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Family member desperate after baseless conspiracy theories circulate at home: 'A lack of critical thinking'

"A lot of people … become extremely defensive to threats outside that order."

"A lot of people ... become extremely defensive to threats outside that order."

Photo Credit: iStock

Feeling defeated in holding unproductive conversations about the shifting energy landscape with family, one Redditor vented their frustrations to the r/Energy subreddit.

"Is anyone else being driven crazy by energy conspiracies?" they asked. 

Going into detail, the original poster revealed that their family had been blaming the Sierra Club for the imminent shutdown of the coal-fired plant where the family worked: "This leads to negative comments about renewable energy, electric cars, recycling and anything else seen as 'green.'"

In trying to shift the family's perspective on the matter, the OP offered other potential reasons for their job losses. It could be that a growing renewable energy sector is making the coal plant and all its employees redundant.

"Or I'll mention that utility scale solar costs about half as much to generate the same amount of energy as coal which would result in double the profit margin to the utility," the Redditor explained, to all of which their relatives allegedly had no comment on. 

"Of course the imminent loss of jobs is sad but why does it result in a lack of critical thinking skills?" asked the user. 

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The Sierra Club has helped retire many coal plants through its Beyond Coal campaign, helping reduce the amount of polluting gases in the environment. However, the shift from dirty energy sources to cleaner energy sources like solar can be explained by saving costs on both the power plant and the consumers' behalf. 

Utility-scale solar, similar to community solar, provides solar energy to consumers at more affordable rates because of the larger number of solar panels in operation. The power plant can produce more solar energy at once, which makes the energy more affordable to consumers. 

According to Project Drawdown, the cost to produce energy via utility-scale solar can be competitive with dirty energy generation. However, a cheaper energy production cost is not necessarily equivalent to profits earned in that same amount. 

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"Hard to expect people about to lose high pay work to be rational," one commenter sympathized. 

"A lot of people are tied up in an established order and become extremely defensive to threats outside that order. It will come down to full blown conspiracies blaming some cabal of people that shut them down vs some mix of technology and a lack of flexibility in their community," another commenter rationalized.

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