Donald Trump has wielded the full might of his administration to crush the progress of clean energy, which he has called a “scam” and “stupid”. But there are signs this assault is not going to plan.
In March, the US generated more of its electricity from renewable sources such as solar and wind than it did via gas, the first time clean energy has surpassed the planet-heating fossil fuel for a full month nationally, according to data from the Ember thinktank.
While this was just one month, it follows a record 2025 for renewable energy. The pipeline of new power coming online in the US is overwhelmingly green this year, too, with 93% of all electricity capacity added in 2026 set to come from solar, wind and batteries. Just 7% will come from the fossil fuels that are dangerously overheating our world.
Economics are a strange beast because they are clearly made up, and clearly inescapable.
If you think economics is made up, we must have very different definitions of what economics is.
I’ll play ball. What’s your definition?
The study of resource management in systems.
What’s yours?
I think OP is confusing economics with the economy, the former is a field of research, the second is a construct theroetically based on the value of economic output but increasingly just a measure of the moods of rich people.
I don’t think I am. Studying car mechanics is a made-up field because humans invented cars. Studying sports medicine is a made-up field because humans invented sports. Economics can, and sometimes does, cover non-human systems, but is largely the study of emergent properties from human-created systems.
Ah so made-up =/= fake. There’s yer problem.
Yep. Made up, like constructed or invented. The idea that there are “rules” that seem to emerge from constructed systems that we don’t intend or expect is strange and wonderful to me.
The study of resource management in systems with an especial focus in systems of allocating scarce resources amongst humans.
not OP but I’d describe it as busy work for people who find science too complicated.
All of human language and culture is “made up”, that doesn’t make any of it less consequential or “real”.
You’re using your disagreement voice to agree with me.
That’s kinda on you tho
I didn’t write the comment?
Well, may people interpret “made up” to mean “fake” or “false” or “non-existent” or “lol not realz”.
You didn’t mean it that way but it took a little while to get to what you meant.
I have very little control over how people interpret what I write. The word “inescapable” was the clue I left to help you resolve the ambiguity.
I think you had a lot better results when you went with ‘constructed’. Just my 2¢
Years later in the archive holograms Donald “Leto II” Trump speaks about his golden path plan: I did what I did so that the world could be weaned of oil and US big tech, and for Europe to be militarily independent.
Recently read that the UK is on track to decarbonise 90% of the grid by the end of the current parliament. An oil crisis pushes people away from oil, who would have thought it?
If I were trying to destroy fossil fuels from his position, all options on the table, I’m sure I could do as well or better, but my mask would have slipped by now.
Still don’t expect him to survive, nor believe he’s anything but committed to fossil fuel and most of the rest of his non-sense, but its kinda comforting how much he sucks at it.
We’d be even better if we used nuclear in that.
We do use nuclear. Though at this point it’s looking like wind/solar/battery is going to be cheaper, if it isn’t already.
more importantly to the people in charge of the spending, deploys and gets its returns faster. Nuclear you are looking a decade before it starts being operational and then another couple decades to recoup the cost. Solar can be up and running in months and recoup within a decade.
Nuclear you are looking a decade before it starts being operational and then another couple decades to recoup the cost.
By the time a new nuclear plant breaks even on the capital expenditures to build it, a competing solar plant has already been built, operated for a few decades, and been torn down/decommissioned for even newer tech. That 80-year nuclear plant has to compete with like 3 successive generations of solar plants/batteries, advanced geothermal, and maybe even commercialized fusion. Building a new nuclear plant is a decision to saddle your grandchildren with a payment plan on locked in costs of construction today.
I heard of people covering the cost of solar within a year in some extreme cases during the last energy crisis.
Depends on the accounting, if you count panels only the cost gets recouped extremely fast. Most of the cost is on the inverter and labour cost of installing them.
Where do nuclear bros grow? Please arrive in 2026
