human actions, global climate change, global human solutions
POSTED BY: 1kiki
UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 19:38
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PAGE 43 of 111
Go to Texas to see the anti-green future of clean energy
Lessons for liberals from climate-skeptic wind ranchers
Texas has three times more wind, solar and battery storage under construction than California — just don’t call it green.
For more than 140 years John Davis’s family has owned the Pecan Spring Ranch on the prairie lands of West Texas. He has a photo of his great-great-grandmother, known as "the sheep queen of Texas", sitting in a horse-drawn carriage beneath a tree that still stands in front of the hay barn. It’s a tough business to maintain, even with a valuable herd of Wagyu beef cattle to raise. Yet when a renewable-energy developer offered Mr Davis a large payment to put wind turbines on his land, at first the staunch Republican — and former state congressman — turned it down.
His opposition was knee-jerk. “Clean energy has been branded a liberal technology. People literally say, ‘this is AOC coming into town,”’ explains his son, Samuel, referring to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the left-wing congresswoman whose name pops up with almost flattering frequency among conservative Texans. Eventually, though, economic sense prevailed. As the family points out, at an average return per acre, cattle generate $8, deer hunters $15 — and wind hundreds of dollars. It assures the ranch’s future.
Now hosting seven turbines, the family embraces renewables as religious converts would. Samuel is a representative for the Texas Land and Liberty Coalition, which promotes wind and solar energy among ranchers. His parents have bought a filling station, ripped out the petrol pumps, and are converting it into an electric-vehicle charging station (with a farmers’ market on the side). Your columnist sat down with the clan last month over a breakfast of quiche and tomato-jalapeño jam, before bouncing across their ranch in an electric buggy. He learned lessons about clean energy that challenged his own philosophical assumptions.
1) The first is that you do not have to believe in climate change to support renewables. Quite the opposite. For a portion of conservative America, things like climate change and carbon taxes are still viewed as big-government malarkey. Even greenery is despised as a term co-opted by the left. “When someone says we are embracing green energy, it’s like shoving an ice pick through our ears,” says Matt Welch, head of Conservative Texans for Energy Innovation, another pro-renewables group. “We just say clean energy.”
This is not just Texan recalcitrance. Wind power is abundantly harvested in states run by Republican governments and over land owned by climate-skeptic ranchers. The message they prefer is a more free-market one: that wind and solar are increasingly competitive sources of energy, help reduce electricity costs, foster entrepreneurship, and are no less American than oil and gas.
It is a surprisingly effective mantra. You might think that California, which talks a good game about climate change and green energy, is on the forefront of renewables development. But Texas is far ahead. According to a study commissioned by Mr Welch’s organization, in the second quarter of 2022 his home state had three times more wind, solar and battery storage under construction than California. The Energy Information Administration, a federal agency, predicts that this year the share of renewables in Texan power generation will for the first time exceed that of natural gas.
2) That helps explain the next lesson. For all the mockery of AOC, it is from their own Republican ranks that wind-energy ranchers face the most antagonism — especially from fossil-fuel producers who fear being undercut by renewables. Organizations like the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), which lobbies on behalf of oil and gas, and the Texas Landowners Coalition, backed by right-wing beneficiaries of the fracking boom, are fighting tooth and nail to curb wind development. The TPPF’s battle extends to proposed offshore wind farms as far away as New England.
Jason Isaac o
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China invests $546 billion in clean energy, far surpassing the U.S.
E&E News reports:
China once again topped the world in clean energy investments last year, a trend that could challenge U.S. efforts to develop more homegrown manufacturing.
Nearly half of the world’s low-carbon spending took place in China, according to a recent analysis from market research firm BloombergNEF. The country spent $546 billion in 2022 on investments that included solar and wind energy, electric vehicles and batteries.
That is nearly four times the amount of U.S. investments, which totaled $141 billion. The European Union was second to China with $180 billion in clean energy investments.
China also dominated in low-carbon manufacturing, accounting for more than 90 percent of the $79 billion invested in that sector last year, according to the report.
The findings come as the U.S. and Europe work to expand domestic manufacturing capacity. The United States has begun in recent months to roll out the benefits of the Inflation Reduction Act, which is packed with $369 billion of incentives aimed at building up the U.S. clean energy industry.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/china-invests-546-billion-i
n-clean-energy-far-surpassing-the-u-s/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:
China invests $546 billion in clean energy, far surpassing the U.S.
E&E News reports:
China once again topped the world in clean energy investments last year, a trend that could challenge U.S. efforts to develop more homegrown manufacturing.
Nearly half of the world’s low-carbon spending took place in China, according to a recent analysis from market research firm BloombergNEF. The country spent $546 billion in 2022 on investments that included solar and wind energy, electric vehicles and batteries.
That is nearly four times the amount of U.S. investments, which totaled $141 billion. The European Union was second to China with $180 billion in clean energy investments.
China also dominated in low-carbon manufacturing, accounting for more than 90 percent of the $79 billion invested in that sector last year, according to the report.
The findings come as the U.S. and Europe work to expand domestic manufacturing capacity. The United States has begun in recent months to roll out the benefits of the Inflation Reduction Act, which is packed with $369 billion of incentives aimed at building up the U.S. clean energy industry.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/china-invests-546-billion-i
n-clean-energy-far-surpassing-the-u-s/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
Talk to Joe*. He and the Democrats just sent $900 Billion to the very-non-clean War Machine.
Get fucked, Second.
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Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
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Quote:Funny how the Pentagon sees its budget steadily getting smaller and smaller.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Talk to Joe*. He and the Democrats just sent $900 Billion to the very-non-clean War Machine.
Get fucked, Second.
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Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
DOD funding is near a record low as a percentage of our economy
Defense Spending as a % of Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
This is a graphic showing defense spending as a percentage of gross domestic product.
https://www.defense.gov/Multimedia/Photos/igphoto/2002099941/
https://media.defense.gov/2019/Mar/12/2002099941/-1/-1/0/190312-D-ZZ99
9-001.JPG
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:Funny how the Pentagon sees its budget steadily getting smaller and smaller.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Talk to Joe*. He and the Democrats just sent $900 Billion to the very-non-clean War Machine.
Get fucked, Second.
--------------------------------------------------
Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
DOD funding is near a record low as a percentage of our economy
Defense Spending as a % of Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
This is a graphic showing defense spending as a percentage of gross domestic product.
https://www.defense.gov/Multimedia/Photos/igphoto/2002099941/
https://media.defense.gov/2019/Mar/12/2002099941/-1/-1/0/190312-D-ZZ99
9-001.JPG
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
LOL
Hey sigs. Now he's using Bidenflation to make you feel bad about our War Machine budget.
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Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
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Quote:You didn't even click on the link so you could see the graph of defense spending as a percent of GDP. (It is 2.7%, which is as low as it has ever been. Most recent peaks were 4.5% in 2010 and 5.7% in 1985 and 8.6% in 1968 and 11.3% in 1953) The percentage keeps decreasing because the economy keeps growing, but that is too complicated for you.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
LOL
Hey sigs. Now he's using Bidenflation to make you feel bad about our War Machine budget.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:You didn't even click on the link so you could see the graph of defense spending as a percent of GDP. (It is 2.7%, which is as low as it has ever been. Most recent peaks were 4.5% in 2010 and 5.7% in 1985 and 8.6% in 1968 and 11.3% in 1953) The percentage keeps decreasing because the economy keeps growing, but that is too complicated for you.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
LOL
Hey sigs. Now he's using Bidenflation to make you feel bad about our War Machine budget.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
Trust me, moron... Anything you can wrap your head around is like 5th grad shit to me.
I'm just commenting on how you're so fucking confused about everything because your brain is broken and you stand for nothing since every thought you shit out online is in contradiction to every other thought you shit out online.
You are a waste of carbon. I hope nature does better next time when your atoms are cast into the wind.
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Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
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Hundreds of used electric vehicle battery packs are enjoying a second life at a California facility connected to the state's power grid, according to a company pioneering technology it says will dramatically lower the cost of storing carbon-free energy. Reuters reports:
B2U Storage Solutions, a Los Angeles-based startup, said it has 25 megawatt-hours of storage capacity made up of 1,300 former EV batteries tied to a solar energy facility in Lancaster, California. The project is believed to be the first of its kind selling power into a wholesale market and earned $1 million last year, according to Chief Executive Freeman Hall. B2U's technology allows the EV battery packs to be bundled together without having to be taken apart first. Founded in 2019, the company is backed by Japanese trading company Marubeni Corp.
By extending the batteries' lives, project developers can save both resources and costs. Hall estimates that a system like B2U's could lower grid-scale battery capital costs by about 40%. "Second life and re-use helps the overall lifecycle be more energy efficient, given all the efforts that go into making that battery," Hall said in an interview. "So you're getting maximum value out of it." Batteries are worked hard during their years powering vehicles, and over time their range deteriorates. But they still hold value as stationary storage, which has gentler demands, Hall said. The batteries in the B2U system are up to 8-years old and once powered vehicles built by Honda and Nissan.
https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/23/02/07/2236259/ev-batteries-gett
ing-second-life-on-california-power-grid
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Fake news.
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Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
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EverWind Fuels has become the first green hydrogen producer in North America to secure the necessary permits for a commercial-scale facility on Tuesday.
Reuters reports:
Provincial authorities in Canada granted environmental approval for EverWind to begin converting a former oil storage facility and marine terminal at Point Tupper in Nova Scotia into a green hydrogen and ammonia production hub. [...] EverWind expects the project's first phase, producing and exporting 200,000 tonnes per annum, to be online in 2025, before ramping up to 1 million tonnes per annum the following year. The company has agreements with German energy firms E.ON and Uniper to acquire the production. "To get the permit is a big deal," said Vichie, who co-founded Stonepeak Infrastructure Partners and also worked at Blackstone. The green hydrogen produced by EverWind's facility will be combined with nitrogen and converted into ammonia before being shipped, in liquid form, in tankers to Germany, where it can be retained as ammonia or turned back into green hydrogen.
Production during the facility's first phase will be powered using wind and solar assets to be built nearby, Vichie said. The company in December leased 137,000 acres (55,440 hectares) which will eventually site turbines generating 2 gigawatts of wind energy, that will power production in its second, larger phase. "This provides an amazing green growth path for Atlantic Canada, where they have some of the world's best wind resources," Vichie said. The overall cost of the project is expected to be around $6 billion. Three banks are helping arrange debt funding, while Vichie's family office is providing equity capital, he said.
In other hydrogen-related news, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) granted Universal Hydrogen approval to fly its 40+ passenger hydrogen electric plane.
https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/23/02/08/0730203/everwind-gets-app
roval-for-north-americas-first-green-hydrogen-facility
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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