I assume incumbents have been demanding compensation for their "stranded assets". eg All their "known" reserves of oil, heavily inflated, propping up their market caps.
Biden Admin's IRA had boondoggles (for incumbents) like carbon capture, hydrogen fuel, and e-fuels. I assume it was mostly plausibly deniable pork.
I know that you already know:
Yes, we need to massively to fund R&D for All The Things, for the draw down. Even the moonshots.
No, none of that moonshot nascent stuff will be mature enough to help us reach net-zero. It takes decades to progress from research to industrial build out. (Govt now has a technology readiness model to better guide investment. Sorry, I forget its official name.)
What the skeptics (eg of the rainbow colors of hydrogen) didn't grok is that climate crisis is a hostage negotiation. Pretending these unproven techs were mature is just laundering the extortion payouts.
Hilariously, IMHO, the incumbents were getting a better deal under the Biden Admin. All those execs have gone full Gordon Gecko, snatching a better (short-term) deal for themselves, to the detriment of shareholders.
Oh, the irony.
Assume we get another Democratic Admin. Prospects for another hostage release deal are much dimmer. Renewable will be that much further along. And after the incumbents burned all their goodwill by sabotaging the prior payout deal, methinks the Dems will want some scalps.
Coal will be fully dead. Accelerating deployment of solar + battery, despite the roadblocks, will moot grid related permitting reform. Consumers will demand much cheaper and better electrified products. Etc, etc.
Today, only natural gas generation is cheaper than solar + battery, and only because of subsidies and tariffs. At best, the current Admin is just delaying the inevitable. At worst, they've completely obliterated USA economy, manufacturing, GDP, etc for a generation.
