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Wind is outpacing coal as a power source in Texas for the first time

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Re: Wind is outpacing coal as a power source in Texas for the first time

#41

Post by roenxi »

WhompingWindows wrote: post #36
tracker1 wrote: post #14

One thing I'm amused (not in a good way) by, is that there's so much FUD and marketing around the use of Coal etc. for energy and alternatives (Nuclear, wind, solar) ... I'm not necessarily knowledge enough to favor some over others. But I always felt, "because pollution," should be enough reason alone to look at alternatives, and considering the impact of building/supplying/disposing of the materials in the alternat…

How should climate change or air pollution or any of it be partisan? When Republican voters are polled, many say they love the environment and the outdoors too. The truth is fossil fuel has bought and sold most R politicians and many D politicians too. Until we get money out of politics or make the energy companies go bankrupt, they will continue to pay politicians to prevent the cleaning of our environment and energ…

> How should climate change or air pollution or any of it be partisan?

The question is 'who should give something up to deal with [X]'. It is likely that the situation will become unresolvably partisan in any democracy.

If the conversation were about clean air and making energy efficient decisions then it would not be a partisan issue. However, I've had conversations with people who seriously proposing 'solutions' like deindustrialising civilisation. I don't want that sort of people to be in charge of anything.

It is a partisan issue because the choices presented are 'take actions that do not impact our standard of living' and 'take actions that reduce our standard of living'.

Re: Wind is outpacing coal as a power source in Texas for the first time

#42

Post by emilsedgh »

Fej wrote: post #37

The majority of the US electorate is underinformed and/or misinformed. The most popular cable news network is Fox News, which pushes straight-up falsehoods as propaganda for the right. That's not to say the left-wing networks are innocent, just that the most popular one is also the most dishonest. It has a wide reach and many voters get all of their news from only this network. The right-wing party is completely boug…

What you're saying is not very far from what I've observed as a person who moved to the states ~2 years ago.

But it seems that current situation is not Fox New' fault. Read this quote from Isaac Asimov from decades ago:

There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.

To me it seems that Fox News is riding on the wave of this ignorance and fueling it.

Edit: I feel like I need to add another opinion. This phenomenon exists in, probably all countries.

It's just that in the U.S. the stakes are so high, that anything that could be exploited, is going to be. And exploiting under educated voters is not exactly new.

Re: Wind is outpacing coal as a power source in Texas for the first time

#43

Post by JudgeWapner »

kadoban wrote: post #26
bit_logic wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For coal, maybe the focus on climate change and CO2 is the wrong way to fight this. Tell people to reduce coal to reduce CO2 for climate change and you will get a strong split along D and R lines. Tell people we need to reduce coal to reduce NOX, SO2, particulates, smog, things that people can see, breathe, and has universal agreement that it hurts lungs and health and suddenly D and R doesn't matter. Everyone can ge…

I think you overestimate the sanity of the current political climate on the right in the US. There is absolutely not going to be anything close to everyone getting behind cutting back on coal or any pollutant, regardless of how you sell it. There's morons out there specifically making their trucks spew black sludge into the air and bragging about it. The current president won with a large part of his message being br…

Democrats are just as irrational. By giving tax breaks to renewable energy, letting Priuses use the diamond lane, the whole solyndra scandal. They talk a good game, but strangely their utopian plans never quite work out, but their big government and tax hikes always stay. Both parties are the same.

Re: Wind is outpacing coal as a power source in Texas for the first time

#44

Post by ghettoimp »

JudgeWapner wrote: post #43
kadoban wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you overestimate the sanity of the current political climate on the right in the US. There is absolutely not going to be anything close to everyone getting behind cutting back on coal or any pollutant, regardless of how you sell it. There's morons out there specifically making their trucks spew black sludge into the air and bragging about it. The current president won with a large part of his message being br…

Democrats are just as irrational. By giving tax breaks to renewable energy, letting Priuses use the diamond lane, the whole solyndra scandal. They talk a good game, but strangely their utopian plans never quite work out, but their big government and tax hikes always stay. Both parties are the same.

Uh, no.

Re: Wind is outpacing coal as a power source in Texas for the first time

#45

Post by fkdo »

caseysoftware wrote: post #39
Fej wrote: post #37

The majority of the US electorate is underinformed and/or misinformed. The most popular cable news network is Fox News, which pushes straight-up falsehoods as propaganda for the right. That's not to say the left-wing networks are innocent, just that the most popular one is also the most dishonest. It has a wide reach and many voters get all of their news from only this network. The right-wing party is completely boug…

> The majority of the US electorate is underinformed and/or misinformed. It starts long before that. Most of the US is poorly educated and lacks critical thinking capability. That is the fault of a broken education system focused on the lowest common denominator instead of helping the top or even just supporting the middle.

I think most Americans receive a quality education that covers a lot of really valuable material. The US population isn't the most well educated, but it's unfair to our teachers to say that most Americans are poorly educated.

Re: Wind is outpacing coal as a power source in Texas for the first time

#47

Post by 6thaccount2 »

WhompingWindows wrote: post #36
tracker1 wrote: post #14

One thing I'm amused (not in a good way) by, is that there's so much FUD and marketing around the use of Coal etc. for energy and alternatives (Nuclear, wind, solar) ... I'm not necessarily knowledge enough to favor some over others. But I always felt, "because pollution," should be enough reason alone to look at alternatives, and considering the impact of building/supplying/disposing of the materials in the alternat…

How should climate change or air pollution or any of it be partisan? When Republican voters are polled, many say they love the environment and the outdoors too. The truth is fossil fuel has bought and sold most R politicians and many D politicians too. Until we get money out of politics or make the energy companies go bankrupt, they will continue to pay politicians to prevent the cleaning of our environment and energ…

I think many energy companies would love (or at least not be opposed) to get a large amount of renewables and energy storage...etc. The problem is that doing so costs money (a lot of it) which means raising customer rates which are highly regulated. Many of those companies are still paying off coal assets and aren't allowed by regulators to retire those units until they're paid off even though they aren't economic anymore due to falling gas prices and the prevalence of renewables. I'm not saying that the system is perfect, rather there are so many many factors at play here and it isn't nearly as simple as people think. Make no mistake that transitioning to 100% renewables is a monumental task, but we're getting closer all the time.

With that being said, we're starting to see coal being retired at a very fast pace Nationwide and no new ones are really expected to be built. Change is happening every day in this industry which has traditionally moved at a glacial pace. Please do keep up the interest and spirit.

One of the key industry drivers here are the production tax credits (wind and now solar + storage) that come from government and make wind so crazy economical right now to where they can have extremely negative offers (think corn and ethanol). This is why it is painful to me to hear about politicians being bought out (ok, I'm sure some have fallen to for lobbyists) as the production tax credits have done so much for clean energy. Public opinion is also important in this space as many utilities are making green investments because it is good for PR.

Re: Wind is outpacing coal as a power source in Texas for the first time

#48

Post by komali2 »

JudgeWapner wrote: post #43
kadoban wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you overestimate the sanity of the current political climate on the right in the US. There is absolutely not going to be anything close to everyone getting behind cutting back on coal or any pollutant, regardless of how you sell it. There's morons out there specifically making their trucks spew black sludge into the air and bragging about it. The current president won with a large part of his message being br…

Democrats are just as irrational. By giving tax breaks to renewable energy, letting Priuses use the diamond lane, the whole solyndra scandal. They talk a good game, but strangely their utopian plans never quite work out, but their big government and tax hikes always stay. Both parties are the same.

Why do you say that tax breaks to renewable energy or letting greener vehicles use the diamond lane is irrational?

I'll note two things, by the way

1. O&G companies also get tax subsidies.

2. The Republican led government of Texas approved giving electric cars the right to use the HOV lane with one person in the car, so you must thus acknowledge that they are at least as irrational

Re: Wind is outpacing coal as a power source in Texas for the first time

#49

Post by 6thaccount2 »

benmccann wrote: post #46

If you live in Texas you can switch your home's power to wind via a YC company and probably save money: getgex.com

Unless you're hooking up your rural house to a turbine, your comment is misleading.

The power going to your house will still be a mix of coal, natural gas, wind, solar, and others.

Re: Wind is outpacing coal as a power source in Texas for the first time

#50

Post by komali2 »

fkdo wrote: post #45
caseysoftware wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The majority of the US electorate is underinformed and/or misinformed. It starts long before that. Most of the US is poorly educated and lacks critical thinking capability. That is the fault of a broken education system focused on the lowest common denominator instead of helping the top or even just supporting the middle.

I think most Americans receive a quality education that covers a lot of really valuable material. The US population isn't the most well educated, but it's unfair to our teachers to say that most Americans are poorly educated.

I disagree as a product of the southern education system. Worth noting that some schools can't even afford to stay open five days a week.

Gems from my public schooling in South Carolina:

1. A teacher telling me to put my Harry Potter book away as it was written by Satan. Not that it was satanic or written by a Satanist. No, written literally by the hand of Lucifer himself.

2. The moon landing might not have happened. I got sent to the principal's office for refusing to back down over this.

3. Dinosaurs might not have been real.

4. Evolution probably isn't real.

5. Having sex before marriage will give me herpes.

6. The civil war was a war for state's rights.

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