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this post was submitted on 24 Oct 2023
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This is a great weasel word. "Energy independence." Like we're going to hook cables up to George Washington and run on carbon-neutral Freedom Juice.™
"Energy independence" still means using fossil fuels. Just maybe different ones like natural gas instead of coal. There's less emissions, sure, but it's not anything like what Carter envisioned: Solar power stations in LEO, beaming gigawatts of carbon neutral power down from space.
Carter also embraced nuclear energy, IIRC. Meanwhile, you've got California trying desperately to shut down Diablo Canyon but kicking the can down the road every two years because, surprise surprise, energy demand went up and they can't afford to take DCNP offline. As I recall, DCNP's reactor core was due for decommissioning twelve years ago, we just keep stringing it along like "c'mon bro, just two more years, I swear I'll shut you down then. We won't need your 2,000 gigawatts by then, bro, I promise, c'mon bro, please don't fuck up on me, just hold on for two more years". It's stupid. We could've replaced the goddamn reactor by now, but we gotta play stupid games and win stupid prizes.
Carter specifically avoided nuclear energy. He was involved in a nuclear accident, so he knew the risks and favored building massive solar panels.
To quote the linked article: "The project was not continued with the change in administrations after the 1980 United States elections."
That fucker Reagan also took Carter's solar panels off the White House.
3 mile island happened at the end of his tenure, but yeah
Actually, his anti-nuclear stance started when he was in the Navy working on nuclear reactors. In 1952 a Canadian reactor melted down and he was on the team that fixed it.
And suffered radiation poisoning for months, if not years, after. An actual hero rather than a B movie star.
It also meant reducing imports of oil by being more efficient and investing in green tech by lots of parties across the country.
Green tech like clean coal? Green tech like fracking to get natural gas? Which "green" tech are we talking about here?
Green tech like wind, hydro, solar, and geothermal. The big deal was the fact you don't need to import oil to run them.
The US is the largest producer of both crude oil and natural gas in the world. That's what they mean when they say "energy independence:" Not importing foreign oil.
It is today after a massive fracking boom that largely happened independent of the big oil companies (they're starting to go gobble up the fracking pioneers nowadays).
But up until then nobody was sure of what to do and every independence was a pipe dream. That effort absolutely came with investment into green energy.
So energy independence was a pipe dream until we had a massive boom in the production of a fossil fuel.
And that is apparently "green energy."
No, but the investments into stuff like geothermal was.
Read this:
https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2005/04/20050427-9.html
You mean the document that starts off with "Expanding Refining Capacity," "Domestic Production Of Oil From ANWR," "Natural Gas Offers New Opportunities," and "Make Clean Use Of Our Coal Supply?"
The one that crows about $1.9 billion over 10 years for clean energy, but also mentions $52 billion in investment in coal?
That document on "green energy?"
Keep reading.
This is literally Bush - Republican president - creating green energy incentives and promoting nuclear power.
Energy independence movement absolutely included green energy, even if you are too blinded by the other stuff to see it.
I had a professor who was intimately involved in the Texas wind farms built under this program. So yeah, renewable energy (I read an article on hydrogen sourcing the other day and colors confuse me now) was definitely part of it.
If this was truly what Carter envisioned, then he was an unbelievable moron. "Sunsats", are not practical or environmentally efficient. The mere fact that you have to place and maintain them via spacelaunch is a huge penalty, then you have to account for radiation loss to the atmosphere.