this post was submitted on 27 Mar 2026
98 points (92.2% liked)

Ask Lemmy

38847 readers
2022 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions


Rules: (interactive)


1) Be nice and; have funDoxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, toxicity and dog-whistling are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them


2) All posts must end with a '?'This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?


3) No spamPlease do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.


4) NSFW is okay, within reasonJust remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].


5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.


6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online


Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Tech Support

No Stupid Questions

You Should Know

Reddit

Jokes

Ask Ouija


Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] boonhet@sopuli.xyz 4 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Besides paying off my debt and repairing my house as well as installing a geothermal heat pump, set up investments, basically all the normal shit one would do if they suddenly got a large windfall?

Buy up land to turn into forests, figure out a way to set it up in trusts or something such that nobody will have the right to do a full clear cut for timber any time soon, but maintenance cuts are fine.

Set up about a gigawatt worth of wind power generation in my country if the billions are multiple rather than exactly a billion euros or dollars or whatever. Our power usage peaks at around 1.6 gigawatts in the winter. Wind's unpredictable and I don't expect it to completely fill all demand, but rather make electricity so cheap that the fossil plants wouldn't turn a profit most of the time. Solar would be nice too, but it's borderline useless for about 2-4 months a year, I've forgotten the exact numbers.

Can't change the world with a few billion, but could noticeably improve one particular corner of it - and one that has a particularly dirty power grid at that. Driving an EV is STILL as bad as an ICE here because in the winter our electricity comes not from something as beautifully clean as coal or gas, but fucking shale rock...

Bonus, not only would I improve the availability of cheap green power, our government is currently partially funding heating system conversions from SFHs in cities and small towns, to replace solid fuel furnaces with heat pumps (ideally) or at least newer, cleaner burning furnaces, with the goal of improving air quality. Meaning the government would essentially be helping people make the most of the cheaper and greener electricity.