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Comment by bonesss | Hacker News Reader

Oil drilling helps oil companies.

Nuclear power threatens oil companies.

We used to talk about replacing transportation fuels and low-carbon shipping (global energy). Now we talk about personal responsibility and rooftop solar (residential electricity). You can find oil company PR slide decks explaining why and how. Greenwashing worked, pushing the renewable ‘debate’ worked. We missed the windows on critical infrastructure change, and seemingly enjoy an unstable chunk of desert dictating global energy, inflation & food prices. <shrug>

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We're replacing ICE cars with EVs. Sales are rising every year.

For long distance heavy transport, alternative fuels or battery-electric is not feasible yet.

The transition will take decades.

Long distance heavy transport was solved in the US centuries ago using the incredible network of navigable waterways. Unfortunately the Jones Act makes it not as viable as it could be. Dredging is cheap compared to the payoff — shipping by water is 1% the cost of shipping overland.

> For long distance heavy transport, alternative fuels or battery-electric is not feasible yet.

We have this wonderful thing called trains. Many key long distance routes in Europe are even electrified already.

Trains wont work as long as taking a train is 2-3x more expensive than driving, and >10x than flying.

Where are they priced like that ? Very curious.

>unstable chunk of desert.

Ain't dictating anything. You're the ones with the guns all over who's doing that (and shaping said instability in the first place).

Taking a slice of the pie for Haliburton via force is one thing, but OPEC are ultimately the De Beers of Oil and act in the same fashion.

The UAE leaving in May'26 and now getting involved in the fight against the Houthis, while Qatar donated Bribe Force One to Trump, is quite telling as to how this is going re: the US though.

But he's right, though. We could have led the way, and instead we had the leader of the partly that ostensibly advocates for renewables dismissing the efforts as a "dream or whatever" and going claws-out at the young, upstart legislators who were championing it (likely because of her donors and personal corruption). Our very own Thatcher. Cold comfort that she'll be dead in a few years, because we will be, too.

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