they focus on farm or tortoise land being "covered" with panels for a PPA with Amazon, etc.
What a cluster!
While I greatly appreciate Rep. Levin’s support for clean energy, he demonstrates in this interview what poor communicators our Democratic leaders are. He throws out a whole bunch of inside baseball acronyms from FMAP to SALT (even beyond ones readers of this blog might be expected to know, like COP and CAFE ), refers obliquely to particular members’ names as if we all have those memorized too and just generally lacks a sharp, compelling message. Isn’t there any communications training these guys can take to get better?