The Koch Brothers Attack On Solar Energy 769
Hugh Pickens DOT Com (2995471) writes "The NYT writes in an editorial that for the last few months, the Koch brothers and their conservative allies in state government have been spending heavily to fight incentives for renewable energy, by pushing legislatures to impose a surtax on this increasingly popular practice, hoping to make installing solar panels on houses less attractive. 'The coal producers' motivation is clear: They see solar and wind energy as a long-term threat to their businesses. That might seem distant at the moment, when nearly 40 percent of the nation's electricity is still generated by coal, and when less than 1 percent of power customers have solar arrays. But given new regulations on power-plant emissions of mercury and other pollutants, and the urgent need to reduce global warming emissions, the future clearly lies with renewable energy.' For example, the Arizona Public Service Company, the state's largest utility, funneled large sums through a Koch operative to a nonprofit group that ran an ad claiming net metering would hurt older people on fixed incomes (video) by raising electric rates. The ad tried to link the requirement to President Obama. Another Koch ad likens the renewable-energy requirement to health care reform, the ultimate insult in that world. 'Like Obamacare, it's another government mandate we can't afford,' the narrator says. 'That line might appeal to Tea Partiers, but it's deliberately misleading,' concludes the editorial. 'This campaign is really about the profits of Koch Carbon and the utilities, which to its organizers is much more important than clean air and the consequences of climate change.'"
Buggy whips? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems like it is only a matter of time until coal power goes away. It will be a long time, granted, but in the next decade or two solar will get so cheap that the impact on traditional centralized generation will be quite severe. I guess they are watching what is happening in Germany with horror and realizing that is their future too.
Re:Buggy whips? (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, the real worry is the $20 trillion in stranded assets that the oil companies stand to lose if solar gets cheaper than carbon fuels quickly enough. So it's crucial that they keep their subsidies and prevent anyone else from growing through subsidies. This is a very real problem—it's not just some rich people being assholes, but rather some rich people who stand to become substantially less rich if things go the way they seem to be going.
Re:Buggy whips? (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought the actual story was that if you or me dislike some policy we can go fuck ourselves, whereas if the Kochs dislike it, they get a real chance to change it.
An oligarchy indeed [slashdot.org].
What I also find a little unsettling is that most commenters, including you, don't seem to think much of that power imbalance (or even be aware of it) directly jumping to the solar vs. no solar issue.
Re:Buggy whips? (Score:5, Interesting)
...most commenters, including you, don't seem to think much of that power imbalance
Well I can't speak for parent, but honestly this has been the case since political power overtook that whole tribal test of strength thing back in the days. Submit a single instance where those who held the highest concentration of resources (money, slaves, oil (crude or olive), land, etc...) didn't use them to get favorable status from those who represented the people and then we'll talk.
All the study proves is that which we've already known. Maybe it might incline some to give money to the underdogs, but to stir the population into change is way not on the plate. Even if a government is over thrown, eventually another props up and rich people (in resources not just money) just dig their claws in again. So since talking about something that's never going to go away no matter how much bug killer you spray on it, why not talk about something else?
The whole idea should be let's make the solar companies rich so that they can do attack ads on coal, oil, and all them other folks. The only way anyone will make headway is to play the same game that's been played for the last six to ten millennia. Maybe in another ten to twenty millennia we will be ready to address this whole facet of humanity.
It hasn't always been happening to the same degree (Score:3)
Well I can't speak for parent, but honestly this has been the case since political power overtook that whole tribal test of strength thing back in the days. Submit a single instance where those who held the highest concentration of resources (money, slaves, oil (crude or olive), land, etc...) didn't use them to get favorable status from those who represented the people and then we'll talk.
Yes, wealth leads to a democratically dispropotionate influence over politics. That's why it matters how skewed the wealth distribution is. The more skewed it is, the larger fraction of power will be in the hands of the few rich. Inequality in the USA is rising, and the problem did not use to be as bad as it is now. In the 70s, the United States had a significantly lower Gini coefficient (though still much higher than most European countries), but it has been rising since then:
http://www.americanprogress.or [americanprogress.org]
Re:Buggy whips? (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought the actual story was that if you or me dislike some policy we can go fuck ourselves, whereas if the Kochs dislike it, they get a real chance to change it.
If anyone ever wonders why fabulously rich people want to keep making more money, this is why. Money=Political Power in America. It's not about how many yachts, houses or G4's you have, once you're in the billionaires club. It's about how many Senators you have doing your bidding, and how many news stations you have framing your views. Like Walter White, they are in the empire business.
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If you have a huge government, yes. Beware the $INDUSTRY-Government complex!
If you have a small government, it is a lot harder, they don't tax and spend enough to make it worth the effort.
Re:Buggy whips? (Score:5, Insightful)
Solyndra
Subsidized "Green" energy in a nutshell.
But, if you're a left wing nutjob who see "evil" only on the right side then by all means keep yelling "Koch Brothers". And pay no attention to Harry Reid's deal with the Chinese to land a job for his son in the Nevada Desert, under the auspices of "saving the tortoise".
Corruption in the Political class is both (D) and (R), but until you realize that the enemy isn't the guys with the (R) behind their name, you're just substituting one "evil" for another. And at that point, you might as well go Cthulhu.
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Don't forget the difference between the two, in the "evil Koch brothers" you've got private citizens and businesses. With Harry Reid's deal, you've got a senator who's using the BLM as his own private paramilitary force to go out and do his dirty work, while getting rich at it. Between the two? Well, there's corruption, political pandering, and then there's lobbying. The very worst that the Koch brothers are guilty of is the last two. While Reid is guilty of the first, and the real question is how deep
Re:Buggy whips? (Score:5, Informative)
There's no reason to think Solyndra was anything other than an investment that didn't pan out because the market changed. Accusations of cronyism weren't sustained by any evidence, and if there were evidence it would certainly have surfaced given the brightness of the spotlight that was shone on that failure. The Waltons also invested heavily in Solyndra, and took a beating. That loan program has a lower-than-average failure rate. And Solyndra failed because regular solar panels got cheaper, so glass tubes were no longer economical.
The part of the Nevada desert where that solar plant was going to be built is over a hundred miles from the desert tortoise habitat.
But hey, why let pesky facts get in the way of talking points?
Re:Buggy whips? (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, Solyndra was heavily subsidized. And it ended up being the tip of titanic that got sunk by the iceberg of reality. A large number, to the tune of billions of dollars of subsidized companies, went belly up. I didn't mention those "facts" because Solar is one of most subsidized industries. I mean, you gotta hand it to Harry Reid to come up with a crazy scheme to create a wealth transfer system to his son and dress it up in Environmental subsidies.
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No, it was because he's refused for several decades to pay his fees, which all his neighbors have been paying, on the theory that he has a hereditary right to land that Nevada specifically ceded to the U.S. as a condition of statehood, a decade and a half before the first of his ancestors arrived in Nevada. He has been granted so much lenience that if I were some poor bastard incarcerated for ten years for having a pot stash, I'd be about ready to riot. The idea that there's some civil rights issue buri
Re:Buggy whips? (Score:5, Informative)
Okay, let's suppose that that's true. And let's suppose that some story about nepotism for Harry Reid's son (I've never heard of this) is just as bad as the Koch brothers buying our government, and let's suppose that corruption is exactly equal on both sides of the D / R line, all exactly as you say. So what? All things being equal then, I'd much rather have the clean energy than the dirty.
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This, 1,000 times this.
I get so angry about people complaining about how solar/renewable is so corrupt and is just going to make some old white guy rich. So, fucking, what?
I'd rather have some rich white asshole pissing on me and telling me it's raining than have a different rich white asshole pissing on me and telling me it's rain while I choke to death on coal fumes. Yes, someone is going to get rich. Good for them. American dream and all that. If that means that the rest of us suffer with higher taxes in
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Trying to keep us dependent on a fuel supply that is being steadily exhausted when alternatives exist is objectively bad. So yes, I'd be opposed to these actions if it were a Democrat doing it, too.
Democrats sell us out to media conglomerations. Republicans sell us out to oil barons. Vote third party.
Re:Buggy whips? (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is the people that vote because of the last commercial they saw. There are a lot of uninformed, stupid, lazy people who think it is a good idea that they vote anyway.
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But is ok, because Tom Steyer is doing the exact opposite with his billions, not to mention Gates and Soros. Koch is not in the same league as Soros and Gates.
All evens out in the end.
Re:Buggy whips? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, they're just dicks.
Or are they?
Yes. They're definitely dicks.
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They're alien dicks.
Re:Buggy whips? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it's not really. The world has survived plenty of instances of entire technological paradigms becoming obsolete. Fossil fuels will become obsolete sooner or later, and the world will be better off for it. It's just a question of how long the elite (like the Koch brothers) can hold the welfare of the entire world hostage to their pointless shell game.
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Actually, this is untrue. The world has never faced a technology which had the potential to take out the entire human ecosystem before. Fossil fuels certainly will become obsolete sooner or later - when 90% of the human population has died of starvation, they'll be obsolete. But it would be a much better thing if we could stop using them before we'd destroyed the atmospheric and ocean systems which we depend on for our survival.
Not the first (Score:5, Insightful)
The world has never faced a technology which had the potential to take out the entire human ecosystem before.
You mean like nuclear weapons? Perhaps you are not old enough to remember the Cold War. We've had the capability to destroy the entire planet for roughly 60 years and on a few occasions have come disturbingly close to doing it. Fossil fuel pollution is a serious threat but it's not the first technology in a position to wipe us out entirely. Fossil fuel pollution has only become an acute threat in the last few decades though that should not be interpreted to minimize the seriousness of the problem.
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Ever heard of nuclear?
The problem is, you still have to mine for it, and there's a finite supply of nuclear material.
And yet according to this article [scientificamerican.com] and this wikipage [wikipedia.org] we won't run out of Uranium or Thorium for reactors any time soon (30,000 to 60,000 years) if we take the unnecessary measures to recycle as much of the fuel as possible. If we are not off this rock exploiting the solar systems resources by 30,000 years our species is doomed anyway. (i.e. a big dumb rock will hit us eventually.) So what's your point.
Re:Buggy whips? (Score:4, Interesting)
True, but those finite numbers are insanely higher, and the deposits are *everywhere*, granting virtually all nations the option of energy independence. Consider that a single cubic meter of granite contains thorium and uranium with the energy equivalent of ~500 barrels of oil, giving granite almost 100x the energy density of oil. A cubic meter of phosphate ore contains the equivalent of ~1,000-10,000 barrels of oil, and we're already mining it for the agriculturally valuable phosphorous - we'd just need to separate out the fuel from the ore already being processed anyway. And even that is considered a relatively poor ore. Fission could supply our energy demands for several hundred years from ready ore, many thousands if we developed a way to filter it out of seawater. Plenty of time I think for us to work out decent battery technology so we can easily use renewables. Or get fusion off the ground. Of course that will probably just shift the demand to boron ore instead, but we've got tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of years worth of of that. Which should be plenty of time to master mass-energy conversion (domesticated black holes?), and then all bets are off. We can mine the white dwarf that was once our sun for mass-energy. Because after all even renewables are finite, sunlight won't be around forever.
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Um. We built a Passivhaus (look it up), and we have solar generation on our roof, and we eat local foods as much as possible (which is very much a lot). I make my own yogurt from locally-produced milk we get in glass containers, because plastic yogurt containers were previously the biggest source of waste in our household. But there's no way to boycott the fossil fuel economy, because it's completely pervasive.
As for your comments about global warming, you're absolutely right. 97% of the world's cli
Re:Buggy whips? (Score:4, Insightful)
As for your comments about global warming, you're absolutely right. 97% of the world's climate scientists, who are generally not paid very well, agree that global warming is real and a real danger to human existence.
And those 97% of climate scientists would be generally paid nothing if it were determined they'd been flat out wrong (again) for the last 2 decades. At the least they'd be discredited and viewed as incompetent. The grants and foundations that make their work possible would evaporate. A cynical person would point out that pure self-preservation might encourage some to speak that which ensures their job over the truth.
Just saying...
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It's a very real problem because the people whose oxen are about to be gored have a shitload of money, and nothing to lose by spending heavily now to prevent competition. Taking a passive attitude towards this problem (how long can the Koch brothers hold out) is a losing game, because there is a real cost associated with them holding out until all of the assets they hold have been consumed: 2800 gigatons of carbon dumped into an atmosphere that can't safely handle more than another 600.
What is going to replace fossil fuels? (Score:4, Insightful)
Fossil fuels will become obsolete sooner or later, and the world will be better off for it.
While I would love that to be true, what technology do you think is going to make that happen? Solar and wind cannot do the job by themselves due to their unpredictability on time scales shorter than months. Nuclear fission is feasible but the waste and operational safety concerns make it too much of a political and economic hot potato. Geothermal and hydro simply aren't available in a lot of locations in sufficient quantity. Transmission losses force power generation to need to be relatively close to point of use and there is no economically viable form of superconductivity. Nuclear fusion and other more exotic power sources remain perpetually 25 years away.
I'd love to say that fossil fuels are doomed but I don't see any reasonably likely scenario in at least the next 40 years where that could possibly be true. Sure we might see a breakthrough in fusion or energy storage that would change the equation significantly but we cannot presume such a breakthrough will occur. We absolutely should maximize our use of solar and wind. Nuclear could be a bigger piece of the energy pie. Fossil fuels should be regulated to ensure that they have to pay the full cost of their use including all pollution they cause. But will all that occur? I doubt it.
Re:Buggy whips? (Score:5, Informative)
Unless the U.S. starts, pretty damned soon, to find an alternative to fossil fuels, it's economy is in for a beating, the likes of which few have scarcely imagined.
Since our economy is far less dependent on heavy manufacturing than it used to be, we're not in nearly as much trouble as other nations. Seen any satellite views of China recently?
Death of US manufacturing greatly exaggerated (Score:5, Informative)
Since our economy is far less dependent on heavy manufacturing than it used to be, we're not in nearly as much trouble as other nations.
As a percentage of they overall economy yes but in absolute size the US manufacturing sector is enormous. Depending on how you measure it the US manufactures $2-4 Trillion in goods each year which is roughly the size of the entire GDP of Russia. The only country with a manufacturing sector even close to that in size is China. The "death" of manufacturing in the US has been greatly exaggerated. Manufacturing is a large and vital portion of the US economy and will remain so for the foreseeable future.
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Unless the U.S. starts, pretty damned soon, to find an alternative to fossil fuels, it's economy is in for a beating, the likes of which few have scarcely imagined.
Since our economy is far less dependent on heavy manufacturing than it used to be, we're not in nearly as much trouble as other nations. Seen any satellite views of China recently?
Our economy became more dependent on more portable information-based industries. We then sent X-ray reading to the Phillipines, architectural drafting to China, software development to India, [i]etc. etc. etc.[/i]
We're already in trouble.
In the mean time, a lot of manufacturing has become automated, which made it cheaper to return it to the USA.
Re:Buggy whips? (Score:5, Insightful)
True enough - the world has survived such things, but countries whose dominance is closely tied to such things often fare poorly during and after such transitions.
The economic power of the US is not strongly tied to fossil fuels. The US uses them heavily but so does every other industrialized nation on earth. Nations whose economic output is primarily tied to fossil fuel mining (like Saudi Arabia) should in theory worry about such things but the US could relatively easily switch to new sources of power within reasonably short time scales. Most of the economic output of the US is not based on mining or distribution of fossil fuels.
Unless the U.S. starts, pretty damned soon, to find an alternative to fossil fuels, it's economy is in for a beating, the likes of which few have scarcely imagined.
Exactly what do you think is going to replace fossil fuels that is not going to be available in the US? Seriously, I'm all for replacing fossil fuels with cleaner sources of energy but there is NOTHING out there presently or in the reasonably likely future that is likely to do more than dent the use of fossil fuels for at least the next 30-40 years.
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Exactly what do you think is going to replace fossil fuels that is not going to be available in the US? Seriously, I'm all for replacing fossil fuels with cleaner sources of energy but there is NOTHING out there presently or in the reasonably likely future that is likely to do more than dent the use of fossil fuels for at least the next 30-40 years.
I believe the prudent thing to do is replace as much coal-fired electricity generation with modern nuclear generation as possible. All of it would be fine. Coal is a very dirty source of energy. More base load power generation is needed even if solar and wind are added - those aren't reliable sources of energy. As electric vehicle technology improves, even gasoline usage could be replaced with clean power.
Thorium based MSR technology should be a national priority. If pursued, it should actually lead to chea
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It's safe except where it REALLY isn't. You volunteering to move in close proximity to the Chernobyl plant? How about Fukashima? I even agree with your general point that nuclear's safety record is overall pretty good but your evaluation metric isn't the only relevant one and possibly not the most important. Risk is not simply a calculation of historical outcomes but also potential future outcomes. Nuclear might be safer now but it is not clear that it will remain so. Really it would only take a small number (possibly just 1) of nuclear accidents catch up in the number of deaths caused.
I volunteer to live within 15km of any new nuclear power plant built with current technology and safety margins.
Your statement about only a few or possibly one nuclear accident catching up to the number of deaths caused by other methods of power generation is absolutely absurd. More than a million people die yearly because of accidents and air pollution caused by other means of energy production. That would mean we'd have to have 500 Chernobyls a year to come even close.
The devastation caused by the Chernob
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Exactly what do you think is going to replace fossil fuels that is not going to be available in the US? Seriously, I'm all for replacing fossil fuels with cleaner sources of energy but there is NOTHING out there presently or in the reasonably likely future that is likely to do more than dent the use of fossil fuels for at least the next 30-40 years.
Which wasn't the point of the article. The point was the Koch brothers and conservative allies in state government have been pushing legislatures to impose a surtax on renewable energies. For example a surtax on solar panels, hoping to make installing solar panels on houses less attractive. That's the issue.
Try to stay on topic.
Fission is unfortunately not the answer (Score:4, Interesting)
Mass deployment of nuclear power could almost completely replace fossil fuels in half that time.
Not economically or politically possible. The risks involved with nuclear fission mean that private insurance is not going to happen so governments will have to indemnify it and that isn't likely to happen in a lot of places. Too many voters are too scared of nuclear. While reactors have become safer, they haven't been demonstrated to be safe enough to not require absurdly strict oversight. Nobody has solved the problems of waste or weapons proliferation. Nuclear is relatively safe generally but when accidents happen they can be REALLY dangerous and make large areas uninhabitable for centuries.
Technologically it fission could replace a lot of (though not all) fossil fuels but it will not happen because technology concerns are just one part of the equation. Put it this way: if you asked 100 people whether they would rather live next to a nuke plant or a coal plant, I'd lay you good odds that 90%+ would prefer to live near the coal plant even if the data showed the risk to their health was higher.
The only application which would require somewhat more work is airplane propulsion, where it's hard to match Jet-A
The "only application"? Not true, particularly for marine applications. First you have to replace virtually every internal combustion engine on the planet including those cars, power tools, some appliances, boats, ships, personal watercraft, etc. Some of those have solutions in the pipleline (cars, applicances and some tools) whereas others have no practical replacement likely in the near term. There is no practical way to power most marine vehicles with electricity. We can make a few large vessels nuclear but doing so en-mass is a bad idea on a whole bunch of levels. There is presently no electric motor replacement for an outboard motor on a smaller boat. Even if it were possible today to convert all these engines (it's not) it would still take decades if we started now for economic reasons.
Re:Buggy whips? (Score:4, Interesting)
the koch brothers are not wrong for wanting to keep what they have, but they are wrong by not diversifying and transitioning to a total energy company, solar, wind, hydro, nuke, on top of coal and oil. That is where the smart billionaires will be
Re:Buggy whips? (Score:5, Informative)
gotta love conspiracy theorist.
but as long as it's a left wing conspiracy it's okay.
Do you really not perceive that the US military and intelligence agencies are used to make the world safe for American business? Why did the CIA overthrow the Guatemalan government in 1954? Why did they overthrow the Iranian government a year earlier? Do you still think we invaded Iraq because Saddam was such an asshole and we just felt so bad for those poor Iraqis?
It's not a conspiracy theory, it's how the world works. Get your head out of your ass.
Re:Buggy whips? (Score:5, Insightful)
You would think that the sensible thing to do would be to invest all company profits into developing solar and other renewable energy so that they could become the market leaders in providing it, thus ensuring that they remain relevant in the future. As usual though they seem to have left it far too late and the need to post a quarterly profit + growth makes any long term planning or strategy impossible. It's suicide, essentially.
Re:Buggy whips? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, that's the problem. That's not the sensible thing for them to do. The sensible thing for them to do is try to perpetuate the status quo. If they start investing heavily in solar, there's no way they can avoid many trillions of dollars in losses. These are real assets that absolutely have to be devalued in the process of solar winning. So the later in the game solar wins, the fewer assets they have to write off.
Re:Buggy whips? (Score:5, Insightful)
You're under the mistaken impression that they're out to make money.
They are not. They've already won that game. Once you reach a certain level of rich making more becomes irrelevant. When you can buy anything that's for sale you're done.
These people are out to become kings. Literal monarchs. They only thing standing in their way is this thing called the "middle class". It's no coincidence that every policy pushed by these oligarchs is specifically designed to destroy the earning power, social mobility, and well being of everyone that's.. Well, not them.
And it's working. The wealth gap is increasing at breakneck speeds. Your wages are stagnating. The social safety nets that keep you from falling in to poverty are evaporating. Your parents could buy a house, two cars, and send 2 kids to college on a single income with a high school diploma. You cannot.
You are being attacked. When will you start fighting back?
Re:Buggy whips? (Score:5, Insightful)
If some rich person becomes less rich because people no longer want the dirty polluting coal their companies extract from the ground, GOOD. If that means a bunch of people no longer have a job going down into a hole every day digging out that filthy stuff, GOOD.
Just like the motor car made the horse obsolete as a means of transport, there will come a time when mankind invents a technology (or technologies) that make the use of coal for generating electricity obsolete and that will be a GOOD thing for the planet.
Re:Buggy whips? (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, that's all very well and good, but have you asked the rich person what s/he will do about this? Actually, you don't need to. They're already doing it. They're trying to completely pwn our political system in order to avoid having to lose that money. Yes, it would be good for them to lose that money, but that's not what's going to happen if they get their way.
This is often depicted as the rich guys with the oil just acting crazy, but they aren't acting crazy. They are defending themselves, for good reason. If we want a good outcome here, we have to take their situation into account. An ideal outcome would be that they are given a way to dispose of those stranded assets that results in them taking a beating, but not so bad of a beating that they will do anything they can to avoid it. Just saying "let them lose" isn't really an option, because they don't want to lose, and they have a lot of power right now.
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Yup. And if everybody had equal power, that would probably produce a good outcome. Unfortunately, everybody doesn't have equal power.
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RTFA -
The utilities hate this requirement, for obvious reasons. A report by the Edison Electric Institute, the lobbying arm of the power industry, says this kind of law will put âoea squeeze on profitability,â and warns that if state incentives are not rolled back, âoeit may be too late to repair the utility business model.â
Since thatâ(TM)s an unsympathetic argument, the utilities have devised another: Solar expansion, they claim, will actually hurt consumers. The Arizona Public Service Company, the stateâ(TM)s largest utility, funneled large sums through a Koch operative to a nonprofit group that ran an ad claiming net metering would hurt older people on fixed incomes by raising electric rates. "
Anything that impacts the business model will impact the bottom line, period. So you may be affluent and savvy enough to add homebrew solar to your own property. What about those who cannot? Since they are beholden to the monopoly, they WILL be made to suffer for your advantage. This is called 'an economy', and is widely believed (outside of the Blue Team) to exist.
So you're essentially saying "If it means the projects and nursing homes either pay through the nose or go dark, GOOD."
But because you
Re:Buggy whips? (Score:4, Interesting)
Plenty of job titles that have been made obsolete by the march of progress. Telegraph operators became obsolete due to Bell and the telephone. Telephone exchange operators became obsolete due to Strowger and his automatic telephone exchange. Flight engineers became obsolete because of improvements to airplane flight systems. Archers became obsolete because of the invention of the gun. Bus conductors became obsolete because of improvements to ticketing systems (meaning people can buy tickets before boarding, buy a ticket from the driver or use a preloaded smart card to pay).
Jobs becoming obsolete is just part of the technological advancement that has driven society for centuries. And just like the telegraph operators, telephone operators, flight engineers, archers, bus conductors and others involved in now-obsolete operations, the coal miners would have to adapt and find new jobs.
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Hint: coal miners are not slaves. They WANT their jobs ;)
They would enslave the rest of us for their livelihoods. We all have to deal with the output of the coal industry.
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I am well aware. I have spent time in coal towns in Virginia and West Virginia. Coal mining is a dirty and dangerous business for the miners and it is a dirty business for everyone. I am not saying this should all be preverved just to keep people in obsolete jobs. I just want you all - whom I suspect are about 1,000,000 miles away from any connection to coal mining for the most part - to realize ending coal mining will be utter economic devastation for people and towns and many of them will NEVER recover from it.
The problem isn't "pity the poor coal miners", it's "why is the only major industry in these regions coal mining"? There are many modern-day industries that could be operating in places like that, but so far no one has attempted to do anything about it.
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So, the point I was making somewhat sarcastically above is that if we really want to do something about global warming, we have to account for all the people whose oxen are going to be gored if fossil fuels are phased out early. That includes coal miners. A solution that just leaves whole towns and whole counties completely fucked is naive in the worst way. But the coal miners shouldn't get to continue doing what they do just so that they can feel like they are doing meaningful work. If it's less ha
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You can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. Those towns are doomed anyways, unless they evolve.
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Well then we might as well kiss our asses goodbye and crank up our coal burning to 14 then (11 isn't enough), right? Fuck everything!!
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yeah, and they should dump their dirty clunkers and start using billion teslas while they are at it....
Investing in clean stuff means opportunity cost of less bang for the buck now, which means slower growth. Guess what, they don't give a shit about later, they want growth now, just like everybody else before them.
Re:Buggy whips? (Score:5, Insightful)
They will just have to find another job.
I don't really disagree with your points, but this is an extremely naive statement. Many of these people are too old to make a radical career shift that will keep them in the middle class. When ever there is a radical shift in a large employment industry, there is economic devistation for a lot fo families. The steel industry is a good example of this. Yes most of them found new jobs, but the shift in economic buying power was dramatic and lasted for generations.
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Fossil fuels are already heavily subsidized through tax-breaks and government investment. Most new oil projects are 50-80% subsidized (when counting tax-breaks as subsidy). That's without counting the cost of "stabilizing" the oil rich regions in the middle east with "peace operations".
I've often heard of these oil company tax breaks, but never actually had anyone point out what they are. Can you perhaps show me what are the oil-company-specific tax breaks you're complaining about? I can point you to solar-specific tax breaks [seia.org], but not sure about the oil ones...
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In the US, all those "oil company tax breaks" are available to ALL manufacturing companies - including Boeing, Ford, Texas Instruments, etc. And they all take them. How are they "subsidies for oil companies"? If anything they are subsidies for manufacturers - which includes solar and wind. They are not exclusive to oil.
On your list, how many of those subsidies are restricted to oil companies only? I know for a fact that at least in China, solar and wind (and magnets and silicon - the bases for windmil
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What makes you think that? Germany's Energiewiende is a horror show of failures and disgusting cost overruns so far going so far as to actually provide direct proof for some of the claims in the story (after it was implemented, Germany actually started to have a concept of energy poverty, people who cannot afford electricity). Coal is about the only reliable and cheap source of power that we have enough raw materials for for several hundred years into the future that can be easily maintained or expanded as
Re:Buggy whips? (Score:5, Insightful)
Coal seems safe because the consequences are diffuse enough not to be noticed. A few thousand more people impaired by mercury exposure, a couple more hurricanes a year - but nothing you can point to and declare 'Coal did this.'
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You miss my point. Consequences of not having power are several orders of magnitude worse. Power has to be generated somewhere. And unless you have a perpetual motion machine, or invented functional fusion reactor (or a way to improve fission's reputation in the eyes of the public) we're pretty much stuck with coal.
Re:Buggy whips? (Score:4, Interesting)
You can point to, for example, the Aberfan disaster and say "Coal killed a hundred kids" or to the death toll from coal mining and transport year on year and say "Coal killed these workers" (China proudly announced the death toll from coal mining had fallen below 3000 per annum a couple of years back. It used to be a lot higher). That's on top of the mercury, cadmium, radon, sulphuric acid fumes, dioxins, beryllium, arsenic and the thousands of tonnes of other toxic wastes spread through the atmosphere and over agricultural lands and deposited in rivers and oceans every year which kills and maims people who don't work with coal directly. But nuclear power is worse somehow.
Re:Buggy whips? (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure, nothing happens when millions of years' worth of fossilized plants are combusted in the space of a few decades. 100% of that stored energy is converted to useful work, no CO2 is released into the atmosphere, no other pollutants like mercury and uranium either.
I don't have to "believe" anything. I took math, chemistry, physics along the way to an engineering degree. Anyone with even a solid high school education can do the math for themselves.
Re:Buggy whips? (Score:4, Insightful)
Civilization as we know it will likely not exist several hundred years in the future regardless. We can't keep consuming the way we are, and we'll run out, causing us to change the consumption model.
Re:Heh. (Score:5, Insightful)
Shills from coal industry in Germany talk about German Energiewende like about manna from heaven. They're massively building up coal and firing up all the old plants as much as they can becuase of it and raking in massive profits.
If I could be seen to be shilling for anything, it's not shutting down fission in Germany and replacing it with coal, as Energiewende has basically done.
Re:Heh. (Score:4, Informative)
I'm sorry, but that is an outright lie. The reason I know this is because I have family working in one of the biggest hydrocarbon power plant design and contsruction firms. They are talking about massive inflow of tenders for new plants, and old ones are NOT getting decommissioned - instead whenever possibly they are being fired up to run again.
In fact, it's so bad that after Energiewende started, Germany which had goals to reduce CO2 emissions, which it was meeting, had to give those goals up. Instead of reduction, firing up of all the older coal plants and newer ones getting started cause CO2 emissions of Germany to actually increase for the first time in many years, and this particular trend is only picking up pace. It's actually pretty hilarious to see many environmental organisations complain about this issue, when their lobbying for wind as "kinda sorta" base power and shutting down nukes is the direct cause of this occurring in the first place.
And of course reactors are still running. There aren't enough mothballed coal plants to replace all the production you'd lose. Instead they are being mothballed as older and newer coal plants that replace them come online. That's what's causing the increase in CO2 emissions in Germany.
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I'm telling you, there is one. Coal building and reopening of mothballed plans is booming across Germany. That is why Germany missed its CO2 targets and trend changed abruptly a couple of years ago from steady reduction to steady increase.
I've even heard that Germany had acid rains for first time in decades because older plants without automation controlled burning process still produce SO2 and NOx - something thought to have been long eliminated with modern burning processes introduction.
It's not talked ab
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I guess they are watching what is happening in Germany with horror and realizing that is their future too.
You mean Germany's record high lignite consumption? Yeah, that is truly horrible. Lignite is actually considerably worse than coal in terms of CO2 emitted per kWh produced.
Using locally produced solar energy in a northern area that sees peak energy usage in the middle of winter is not really a good idea, unless you have a storage system that can store solar energy for 6+ months so that you can use the summer sun to heat you in winter.
It doesn't have to supply all our power (Score:5, Insightful)
Using locally produced solar energy in a northern area that sees peak energy usage in the middle of winter is not really a good idea
They don't use air conditioning in Germany? Solar isn't going to fix every problem but even if it can solve just part of the problem then it remains a good idea. Why would you not want to use relatively clean solar energy for at least those times when it is available? The only credible argument against solar power is an economic one. No it will not be able to supply all our power needs but neither is any other single source of fuel. They all have drawbacks of one sort or another. What seems abundantly clear however is that any technology that allows us to reduce use of fossil fuels at reasonable economic cost is a good thing.
There is this stupid tendency here on slashdot to dismiss partial solutions to any problem as unworkable. Solar does not have to supply all our energy needs to still be a good idea. The economics of it still need to make sense but there is no principled reason why it should not be a significant part of the energy supply equation.
Coal (sadly) isn't going away (Score:5, Interesting)
Seems like it is only a matter of time until coal power goes away. It will be a long time, granted, but in the next decade or two solar will get so cheap that the impact on traditional centralized generation will be quite severe.
I hope you are correct but I think you are being wildly optimistic. Coal isn't going to disappear anytime in the next 40+ years baring some unexpected technological breakthrough. The US and China have HUGE amounts of coal and can get to it relatively cheaply. Solar will not catch up on a cost basis without continued subsidies for an unclear amount of time. Coal has an economic advantage because power plants that utilize coal are not required to pay the full economic cost. Even the cleanest coal plants are able to dump significant amounts of pollutants into the environment without any economic direct consequences. To level the playing field coal will need to be required to account for these costs and I don't really see that happening in any reasonably foreseeable configuration of political leadership in most of the world. There simply are too many people making too much money from fossil fuels for that to be likely to occur.
Solar is advancing relatively fast but it's no panacea and absent some energy storage breakthrough it's of limited use when the sun isn't shining. We should definitely advance solar as far as it will take us but it's not going to solve the entire problem alone. Same issue with wind. Very useful but difficult to predict availability on short time scales. Nuclear fission is current the only non-fossil fuel power source we have with sufficient generating capacity to serve as a base load in place of fossil fuel sources in places not blessed with hydro or geo-thermal close by. Obviously fission carries its own set of problems which are well known.
I guess they are watching what is happening in Germany with horror and realizing that is their future too.
Germany is spending a LOT of money to subsidize solar. It's unclear whether this is economically sensible though I do hope that their experiment proves a success. However there are (too) many here in the US who regard that sort of subsidy as blasphemy and will do everything they can to fight it. The fact that many of these same people will ironically support subsidies (both explicit and implicit) for fossil fuel production will never come up because they are supported by that industry.
Put all the costs on the table (Score:3)
It raises energy costs by using a source that is less efficient.
Efficient by what measure? BTUs? BTUs per unit of pollution? Are you accounting for ALL the costs including pollution and related effects?
End the subsidies, and let people decide what power is best for them.
Ok, then you need to end the subsidies for fossil fuels as well, both the explicit ones (tax reductions, etc) as well as the implicit ones (not paying for pollution). Right now fossil fuel users are able to dump massive amounts of pollution into the environment and thus externalize much the cost of their actions. If you want to get all libertarian about this then let
Re:Buggy whips? (Score:4, Informative)
Actually what is happening in Germany is a not an entirely rosy picture for the renewables industry. Their energy prices have been spiking, while simultaneously CO2 emissions have been increasing as a consequence of their new policies.
As evidence of the uncomfortable position that German is now in, their Vice Chancellor is reported to have said :
“The truth is that the Energy U-Turn (“Energiewende”, the German scheme aimed at pushing the “renewable” share of electricity production to 80 % by 2050) is about to fail”
“The truth is that under all aspects, we have underestimated the complexity of the “Energiewende”
“The noble aspiration of a decentralized energy supply, of self-sufficiency! This is of course utter madness”
“Anyway, most other countries in Europe think we are crazy”
Unfortunately my German is too rusty to confirm this for myself, but here's the video feed if anyone is interested in seeing it:
http://www.1730live.de/sigmar-... [1730live.de]
I'm assuming here... (Score:5, Insightful)
...that you disapprove just as much of Michael Bloomberg (another billionaire that spends a lot of money trying to influence politics) when he decides to buy a "grass roots" effort as you do when the Koch Brothers try to do so?
Or does the choice of cause mean that one billionaire trying to influence politics is worse than the other billionaire trying to influence politics?
Re:I'm assuming here... (Score:5, Insightful)
Buying influence in politics is bad enough without people trying to make scientific issues political.
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Re:I'm assuming here... (Score:5, Insightful)
In other news, the damage from these abuses of democracy could be mitigated with some sane campaign contribution reform legislation.
Yes, wealth will always have more than its proportionate share of say, but it gets worse if you leave it alone to fix itself.
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You are pointing out two problems with the U.S.A. here: the first problem is that low taxation, inheritable business empires and riches and lots of exceptions make it possible for billionaires or ultra-rich people to emerge as a class on its own who have millions of times the resources at their disposal as the working class does, obviously without any remotely p
Greedy douchebags. (Score:5, Insightful)
America is being made worse by what the rich choose to fight.
They're more interested in protecting their own (sizable) wealth than they are about the future of humanity, the environment, or anything else.
These assholes should be suspended over the smokestack of a coal plant for about 6 months.
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And if you weren't pretending that a single billionaire has more influence than a million voters....
A single billionaire has far more influence than any million voters. About 1000 times as much. A single billionaire has exactly zero arguments with himself over what his priorities are. A million voters have at least a million and one arguments over priorities. Guess which is the most influential opinion? A single billionaire has about 90% disposable income. A million voters are lucky to scrape together 10% disposable income among them, and many of that group have effectively 0%. Guess which is the m
Help! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Help! (Score:4, Funny)
He's right here: http://www.funnyordie.com/vide... [funnyordie.com].
"Don't summon be again unless you are ready for that pain!"
See if you can guess... (Score:2)
Which Koch brother is this? [youtube.com]
Brilliant idea (Score:2)
When the Koch brothers tried to attach climate change, we got the B.E.S.T. study. If this is equally counterproductive we'll be running the world on solar power within a week.
Subsidized corporations fighting against subsidies (Score:5, Insightful)
Can you spot the irony in all this? These corporations that are fighting against government subsidized green energy are all those who have themselves grown enormously through different types of government subsidies.
It's amazing how well the twisted corporationist logic sinks into the general public. The corporations on one hand speak for capitalism and free market, but on the other they cling to government subsidies and form monopolies effectively wiping out any competition on their markets.
Roosevelt once stated that this type of centralization of power in the private sector that corporations have today, could eventually lead to fascism. In some way, I don't think he was too far off.
Re:Subsidized corporations fighting against subsid (Score:5, Interesting)
Roosevelt once stated that this type of centralization of power in the private sector that corporations have today, could eventually lead to fascism. In some way, I don't think he was too far off.
Thank you for mentioning Roosevelt. I did a search just now and came up with his address [ucsb.edu] to Congress on curbing monopolies in 1938. I think it gives me more of an idea as to the real reasons for WWII: private power versus public power.
Here is an exerpt:
Unhappy events abroad have retaught us two simple truths about the liberty of a democratic people.
The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism—ownership of Government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power.
The second truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if its business system does not provide employment and produce and distribute goods in such a way as to sustain an acceptable standard of living.
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Re:Can we not have this political bullshit on /. ? (Score:5, Insightful)
This piece is by the New York Times editorial board, not a politician. Would you propose no one talk about the power of money in politics, just because it affects both parties? I, for one, would prefer that people talk about the corrupting influence of money on the political process whenever it occurs, so that, maybe some day, enough people will be fed up with it to do something about it.
That doesn't mean I support a politician with big money backers using the fact that his opponent accepts campaign contributions as a cheap ad hominem, however, but that's not what this is.
Re:Can we not have this political bullshit on /. ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ban political contributions altogther, beginning of solving the problem.
Re:being against subsidies.... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:being against subsidies.... (Score:5, Insightful)
How do they mean higher prices for everyone else? There is no evidence to support that claim.
Solar does not typically use net 0 energy, and they do not get retail prices, they get wholesale prices, and then still have to pay retail for the energy they use at night, meaning they have to use much less energy in the evening, than during the days, to be able to have a net 0.
In addition since they only get wholesale prices the energy companies are making money off of the energy that the customers generate.
Lastly even if a customer is net 0 there is no evidence that they cost other individuals a penny.
So the person spewing the bullshit seems to be you
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
and they do not get retail prices, they get wholesale prices
That depends on where you're located. In some places you only get wholesale, in others you get paid retail, and in some you can even get more than retail (TVA pays retail + $0.04/kWh for solar for the first 10 years after a system is installed: http://dsireusa.org/incentives/incentive.cfm?Incentive_Code=TN02F [dsireusa.org]).
In addition, how you get paid also varies. Some places only allow you to offset your usage with what you generate for that current bi
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like the other dude said, these subsidies are only for well-off people who can afford the investment, the peons get thrown under the bus. If you ever complained about the divide between the haves and the have-nots, guess what - it's the same thing of privatizing the gains by the few, externalizing the costs to many.
Re: (Score:3)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N... [wikipedia.org]
an awful lot of 'retail rate' in that table
Re: (Score:3)
Re:being for taxes.... (Score:4, Insightful)
a) it is not an "article" It is an editorial and thus opinion.
b) stop taking money from taxes to subsidize installation of solar panels. My school taxes are high enough already thank you.
c) why should a private company be forced to buy and resell your product and assume all the delivery expenses?
d) why should I or anyone else be forced to pay higher electric bills just so you can sell your solar power back to the grid?
Ex: "Learn how you can sell the electricity you generate back to Georgia Power at a premium price, currently 17.00 cents/kWh."
Re:Ad hominem. It doesn't matter who says it. (Score:4, Insightful)
can you back that up with figures and links?
Re:Need a Venn Diagram (Score:5, Insightful)
Need a Venn Diagram for the subsidies that the Koch brothers oppose.
Draw a large circle, and write "government subsidies of any kind" in it. Then, draw a larger circle around it, and label it "subsidies that the Koch brothers oppose.
Yes, the Koch brothers oppose solar subsidies, because they are subsidies.
It is also disingenuous to say they want surtaxes on solar. While it may be true, the context is that there are surtaxes on other forms of energy, and they want a level playing field.
This is a very bad summary.
But that is stupid. The whole point of putting surtaxes on non-renewable forms of energy is that they are non-renewable so by using them today you are storing up costs for the future when they are gone. The problems can be to do with having to mitigate the effects of more CO2 in the atmosphere or with them simply running out but either way we know there will be a cost down the line, so since government will ultimately have to foot the bill either way they impose a tax to mitigate that (in theory anyway, even if they do then spend it on some other crap).
With solar power however the energy gained is absolutely free at the point of generation. If you don't put a solar panel in the way then that solar energy would have just contributed to warming the planet when it hit the ground underneath. This is (or should be) the main reason why no tax is paid on energy from solar. Maybe you should even get a tax-rebate for using solar to generate electricity as the energy you generate would normally have contributed to global warming as it hit the ground and heated it. (ok, I studied years of physics so know this is a stretch but I still think it a net benefit, however minute)
I can understand (although I do not agree with, we need to encourage more solar use, not less) the idea of putting a small tax on solar panels themselves as they are quite polluting to produce, but once they are built they actually do far more good for the planet than bad, unlike all the fossil fuels the Kock brothers make their money from.
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If you don't put a solar panel in the way then that solar energy would have just contributed to warming the planet when it hit the ground underneath.
The energy you produce with the panels is still going to end up as heat. No?
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In that money was spent by the government and the end result was cheaper access to oil, can't the argument be made that it was in fact a subsidy?
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Solar panel creation uses many toxic products, chemicals and dangerous gases, including Sulfur Hexaflouride, the MOST POTENT GREENHOUSE GAS... Is it really about the planet, or is it about money?
From Wikipedia - "According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, SF6 is the most potent greenhouse gas that it has evaluated, with a global warming potential of 23,900 times that of CO2 when compared over a 100-year period."
2002 was the last year I could find a quick worldwide sales number for SF6, 5096 metric tons. [epa.gov] Using your factor of 23,900 and rounding up, that's the equivalent of 122 million tons of CO2 assuming every molecule of SF6 was dumped directly into the atmosphere. By comparison, in 2012, an estimated 9700 million tons [co2now.org] of CO2 were emitted. Of course, only about 7% [cleanenergyauthority.com] of SF6 production is used in semiconductor manufacturing, and only a fraction of that is solar cell production and of that fraction not all is released