I'm in the US and _I_ don't want us to get credit. Even the worst of people do something good every now and then. But if you reward that, they won't change.

I would have agreed with you on giving credit but we did an about face in the last 2 years and now are spending billions of dollars to pay off companies that were already building renewables because we failed when trying to just illegally cancel them[1]

We’re not letting the market handle it and we’re going in a backwards direction. Can’t really crow about our accomplishments given that.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/aug/06/rwe-deal-win...

Relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/3226/

> So markets are working.

> Instead of politics and blame we need to focus on markets and let them take care of the problem.

Blind faith in the markets is what got us in this mess.

> Fossil fuel extraction is not the problem. The problem is fossil fuel usage.

Yes, and usage is not decreasing. As solar is growing, it's only adding capacity, not replacing fossil fuels. 2025 was the record year for global emissions and fossil fuel consumption.

But sure, let's let "the markets" dictate our ecological policy. Maybe they'll mercifully let us stop burning oil sometimes in the 2150s.

> Also consider the US has just removed a sh~tload of fossil fuels from the world economy. How about some extra credits there?

Huh? Americans very consistently show the most emissions per Capita.

I'll just put this here: as long as burning fossil fuel is profitable, "the markets" won't help at all, quite the contrary. And oil being unprofitable isn't happening anytime soon. Our societies are already suffering from Climate Change immensely, and it will only get worse as the years go by. We should have stopped emissions yesterday, we can't let "the markets" take away our agency on the matter and decide our fate.

Markets are fundamentally unable to take into account externalities, but yes, let's "focus on markets and let them take care of the problem". Conveniently ignore the fact that the only reason solar is the cheapest power is because a country put in their political will and power into making it so.

Your sacred market has been killing us all and will continue to keep killing us all if it makes a few pennies.

What a weird, rose-tinted view of the US you have. Just because the markets are working and the US bungled its way into another war over oil doesn’t mean we should ignore the absolutely braindead political opposition to energy modernization.

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So you’re saying we could significantly cut energy use globally by limiting data center build outs?

1.5% is a //huge// amount. If it was a “drop” in your bucket, it would only hold 67 more of those drops.

1.5% of electricity. That's a significant difference. Only about 1/7th of all our energy usage is electricity

1.5% of global energy use would be a shocking amount. Aviation is at about 3%. 1.5% of global electricity is about 0.2% of global energy use, a much more manageable figure

Wow, even with that being electricity rather than energy, that's orders of magnitude more than I would have guessed. That's a tremendous amount of electricity.

> ~3x the energy of running an LED light for 5 minutes.

Why would this not be the energy of running an LED light for 15 minutes?

1.5% of electricity, not energy

that would be 0.3% of global energy use

Ah yes, "just" 485 TWh, equal to all electricity consumption of Germany. Drop in the bucket

When all is said and done, data centers are going to be complimentary to green energy. They can spin up and down to buffer non-linear power nodes.

They also represent investment in economic growth that doesn't come from resource extraction or travel or manufacturing.

> The US isn't expanding fossil fuel extraction, its quite the opposite.

Not according to the federal government's data. BTUs from fossil fuel production set a record last year and is on a faster pace this year. Your bringing up a few coal plants is only tangentially relevant.

https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/pdf/sec1_3.pdf

> The US could switch every ICE vehicle to EV's and install solar and wind turbines in every inch of the country and it won't combat what's going on in China, India and other developing countries that rely on coal for cheap energy.

Are you familiar with the concept of necessary but not sufficient?

In any event the war with Iran is speeding up the future that was coming anyway. China's EV and solar exports are surging throughout the world. Both China and India have said for many years that their emissions would rise and then fall.

You are looking at the acceleration but without looking at the initial state.

A more fair metric would be Co2 emissions/person and I’m getting

USA 14.3 t, China 8.8 t, EU 5.5 t, India 2.2 t

> The US could switch every ICE vehicle to EV's and install solar and wind turbines in every inch of the country and it won't combat what's going on in China, India and other developing countries that rely on coal for cheap energy.

"Today the US government announced CO2 tariffs against polluting nations - products sold in the USA need to be produced in carbon-neutral manner or face punishing taxes.".

Pipe dream, of course, because the populace will vote for the guy offering cheap instead of sustainable...

Could China and India get more electricity by investing the same amount in new solar production instead of coal?

You can't compare capacity without comparing capacity factors too.

You said "modernization of existing plants" but quoted "New coal-fired plants."

China's 2025 five year plan targets peak coal before 2030 and might have already reached it in 2026. https://energyandcleanair.org/china-energy-and-emissions-tre...

The federal government is paying energy companies to cancel plans to build wind farms:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1e1vg0gjl5o

Yes we're still building renewable energy, but goddamn is our government making it hard.

That's added capacity. Fossil fuel use is at an all times high. Everything else is meaningless.

No, you see, US bad

Does your hypothesis predict that Texas would be one of the most renewable-energy-heavy states in the U.S.?

It's funny that environmentalists would rather see the world burn than solve all emissions problems with nuclear.

Climate change is Schroedingers extinction event. It's only bad when you can solve it with solar panels and wind. It's nothing to worry about when you can solve it with fission and eventually fusion.

Man, the knee-jerk downvotes for this are awful.

One can observe a problem while not advocating support for it.

It is quite true that energy decision making has been tremendously politicized, and I don't think that's good for anyone.