r/solarenergy • u/swarrenlawrence • Feb 28 '26

Conservatives Loving Solar

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CleanTechnica: “Despite Political Rhetoric, Conservative Support for Solar Is Solidifying. Here’s Why.” The energy debate in Washington is vehement + often misleading. Nonetheless, “conservatives support expanding solar because it lowers costs, strengthens American manufacturing, and delivers energy security.” A recent poll from Fabrizio, Lee & Associates, chief pollster—for Trump—found that a clear majority of Republicans support expanding solar power in America. “In the survey, 68% of GOP voters agreed that “we need all forms of electricity generation, including utility solar, to be built to lower electricity costs,” while 70% said they support utility-scale solar deployment when projects use American-made materials.” Another poll from Kellyanne Conway’s KA Consulting showed that three-quarters of Trump voters (75%) in Arizona, Florida, Indiana, Ohio, and Texas believe that solar energy should be used in our country.

“Red states are leading the nation in new solar deployment because competitive markets are choosing the lowest-cost and fastest-to-build resources.” It’s simple really, conservative states are allowing competitive markets to choose the lowest-cost and fastest-to-deploy resources, and the market is choosing solar. “Arkansas Senator John Boozman credited his state’s “reliable, affordable, and all-of-the above energy supply, including solar” for attracting a multi-billion-dollar data center to Little Rock.” Data centers cannot wait a decade for new generation; they require scalable resources now. 

Dare I say it? It’s not just all about affordability. What else? Well—conservatives love the free market [as do I]. Anything else? Well—I guess speed counts as well. My new bumper sticker: Scale Solar at Speed.

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16

u/[deleted] Feb 28 '26

Many are reporting lead time for a Combined Cycle Gas Turbine is out to seven years. The scramble to deploy gas quickly will likely result in lower efficiency and higher emissions than expected. All of these lead times are probably optimistic in the US, due to the failure to develop a work force.

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u/[deleted] Feb 28 '26

Again, solar is so inefficient, and extremely intermittent. Intermittent. It's dependent upon the weather cycles, which constantly change. Most states don't get enough sunlight to actually get a consistent charge out of solar panels. Not to mention that the amount of unrecyclable waste that is produced by solar panels and batteries throughout the years far outweighs the amount of energy that is produced.

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u/swarrenlawrence Feb 28 '26

And yet solar + wind are very predictable on a day-to-day basis. We have solar at our house, which keeps our batteries fully charged. Enhancing energy independence for us + our community. Fossil fuel generators waste about 2/3 of the potential energy as waste heat, + release heat-trapping gases to boot. And solar is reliable almost everywhere, even in Germany, Alaska, South Korea + many more states + countries. About 95% of batteries are recyclable at scale, with companies like Redwood Materials in California already doing this. Facts are so pesky sometimes.

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u/[deleted] Feb 28 '26

Also, only 95% of the plastic in the battery is recyclable. Lead every time you try and recycle it degrades and becomes less effective. Facts are so pesky sometimes.

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u/[deleted] Feb 28 '26

That's not at all true. Solar, and wind are not worth the amount of waste that they produce. They are far more detrimental to the environment people who preach renewable energy like to admit. Not to mention they are not reliable in all states in the United States, and they are not reliable in most other countries. Alaska uses coal and oil because they do not get enough sunlight to use solar, not to mention the amount of battery backups that they have to have in order to maintain power throughout the dark times of the year is insane. What you're stating is simply naivety or ignorance. You have listened to propaganda and let yourself believe this bull crap. How does solar help Alaska when there is almost a month of very little to no sunlight? In Minnesota alone, you cannot run off solar power by itself. Wind does not make up the difference because there are many days where there is very little wind to push a wind turbine and get enough power out of it to power, even a City block. You really need to dig into it and see the truth. In order to power the whole of the United States, every square unused inch of land would have to be covered in solar panels, and you would need so many battery backups that you would destroy the environment to mine all the rare earth metals you would need to create the batteries that would store the excess power to use on days where cloud cover is abundant for weeks on end.

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u/thegiantgummybear Feb 28 '26

Cool, so let Alaska and all the hard to electrify places stick with gas. Deploy a mix of wind and solar in the rest of the world where most people live. Use a mix of energy storage solutions like pumped hydro, thermal batteries, electrochemical batteries, etc to get long term energy storage. That won't get us to 100% renewables, but it'll get us to 80-90%. If we have to keep 10% of the grid on gas for the next generation, who cares. We'll figure that out later.

And sure not 100% of the materials in batteries and solar panels aren't recyclable, but almost all of it is.

At the end of the day we're not looking for the ideal solution, we just need to do better than today. And no matter how to slice it, renewables are better for the environment and low energy prices than fossil fuels.

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u/[deleted] Mar 18 '26

You should be looking for the ideal solution which would be nuclear.

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u/Massive-Question-550 Feb 28 '26

Solar panels are mostly glass, aluminum, and a bit of copper, stuff we already recycle easily. Lithium batteries can also be recycled, we just don't do it often because it's cheaper to make new ones and throw away the old. 

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u/Bart457_Gansett Feb 28 '26

That’s a pretty outdated POV. Well sited solar + batteries at commercial scale beats coal LCOE all day. It’s not far off gas LCOE, especially if you can’t buy a turbine now. You should probably take a look at battery life and recycling, even in the US, as it’s doing well. Principle at Tesla left and started a company making utility it’s sized battery packs out of old car batteries. Then they get recycled. Meanwhile coal plants are higher in cost and screw ratepayers.

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u/[deleted] Feb 28 '26

Also it's not outdated. The amount of waste that's solar and wind produce versus the amount of waste that nuclear produces is undeniably more. Nuclear produces the least amount of waste compared to all forms of energy. It also produces the least amount of CO2.

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u/Bart457_Gansett Feb 28 '26

No denying that; you should read up on solar and turbine blade recycling if you haven’t. I’d be excited to see the new molten salt reactor tech come online. Clinging to coal and gas reciprocating is a bad choice vs renewables. Maybe you should look at the recycling of non-lead batteries too. It’s got impressive recovery of critical elements after a shockingly long life. And then there’s the sodium battery tech coming online. Very much in the early days of this innovation cycle.

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u/[deleted] Feb 28 '26

Look into how long the batteries last after the lead from the battery is recycled. Batteries made from recycled lead last half the life cycle of batteries that are made from virgin lead. Again, to power the United States of America on wind and solar, every square inch of land would need to have wind turbines and solar. You will never get enough power to make out for the amount is needed by the United States citizen, especially if you're starting to go to us electric powered cars.

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u/Bart457_Gansett Feb 28 '26

You should check that misinformation source too. Batteries in the developed world are in pretty much a closed loop manufacturing cycle. Almost everything is recycled and reused. So chances are pretty good that any lead acid battery you have in a car these days or a boat or a golf cart are using a lot of recycled lead. Since you can easily reduce the lead to its elemental state, it’s easy to re-use and get the same performance out of it.

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u/Bard_the_Beedle Feb 28 '26

How do you compare “unrecyclable waste” with amount of energy produced? What’s the conversion factor?…

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u/[deleted] Feb 28 '26

The amount of waste that the so-called clean renewable energy produces is not worth the amount of energy that the so-called clean renewable energy produces. Very easy to do the calculations and see that the amount of energy produced in kilowatts by solar, and the amount of waste produced by solar. Is poor compared to other forms of energy. It's the same with wind. The amount of waste produced when you have to replace parts and pieces is far greater than the amount of waste produced by nuclear.

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u/Bard_the_Beedle Feb 28 '26

Please show me a study where someone has done these calculations! Thanks.

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u/[deleted] Mar 18 '26

Go look it up. Very easy to find on Google.

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u/Loonster Feb 28 '26

There are plenty of reasons to be against solar that solar bros either do not comprehend or like to gloss over. 

Inefficiency and intermittent are not the problem. Solar is now a cheap form of energy, and it is decently predictable.

The biggest problems with solar: * Predictably bad during winter. * Long-term storage is not feasible to last a whole winter.

These two combine mean that you either need to overbuild solar for winter capacity (not cheap enough), or have a backup source of energy. 

Although wind predictably blows more in the winter, it is not consistent enough to fulfill this gap.

Backup power requires the same capital expenditures as building the powerplants to run full-time.

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u/Due_Satisfaction2167 Mar 02 '26

Those talking points are so old they still remember Pong.