A misguided Redditor is trumpeting some common "green energy" conspiracies in r/conspiracy.
To be clear, cleaner renewable energy is better for the environment because it produces no heat-trapping air pollution, which experts have said is causing increased risks for severe weather and other public health problems.
A skim through the lengthy post reveals that it's safely tucked away in an aptly named sounding board, as the message is mostly erroneous. It's centered on falsehoods about clean energy costs, effectiveness, and materials as well as wild fears about a control-based "agenda."
But growth, innovation, and prosperity have been the real results.
The U.S. Department of Energy said that the renewable sector supports 3.5 million jobs. The labor segment grew "at more than twice the rate of the … overall U.S. labor market in 2023." The global sector is estimated to be worth $23 trillion by the end of the decade, all per the report.
Solar panels and electric vehicles are two of the most popular planet-friendly switches. Sun-catching tech is improving greatly, with top cells surpassing 22% efficiency, according to EnergySage, an online resource that can help you find incentives and installers.
And the systems provide a great return on investment, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
"A number of organizations and researchers have conducted [photovoltaic] energy payback analysis and concluded that a PV system can produce energy equivalent to the energy used for its manufacture within 1 to 4 years. Most PV systems have operating lives of up to 30 years or more," per the government report.
Another federal study found that U.S. households with panels save an average of $700 annually after installation costs.
The suncatchers can be paired with battery backups that can provide grid support and charge EVs. What's more, large solar farms are being tapped by Meta and other tech companies to offset growing data center demand, forecast by Goldman Sachs to increase 165% by 2030. It's a power draw that can't be solved by burning more fossil fuels.
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Definitely 💯 As a result, switching to renewables is a worldwide trend. The United Nations reported that nearly 30% of global electricity is already more cleanly sourced with renewables.
The Redditor also went after EVs, specifically their charging demand. It's a need that can be answered with home solar. But ever-improving batteries are blowing the doors off most performance concerns as well. Goldman Sachs forecast pack prices to drop by half next year. Recurrent added that a replacement — after a 200,000-mile lifespan — could soon be around $3,000 to $5,000. That's on par with a new engine. The publication expects those marks to be met by 2030. Many batteries already have 100,000-mile warranties, per the report.
The Redditor's laundry list of complaints hit on windmill lubricants and ludicrous fears about government control over vehicle function, too. The fossil industry even contributes to the narrative at times, The Guardian reported.
"Who benefits from denying climate change?" a savvy commenter asked.
The bottom line is that while the clean energy shift will require tens of millions of tons of deposits and other materials for technology to support it, the total is far less than the 16.5 billion tons of dirty fossil fuels mined from Earth annually, as reported by Sustainability by Numbers.
And unchecked nonrenewable use will lead to worsening, and possibly irreversible, weather and public health scenarios, according to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Fortunately, one sentence is really all it takes to set the record straight on Reddit.
"No, it's the opposite," another clear-minded viewer posted as part of the rebuttal.
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