I don't see how not being part of the Paris Agreement prevents American companies from continuing to develop alternative energies. Free markets continue to operate. Musk isn't going to stop producing the electric Tesla car and rechargeable batteries. If there is a market for particular goods, the free market will create it. The American taxpayer doesn't have to subsidize it.
Worse yet, is that if American stayed in the Paris agreement, it would pay the amounts even though there's no penalty for not. But Europe and others won't pay what they said they would anymore than how they didn't pay the 2% for defense in the NATO situation.. America will wind up carrying the load as usual. Trump made the right decision for America.
Their whole argument makes no sense.
I spent the whole day photographing the progress of LGA, hanging out with engineers. It really makes no difference if the USA pulls out, global companies still need to manufacturer their products at the Paris Accord standards if they want to sell globally. All USA companies will still need to follow the standards. The only thing it effects is allowing our energy companies to not follow the standards.
Second, renewables are never going to actually supply us with enough energy, period. People are living a pipe dream if they actually think wind turbines, solar panels, or geothermal will ever provide us with the amount of energy we need. Sure, they will be a nice supplement, but anything above 20% is a fantasy.
Fossil fuels just have too much power, the result of millions of years of natural forces, and I whole heartily believe renewables will never come close to supplying us with what we need. The only thing that could come close would be nuclear.
I just find it so funny that so many are against it. On the radio I heard about a group protesting Trump in NYC that is against fossil fuels and ... nuclear!
Every engineer I spoke to today agreed, not to mention solar panels only absorb at most 20% of the energy that hit it. Nuclear is the only real option, and, unfortunately, we will need to spend 10 years or so trying and failing at trying to make renewables work before we realize we need nuclear.
And this whole argument about how the solar provides so many jobs, more then all fossil fuels combined, only proves how inefficient renewables are. Fossil fuels provides significantly more units of energy at a extremely lower cost (just look at the payroll costs), so the argument really falls flat.
People want cheap energy; they don't want to pay for the salary of 10 times more people all of a sudden.
I really just find it so frustrating no one talks about nuclear. It's the only really option.
