Stopping IRA subsidies is incredibly foolish in many ways

This is a really good presentation of those ways.

How can you be a world leader when you are a laggard in the hottest, most important industries of the future? How can you attract the best people and businesses to the US when you have flip-flopping policies that kill incentives for these critical industries just a few years after enacting them?

If a company can cost effectively make battery-grade lithium, batteries, EVs, and solar panels in the US and make a profit selling them, they are going to do that. If their business plan is sabotaged by an anti-progress administration full of goons and corrupt cronies, are they even going to consider coming back here after shutting down shop, construction jobs, or even early-stage plans? - CleanTechnica

Renewables installation is speeding up, but needs to speed up faster

A lot faster. Plenty of remaining impediments need to be removed, by any means available.

But whether Earthlings have the political and sociological capability to alter that lethal global warming trajectory remains an unanswered question. The historical record is inauspicious in this regard. Time will tell. And since time is short, the answer will be apparent before long. What we do have is the economic and technological capability to stop well short of that disastrous 4.9° F.

One of the quickest ways to get greenhouse gas emissions reduced is to greatly reduce demand for products that generate them. The progress on renewables is on the cusp of doing just that. Creating and spreading environmentally sound technology is, of course, far from the only thing that must be done to stop the wrecking of our planet. In that regard, there is plenty to talk about. But it’s encouraging to see some elements of the antidote accelerating along with the acceleration of climate impacts. The International Energy Agency’s latest outlook on renewables including energy storage is upbeat in the matter. - Daily Kos

How inexpensive can renewable energy get?

This is headlined "Offshore Wind Is on the Brink of Becoming So Cheap, the UK Will Pay People to Use It." I don't know about that, but it is an intriguing and positive read.

The fossil fuel industry and its allies love saying that renewable energy increases utility bills. But in the UK, new research shows that coming offshore wind farms could actually make bills more affordable.

In the short term, previous renewable energy projects have increased bills because they’ve been built with government subsidies. But a study published in Nature Energy on Monday found that the country’s latest approved offshore wind projects will be built so cheaply that they’ll actually be able to pay money back to the UK government. That money will go towards reducing household energy bills.

“Energy subsidies used to push up energy bills, but within a few years, cheap renewable energy will see them brought down for the first time,” Malte Jansen, research associate at the Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London, said in a statement. “This is an astonishing development.” - Earther

Keystone XL starts construction - Update

Update: Construction has been righteously blocked again.

Original story: Bad news. Specifically, at a site on the Montana/Canada border. Also, I hadn’t been aware that the government of Alberta, Canada, ended up funding it because private lenders wanted no part.

Alberta's recent announcement that it was investing more than $1 billion to build the Keystone XL pipeline gave a boost to a project that has faced more than a decade of delays and uncertainty.

But by dedicating government money to a pipeline the private sector has been reluctant to fund, the decision highlights how vulnerable Canada's oil sands industry has become, even before the coronavirus pandemic crashed global oil demand.

Last week, Alberta announced it would invest $1.1 billion in the pipeline and provide an additional $4.2 billion in loan guarantees to help developer TC Energy start construction immediately. Premier Jason Kenney said his government had been negotiating with the company for months, and that no private sector bidders were ready to finance the project. - Inside Climate News

On the same general subject, though this one is righteous:

Globally, renewable energy sectors including wind, solar, and hydropower are booming. The world is using more renewable energy than ever before. Over one third of the world’s electricity comes from renewable sources, according to data released by the International Renewable Energy Agency, or Irena, on Monday.

From 2018 to 2019, new renewable energy capacity construction slowed down slightly. But since the world also built less new fossil fuel infrastructure, renewables share in energy expansion grew. A record-breaking 72 percent of all the new electricity sources the world installed in 2019 were renewable. - Earther

Prognostications as to what the Trump Crash will mean for renewables are all over the place, from what I’ve seen.