In what might be the final blow to the solar industry of the United States, Trump and the Republicans are planning to essentially kill it and hand all the production to China.
How this makes America great again is beyond me, except for the fact that this country seems to have had a coup d’etat pulled off by the oil industry. That is usually what happens when the fossil fuel industry is the main industry in a country. Look at any country around the world, perhaps other than Sweden that hasn’t had a political takeover by pro fossil fuel politicians.
This won’t cure the move to solar and wind, because the economics of it is already overtaken fossil fuels. It simply destroys the manufacturing capacity of the United States to be a leader here.
This is going to put people out of business,” said Mike Carr, the executive director of Solar Energy Manufacturers for America, which represents more than 15 companies and 6,100 manufacturing workers. “This is going to devastate the industry.”
The utter stupidity of these politicians is truly beyond comprehension, other than the fact that they keep lining their pockets with the money from the petroleum industry.
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/02/business/energy-environment/trump-bill-solar-panels-china.html
Filed under: Olympic Peninsula | Tagged: climate change, environment, goverment, Government Legislation |
This is old & y’all may have seen it—but for those who haven’t: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAAbcNl4Lb8
The idiocy of the campaign against clean energy is truly despicable. However, since the solar tax credit was originally implemented, the cost of solar has come down by more than 30%, meaning the economics of solar today WITHOUT the tax incentive is better than it was a decade ago WITH the incentive.
Because solar and wind are now the cheapest options for utilities, I don’t expect this action to bring utility-scale solar to its knees.
For people in San Diego and other warm and sunny places with high electricity prices (Honolulu, Brisbane) it is now cost effective to install the solar system, control system, and on-site batteries to cut the cord. And, as people learn how to use the big batteries in their EVs, this will be cost-effective in more and more places.
If they would just eliminate the incentives and subsidies for fossil and nuclear, and create a level playing field, wind and solar would win.
all good points, Jim. I agree that it would be great that if they eliminated all of the tax breaks for the petroleum industry, it would at least level the playing field, but the fact that we are essentially a dictatorship run by the oil industry like Saudi Arabia, and Russia makes it hard for that to happen. We have elections, but a limited number of billionaires pour the money in to convince people of who to vote for with lies and deceit. And now it’s worse than ever.
It’s not only stupidity, it’s organized crime masquerading as government.