The American shale gas/fracking boom really distorted a lot of things. The strategic energy situations of the United States, the EU, and China were all pretty similar in the late 20th Century: major dependence on OPEC-controlled oil and gas. Post-fracking, the US strategic energy situation has diverged from the others.

This difference leads indirectly to things like the current "not war" in Iran. (Iran's geography already gives it strong bargaining power via pressure on energy markets. It would have an even stronger hand if the US was not capable of energy independence).

The long term impacts on climate changes are even more negative. It's hard to supplant a cheap, ubiquitous energy source with strong negative externalities when those externalities are subtle, gradual, and strongly denied via propaganda by entrenched interests.

China burns significantly more coal than the USA and Europe combined and has no environmental laws standing in the way of their nuclear power plants.

Imagine a world where people don't care about labeling new things as "regressive" or "anti-environmental"

I agree and lets not label something as dangerous or expensive if it can be made to be affordable and safe. "As of 2026, 59 nuclear power plants are operational in mainland China, second globally to the United States, which has 94." "There are over 28 further plants under construction with a total power of 32.3 GW, ranked first for the 18th consecutive year"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_China

Apart from the current administration's absolutely hilariously bad governing, the US economy really only cares about profit. The same is going to happen to any country with outsized income inequality.

They're not anti-renewables as a bet, they're anti-renewables strategically. If you like going to war, you can power your warfighting apparatus much easier with a gas tank than a battery. If you want better defense, you don't depend on hostile nations for your energy needs. The US wants to double down on oil because it likes to fight wars and it's paranoid about defense.

There are influential people who make lots of money when the US Govt forces the country to rely on fossil fuels.

This is just incorrect. The politics in the US say one thing but the market is going in the other direction. 2026 additions to the US grid will be almost entirely renewables - 6.3 GW of natural gas / 86 GW total means ~93% of new additions to grid capacity are renewable [1]. A quarter of the electricity in the US is now generated by renewables [2] and growing rapidly. The states with the largest amount of renewable electricity generation are wildly different politically, but all agree that renewables make the most financial sense [3].

[1] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=67205 [2] https://www.semafor.com/article/03/03/2026/us-renewables-hit... [3] https://www.integrityenergy.com/blog/the-top-10-states-pavin...

Unsure why you're getting downvoted. I know politics is generally frowned upon here but this is absolutely relevant to the conversation.