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Comment by rexpop | Hacker News Reader

Yes. Not immediately—firstly, because the finite speed of light in a vacuum precludes simultaneity—but eventually, when relieved of rent-seeking intermediaries, we'd be free to invest in sustainable infrastructure.

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We are already massively investing into renewable energy... to the tune of about $1trillion since 2020 in the US. In 2024, 95%+ of all new electricity capacity was solar/wind/batteries.

Seems like you believe the current system is not conducive to clean/sustainable infrastructure, but the world I think you want is actually the one we're already in.

Here in Australia I have been very pleasantly surprised by our renewable energy build out being far ahead of my jaded expectations.

We’re plopping down enormous grid scale batteries like it’s Sim City.

Electricity in the middle of the day is free!

Think it's still a mixed bag. There's not broad consensus (in the US at least) that continued investment in renewables is the future. We're still investing heavily in fossil fuels, we've had two military campaigns in the last three years to influence global oil supply and the sitting US President signed an emergency order to bypass restrictions on fossil fuel projects on literally his first day in office. There's plenty of people and policy makers who are fine with the fossil fuel status quo.

Oil subsidies total $4.5 trillion in that same period, and the ratio used to be worse, so it doesn’t take a genius to see why people accuse the energy policy of being biased toward a dangerous status quo.

I didn't say renewable energy—I said "sustainable infrastructure", and I was principally thinking of public transit, but there are countless more dimensions above and beyond energy generation.

Even still, fossil fuel revenues dwarf renewables by ×3-6.

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