The US has some of the cheapest energy in the civilized world. I’m not sure what to draw from that fact, but it is clear our energy system works pretty well for the end-user.

For a counterpoint, check out Germany’s expensive as fuck energy.

I know your intentions are good, but this reads as a rather damning list of why a bunch of people are going to fight tooth and nail to keep the status quo.

There were recently a couple of bad gas leaks locally and it was an interesting reminder that there's these natural gas lines laid crisscrossing the northern US that are just explosions waiting to happen. There's been some nasty ones too

The unavoidable conclusion in today's world is that we need to be phasing out natural gas. It can't be cleanly turned off and back on, it's wildly dangerous if it leaks out due to poor install/maintaince or natural disasters, it can explode if someone happens to drill into a gas line (I know a guy who did internet installs and at the time he joked about how "yeah you just drill holes into folks homes to poke the cables through and hope you don't hear hissing after drilling") during a house fire it just feeds more extremely potent fuel into the fire until turned off. About the only benefit is when it's extremely cold out, such as when the destabilizing polar vortex whips through, natural gas is probably the most energy efficient option to keep homes and businesses inhabitable

I am pretty sure 90% of people who get called tankies on Lemmy are not communists. Tankie-calling is by far the most obnoxious Lemmy community pastime. But I'll give them this, it's an extremely annoying word, much more annoying to be called than "fascist". We need an unjustifiably smug sounding pejorative for people who call everyone tankies, to call them in exchange so that they can see how not epic their insult is.

The key thing is that the insult needs to seem like you think it's really badass and brave of you to call them that, and it should seem like you think they're seething at you, when in reality it's a super lame insult. Like so:

"You're a tankie"

"Oh no the Tankie-twister has arrived!"

"Wtf kind of lame insult is that lol"

"Now you know how everyone else feels about being called tankies"

Yeah, oil used to be the cheapest energy source for most situations (with the notable exception of mass power generation, were coal - an environmental even worse fossil fuel - was cheaper), but over the last couple of decades due to pressure on both the supply side (the easilly and cheaply extractable stuff gone) and from competing energy sources (like solar and wind-generation) oil stopped being one of the cheapest energy sources and it was pushed into just those uses were its high energy density gave it an advantage (i.e. transportation).

With better battery technology even that advantage is being lost (so electric cars are becoming the standard), which leaves only some chemical synthesis processes as places were oil is the best option.

Coal was kind pushed out of most of its markets long ago (hence you don't see that many steam trains around) so it is mainly used in power generation, and the falling cost of solar is making coal uncompetitive in it.

Gas is a little behind oil, with its main uses being domestic heating and cooking - now transiting to electric - and power generation - where renewables are now cheaper.

The trend for fossil fuels has been obvious for decades but there is naturally a TON of inertia in the pricing changes actually resulting in the needed infrastructure changes to transition away from them plus the Economic interests which extract rents in those areas are very literally paying politicians to delay this change as much as possible hence phenomenons like many more rightwing political parties pushing anti-renewables policies.

Norman Rockwell. He did paintings of Americana. This one is about the civic duty to speak up or something

Reverse image search is a powerful tool

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_Speech_(painting)

Didn't auto-complete for me either, but: !memes@slrpnk.net

Brother the only way it’s cheaper to source your own panels is if you buy them outright. Less than 50% of Americans have a savings account let alone 10k in disposable income.

If you take out a loan for the panels the payments equal what your electric bill would be and by the time you pay off the panels it’s time to replace them.

because of nationalism, i cannot.

So you’re telling me if I found a way reach all my fellow power company customers we could strike and lower our power rates?

In a free market, people will pay less for the same service if they can.

Capitalistic utility monopolies are a scam.

Yes. BUT there are certain ways a government can help its citizens (and itself in most cases) by allowing them to be self sufficient that has nothing to do with electric companies or monopolies at all. The subsidies for solar panels were a great example of this. Depending on your personal needs, you could generate enough power to take yourself off the grid, and the government invested in your panels by way of those subsidies. In many cases the extra electricity from the panels that you don't use can go back into a grid to be used by someone else. Theoretically helping you and the government. There are, of course some issues with the system but speaking from experience it can absolutely work and work wonderfully.

Unfortunately Trump (of course) has killed these subsidies so that will not be a thing as of new years 2026.