Meanwhile the US is spending billions to cancel renewable energy.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/23/climate/offshore-wind-gas...

CMay a day ago | parent | next [-]

Climate change policy was a valiant effort to de-influence authoritarian petrostates and prevent Russia from achieving its multi-century goal of expanding its access to actual warm water ports. The major conflicts between Russia and Japan were essentially over that. It's why Japan even attacked Korea, because Russia was trying to gain influence there and it was an essential launching off point if Russia was ever going to attack Japan.

If climate has already changed so much that Russia's ports are no longer going to freeze, then green energy initiatives may just put us at a disadvantage since we don't manufacture most of the products. Solar panels, wind turbines, we don't control a lot of that supply chain which isn't healthy.

There are other advantages to renewable energy, but at the moment the USD benefits from oil reliance and transitioning away from oil while maintaining USD influence is an important goal.

At the same time, oil infrastructure does tend to have a lot of weak points, where renewable energy can be easier to spread out. Eventually I think it will be relegated to military and byproducts more, but for now there is an abundant supply.

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LastTrain 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Blows me away that energy policy is so political, and that somehow self-styled libertarians who don’t say a peep about oil subsidies are deeply offended by renewable ones. It you consider yourself libertarian can you at least be forward-thinking enough to see that shifting to renewables is also a step towards decentralization?

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krupan a day ago | parent [-]

Hi! How is it decentralization if it's subsidized by the government?

And which libertarians are in favor of oil subsidies? I'd like to have a talk with them

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ragebol a day ago | parent | next [-]

> How is it decentralization Producers of electricity being everywhere is more distributed than relatively centralized power generation stations. Regardless of who paid (part of) it

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LastTrain 20 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The technologies for renewable energy are inherently more decentralized than those for fossil fuels. My point was clearly this and nothing else: given that there are subsidies for both, a libertarian should be less upset about renewable subsidies since it is an enabling force for individual liberties when it comes to energy production. In practice, they are very outspoken about renewable subsidies and fairly quiet on oil subsidies.

	▲	krupan 12 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I think you are talking about a different sort of decentralization than libertarians talk about, maybe? Libertarians want decentralized political/coercive power. When the government is paying for power generation in smaller amounts at larger numbers of locations that's not decentralizing the governments political/coercive power. And again, I can't imagine a libertarian who when questioned would be ok with oil subsidies. Point them my way and I'll give them a stern talking to.

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pfdietz 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

King Canute Trump trying to order back the tide.

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fleroviumna 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

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