US Senate Finally Passes Its Massive Climate Bill (c-span.org) 401
Slashdot reader Charlotte Web writes: At 3:02 p.m. EST, vice president Kamala Harris began presiding over the U.S. Senate.
After a vote on the very last proposed amendment, the Senate heard these final remarks from Democrat Senate Majority Leader, Chuck Schumer on what he called "the boldest climate package in US history."
"It's been a long, tough, and winding road. But at last — at last — we have arrived. I know it's been a long day and long night, but we've gotten it done...."
"It's a game changer. It's a turning point. And it's been a long time coming.
"To Americans who have lost faith that Congress can do big things, this bill is for you... And to the tens of millions of young Americans who spent years marching, rallying, demanding that Congress act on climate change, this bill is for you. The time has come to pass this historic bill."
One by one, Senators delivered their votes for the official tally, and at 3:18 PST Harris announced that "On this vote, the yeas are 50, the nays are 50." And with the vice president casting deciding votes in an equally-divided Senate, "the bill as amended is passed."
And the Senate broke into spontaneous applause.
The bill now goes to the U.S. House of Representatives, which is expected to vote on it Friday.
As Slashdot reported last week: The bill helps U.S consumers buy electric vehicle chargers, rooftop solar panels, and fuel-efficient heat pumps. It extends energy-industry tax credits for wind, solar and other renewable energy sources -- and for carbon capture technology. In fact, most of its impact is accomplished through tax credits, reports the New York Times, "viewed as one of the least expensive ways to reduce carbon emissions.
"The benefits are worth four times their cost, according to calculations by the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago." One example is ending an eligibility cap on the $7,500 tax credit for consumers buying electric vehicles.
"It's been a long, tough, and winding road. But at last — at last — we have arrived. I know it's been a long day and long night, but we've gotten it done...."
"It's a game changer. It's a turning point. And it's been a long time coming.
"To Americans who have lost faith that Congress can do big things, this bill is for you... And to the tens of millions of young Americans who spent years marching, rallying, demanding that Congress act on climate change, this bill is for you. The time has come to pass this historic bill."
One by one, Senators delivered their votes for the official tally, and at 3:18 PST Harris announced that "On this vote, the yeas are 50, the nays are 50." And with the vice president casting deciding votes in an equally-divided Senate, "the bill as amended is passed."
And the Senate broke into spontaneous applause.
The bill now goes to the U.S. House of Representatives, which is expected to vote on it Friday.
As Slashdot reported last week: The bill helps U.S consumers buy electric vehicle chargers, rooftop solar panels, and fuel-efficient heat pumps. It extends energy-industry tax credits for wind, solar and other renewable energy sources -- and for carbon capture technology. In fact, most of its impact is accomplished through tax credits, reports the New York Times, "viewed as one of the least expensive ways to reduce carbon emissions.
"The benefits are worth four times their cost, according to calculations by the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago." One example is ending an eligibility cap on the $7,500 tax credit for consumers buying electric vehicles.
Yays 50 and Nays 50... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Yays 50 and Nays 50... (Score:5, Informative)
Sigh, this country needs to abolish political parties and career politicians. And lobbyists. and...
I’m a single issue voter. If you’ve taken the big donor money, private or corporate, you’re sold out and I don’t believe that I can have impartial representation. Would you hire a lawyer paid for and close buddies with an opposing side when your life was on the line? I may be forced to vote for the less crap candidate unless it’s a primary to stave off destruction by swirling the bowl, but I’ll never vote for anyone who isn’t entirely grass roots funded by small donations with some exceptions for unions or other social equity groups.
It has been shown beyond any doubt that Americans are sold out [princeton.edu] to big donor interests. In nearly 1800 examples in Congress, only when companies have a neutral or positive outcome is any public interest adopted even if the public supports it at ludicrous levels like 90%. What the majority wants is denied even if it means life and death at the slight inconvenience to a billionaire or Fortune 500 company. Get the money OUT, it’s not free speech nor a democracy for a room full of unelected people to outweigh the interests of hundreds of millions of citizens.
To me the problem isn't the politicians (Score:5, Insightful)
I think we look to leaders and leadership way too much in this country. Instead we should be focusing on teaching people think critically so that when they look at a politician at a rally and it's a WWE event or a reality TV show they should be able to objectively say they're about to be taken for a ride
Re:To me the problem isn't the politicians (Score:4, Insightful)
It's the voters. Specifically voters who choose a candidate based on which one has the best advertisements and the most exciting rallies. I mean everyone always wants to blame the politicians but they couldn't get away with it if the voters weren't helping them along.
That's not how it works anymore. Voters don't choose candidates. Candidates choose voters via gerrymandering and voter suppression.
Re:To me the problem isn't the politicians (Score:4, Insightful)
That's not how it works anymore. Voters don't choose candidates. Candidates choose voters via gerrymandering and voter suppression.
(Replying to my own comment. Bad form!)
And if the SC rules they way they probably will in Harper v Moore, there won't be a damn thing anyone can do about it!
See this is the problem I'm talking about (Score:2)
What this means is that if even a small percentage of the people who bitch
Re:See this is the problem I'm talking about (Score:4, Insightful)
You have literally no idea how American politics works. Virtually no one shows up for a primary election. Meanwhile there are pro consumer candidates who don't just get bought off in every primary election I voted in since I started. They lose because the majority of voters who show up for a primary are old people who do it out of a sense of duty and therefore just vote for whoever have the most advertisements or the best rallies. What this means is that if even a small percentage of the people who bitch about Congress showed up for primary elections money in politics wouldn't matter anymore. But you guys never seem to show up for the primary and the corporate whores slide right in
Actually I know quite well. I live in the state that Harper v Moore is about. I've seen it first hand with my own eyes. Around here, primaries don't matter. The result of the general is predetermined. Granted, it may be this shitty repugnican instead of that shitty repugnican, but it will be a shitty repugnican guaranteed.
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The party faithful show up to primaries. As well as the regular attendees, but mostly it's the party faithful that drive the primary results. And they tend to be crazier than the center. Some states combine propositions and local ballots issues with the primaries, which sadly means that the crazies tend to dominate those items too. It would be nice if more showed up to vote even when it's not a presidential election year.
One difference used to be that the general election swung more to the center, but th
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Trouble is, many folks, like myself are registered as independent....and therefore cannot vote in either party's primaries.
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Start a state constitutional amendment to require completely open primaries with ranked voting so that everyone in the state can vote on all candidates from all parties and the top X per office advance to the general election regardless of party.
Barring that, if you're in a red state, register as a Republican. If you're in a blue state, register as a Democrat. If you're in a purple state, register in whatever primary you care most about that year. In the first two cases (red/blue), the primary is usually t
Re:To me the problem isn't the politicians (Score:5, Insightful)
Your main problem is that you had the whole thing set up in the 18th century, and you haven't reformed it since.
Re:To me the problem isn't the politicians (Score:4, Insightful)
He said he liked Republicans better than Democrats so he drew the maps accordingly, will of the people be damned.
Also in 2016, Roy Cooper (D) defeated Pat McCrory (R) in the gubernatorial race. One of the final acts that McCrory and the republican-controlled legislature did was to strip the office of governor of any powers they could before Cooper was sworn in. They're not interested in democracy or fair governance, they're into naked power grabs and doing any dirty tricks they can for advantage.
And before you say "both sides do it", no. Dems have done a little bit and it's wrong when they do it too, but saying both sides are equally to blame is like claiming a squirt gun is exactly the same as an AR-15.
Re: To me the problem isn't the politicians (Score:5, Insightful)
The dems are the ones that invented it lol... it's called gerry manderinmeandering... after a Democrat named gerry forgot from where
So because Ds did a bad thing over a century ago it is OK for Rs to do it now? How about no party doing it?
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NY State had to delay their primary THIS YEAR because of their unconscionable gerrymandering in their redistricting.
Did you not know this?
BTW, NY state is a Democrat state, and it's not the only Democrat state to have courts throw out Democrat drawn redistricting maps THIS YEAR.
Re: Yays 50 and Nays 50... (Score:3)
I like how they all broke into applause for a bill passing that only half of them wanted. Sounds like all the "nays" are looking to play both sides of the court. If public opinion blows one way they will be "part of the historic Congress that voted for it*". If it turns out to be a stinker "well I voted against it but the left-wing defied us and pushed it through**".
*-actual vote not important
**-using correct legal procedure for the case of a tie in voting.
Re: Yays 50 and Nays 50... (Score:4, Informative)
You cannot be surprised that the GOPers who voted against this will want to take credit for it
They tried with with Obama's Infrastructure bill [politifact.com] and with Biden's COVID relief bill [vox.com]
So, everybody needs to drop the "both sides" and "all politicians" arguments and simply recognize that the republicans are the ones acting in bad faith
Re: Yays 50 and Nays 50... (Score:4, Interesting)
You don't need to go that far back. They vote against things and then lie about it. From today:
https://twitter.com/ChuckGrass... [twitter.com]
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Oh My! [youtube.com]
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No, if it ends up being popular, then somehow they'll find a contorted explanation that gives the credit to policies enacted during the Trump administration.
Re: Yays 50 and Nays 50... (Score:2)
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What ?
why does it need to abandon political parties ?
the reason that congress doesn't getting anything useful done is because of the Republican party. You can't do anything about climate change when one party thinks it's a chinese hoax. you can't do much of anything when one party isn't actually interested in doing anything. the official premise of the republican party is to ensure government can't work so that they can tell you: government doesn't work.
"abolishing" political parties does nothing to solv
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How do 80,000 new irs employees help the environment? Lower inflation? Are there really that many millionaires and billionaires to go after?
For comparison, the pentagon holds 26,000 workers, so we're adding 3x pentagons worth of irs agents.
The air seems cleaner already.
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And income tax.
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Sigh, this country needs to abolish political parties and career politicians. And lobbyists. and...
Which means abolishing the First Amendment. It guarantees that people can assemble into groups as they see fit (like, say, political parties). It guarantees that you can pay someone to speak on your behalf if they're better at it than you, or can do so on behalf of a larger group in order to be more effective (like, say, lobbyists).
If you think freedom of speech and assembly is no good, all you have to do is get a federal supermajority in the legislature to see your point and kill the entire Bill of Rig
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I'm curious as to why you believe this. Yes, you could dismantle the Bill of Rights one Amendment at a time. It's not likely to be practical, but it's certainly both legal and Constitutional.
Now, the likelihood that you'd get away with trying to dismantle the Bill of Rights approaches zero, but it's certainly legal for you to try to do so...
Re: Yays 50 and Nays 50... (Score:3)
Re:All right! Pass me the used EV doobie, bro! (Score:5, Informative)
Not really. The bill is very carefully constructed to shield anyone from higher taxes unless they're making over $400,000. That's 98.2% of all American taxpayers who aren't in any way paying for any of this [amazon.com].
The knee-jerk criticism of any kind of government program as "OMG paid for by taxpayers" is something that usually falls apart on closer inspection.
Yeah but what if someday I'm rich (Score:2)
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"That's 98.2% of all American taxpayers who aren't in any way paying for any of this [amazon.com]."
Completely false. There are no free lunches. This bill explicitly target operational budgets of businesses, especially small business. This really has little impact on shareholders (whether the wealthy controllers or everyone's retirement accounts) but generally comes directly out of payroll budgets and expansion plans. Those 98.2% of americans will be doing all the paying, they just added a step to obscure th
Re:All right! Pass me the used EV doobie, bro! (Score:5, Insightful)
As of 2019 (last year for which the data is available) [irs.gov]:
The top 1% of filers - AGI of ~ $546K or more, pay 38.77% of US taxes.
The top 2% - AGI of ~ $364K or more, pay 46.84% of US taxes.
So your "vast majority of taxes" these guys are paying is actually under 50%.
If you want to get to the actual "vast majority"... the top 20% - AGI of ~ 103K or more, pay 82% of US taxes.
Note that this is based on filed returns - so single filers, married filing jointly, head of household, etc. are all lumped together.
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Some people are so sad when rich people have to pay more than the minimum 20% for capital gains, while not caring too much that they laid off their workers.
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If you think capital gains only affects the rich you clearly don't know much about the middle class
Re:All right! Pass me the used EV doobie, bro! (Score:5, Informative)
You are conflating *income tax* with ALL TAXES, which is incorrect. Federal Income Tax comprises about 26% of all taxes collected by State and Federal governments. Top AGI earners pay a large amount of the federal income tax. That's 1/4 of the puzzle. The rest of the taxes are relatively flat, or consumption-based (e.g. regressive), and virtually irrelevant to high earners, but constitute a significant amount of ordinary people's tax burden.
Re:All right! Pass me the used EV doobie, bro! (Score:5, Insightful)
The wealthy paying the most in taxes is proper in society because marginal utility of money is in fact a thing.
None of those programs were designed to help the wealthiest. What the wealthy don't get in direct federal transfers they get in the all the other things stable society and governmental infrastructure and support in far greater proportion in the first group. They are extracting the most in wealth from the opportunity society provides them, they put the most back in. And again, marginal utility of money.
If they want to propose a different taxing system like a VAT or making programs universal so they are "fair" like a UBI, sure I a down with it, but I don't expect anyone to shed a tear for the wealthiest about their taxes. When they are ready to give up on inheritance tax and capital gains then they can come to the table.
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If they want to propose a different taxing system like a VAT or making programs universal so they are "fair" like a UBI, sure I a down with it, but I don't expect anyone to shed a tear for the wealthiest about their taxes.
Actually, regressive taxes are less fair to the average working class American, because the less you earn, the greater proportion of your income goes to taxes.
If your paycheck was $1,068.93, and you buy an iPhone 13 Pro here in my neck of the woods where the sales tax is 7%, then 7% of your paycheck went towards that regressive sales tax. Now let's say your take-home pay is $400k/yr. You take your $7692.30 weekly paycheck and buy the same iPhone and that same 7% tax is now only approximately 0.9% of your
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Re: All right! Pass me the used EV doobie, bro! (Score:2)
Social Security scales with the increase in CPU. Their checks will be getting bigger.
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But will they be twice as big? Probably not. Thus their real income will go down, and they will probably vote accordingly. That was the grand parent post's point.
Re: All right! Pass me the used EV doobie, bro! (Score:3)
Is inflation at 100%?
When you read inflation percentages in the news where do they come from, how is it calculated?
What metric does social security scale it's increase from?
Re: All right! Pass me the used EV doobie, bro! (Score:5, Insightful)
Depending on the senior in question, they may not have a paid off home to live in. They may not even have a rent-fixed apartment to live in. Imagine being on a fixed income that's adjusted for inflation but dealing with the rent increasing that have happened over just the past 3 years.
Then you account for food and gas prices and you will quickly find a fair chunk of broke seniors.
Sure, most are doing better then in that they have fixed rate mortgages but the average senior likely does not outright own their home.
Then, take a look at the stock market this year and remember not to panic. It will come back, but in the mean time maybe draw down less of it since it's such a terrible time to sell compared to this time last year.
No, not fun if you only have social security and a hammered 401k or just social security.
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may not have a paid off home to live in
Seperate problem with different solutions.
dealing with the rent increasing
Same as above. Seems like we have a serious housing problem in the country, even before the pandemic and this bout of inflation happened.
We had broke seniors already, it's why Social Security exists in the first place. I'm just saying it was designed with some things in mind that cost of living changes. If its not enough to cover expenses then we should do something about it. No senior should ever have to worry about where to live in this, the wealthiest nation
Re: All right! Pass me the used EV doobie, bro! (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, historically not true.
They were found in the past to consistently go for the "low hanging fruit" of smaller businesses and individuals that could not afford a slew of tax and regular attorneys to defend themselves.
Not enough nuclear (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Not enough nuclear (Score:5, Interesting)
We need massive investment in new nuclear in order to mitigate climate change.
Georgia Power is currently building the first new nuclear plants in decades - yes, decades.- and it's been plagued by cost overruns and various things that have slowed construction to a crawl. The 2 new plants may actually come online sometime within the next 2 years and I suspect that in the end all the pain will be worth it, but these issues can't be encouraging others to try. Lots of Republicans are anti-nuclear simply on cost and yeah, it's not cheap. Then you have some of the Democrats who are opposed for whatever reason and it gets really difficult to get one built anywhere.
Re:Not enough nuclear (Score:5, Interesting)
You might be please to learn that Vogtle 3 has been approved for fuel. Yeah. It's done. You might also be surprised to learn that Vogtle 4 will cost less than half of Vogtle 3. Vogtle 3 was a first-of-a-kind construction which are always more expensive. Learning experience and the creation of supply lines are why Vogtle 4 has gone much better.
Also NuScale will be factory building SMR's so expect the same kind of cost reductions that solar and wind have had.
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Lots of Republicans are anti-nuclear simply on cost and yeah, it's not cheap.
Are these Republicans in elected office? If so then name them so we can vote them out for not holding to the party platform.
Then you have some of the Democrats who are opposed for whatever reason and it gets really difficult to get one built anywhere.
Are these Democrats in elected office? If so then name them so we can vote them out for not holding to the party platform.
Both Republicans and Democrats include a plank in support for nuclear power in their party platform document. Any elected official from either party opposing nuclear power is doing so in opposition of the party as a whole. If they want to maintain their oppositi
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How is 5 months enough to validate things like geological surveys, potential impact on water resources, and the entire custom plant design? That's ridiculous.
You may have heard of the mythical man month. If a woman can make a baby in 9 months, 9 women can make a baby in one month, right? It's not like there are any linear processes that need to be completed in order.
The failure mode analysis alone takes more than 5 months, and must be done very carefully in order to avoid missing anything. Sorry, but when t
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Yes exactly. The only thing that can enable nuclear is deregulation, education against anti-nuclear propaganda, and jump-start funds.
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Yes exactly. The only thing that can enable nuclear is deregulation, education against anti-nuclear propaganda, and jump-start funds.
That's funny, those are the same things we were told we needed to get wind and solar off the ground. The thing is we've been deregulating, educating, and "jump starting" wind and solar for decades. Maybe we should stop "jump starting" solar power because the patient is dead, and stop "jump starting" wind power because its doing fine making power at low costs.
Nuclear power doesn't need "jump start" funds. What it needs is permission from the government. There is no point in "jump start" funds if that fun
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I agree, but I think we do need fusion because there are too many idiots who are fixated on the fission waste disposal and accident issues. The NIMBY lobby is too powerful with nuclear. We could put the power plants out in the deserts but then there's the distribution issue.
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At what point does development of fusion power become an urgent survival strategy for our species?
Not until we can prove it works. Then once we prove it works then we need to prove it commercially viable. Then once it is commercially viable we'd still have to prove how other options are not viable before we can claim development is an urgent need for the survival of the species.
I wonder if we're at the point where that's our best way to prevent a massive extinction event.
Um, okay. And I wonder if you've been watching the History Channel too much. It sounds like you've seen a few too many war documentaries and "it must be aliens" speculation pieces.
Calm down. We aren't going to have an extinc
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Hey now! We can't just let every Tom, Dick, and Harry go building black holes in their garages. /s
But really, imagine if we could build a stable black holes with the opening of, ohh say a trash can, and just toss everything in it. We just solved a big trash problem.
If only reality was on my side.
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We need massive investment in new nuclear in order to mitigate climate change.
You are an idiot. New nuclear would take at the very least 25 until it begins to make any real difference. That is far too late.
I am beginning to think all these nuclear fanatics are really members of a death-cult that want to end the human race.
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The only viable alternative to nuclear is solar, but that is taking forever too. I think nuclear can start making a difference within 5 to 10 years if we got started with it now.
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2021 saw the commissioning of ~290 GW of Solar PV. If you crunch the numbers to convert that to energy production per year, that's 75 nuclear reactors worth. Similarly, 2021 saw 93.6 GW worth of new wind power, which is another 35 nuclear reactors worth.
Basically we're already building over 100 nuclear reactors worth of energy production annually, just in wind and solar, and that rollout is accelerating.
=Smidge=
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Hey German moron. The fastest decarbonization efforts in world history were done with nuclear(thanks France and Sweden). No country has deep decarbonized with solar and wind. Not one. Germany failed to decarbonize and are taking it in the ass from putin. Enjoy breathing coal fumes you evolutionsbremse!
I am beginning to think all these nuclear fanatics are really members of a death-cult that want to end the human race.
Every accusation is actually a confession. Stop projecting!
Re: Not enough nuclear (Score:2)
Re:Not enough nuclear (Score:5, Insightful)
New nuclear would take at the very least 25 until it begins to make any real difference. That is far too late.
That is primarily because you have been whining loudly and holding it back for 25 years.
If we start now at least you won't be able to use the same excuse in another 25 years.
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Bullshit. Nuclear is exceptionally expensive and the worst form of energy generation for grid stability and the least reliable option.
In the US capacity factor of Nuclear is 92%. By far the most reliable option.
https://www.eia.gov/electricit... [eia.gov]
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We need massive investment in new nuclear in order to mitigate climate change.
No investment in nuclear can do anything to mitigate climate change as we are unable and incapable of building reactors in the time required to mitigate climate change, even if you had infinite money dedicated to the agenda.
We need investment in new nuclear for other reasons (namely to keep driving baseload reliability and compensate for increasing population and energy demand). But we need to find *other* ways to mitigate climate change.
For the record nuclear plants take a best case of 15-20 years to const
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Re: Not enough nuclear (Score:2)
Re: Not enough nuclear (Score:2)
Re:Not enough nuclear (Score:5, Insightful)
>"No investment in nuclear can do anything to mitigate climate change as we are unable and incapable of building reactors in the time required to mitigate climate change"
The reality is that this bill will not make any meaningful dent in CO2 emissions when the USA is responsible for only 15% of the emissions. Even slashing such emissions to the point of probably totally destroying the USA economy wouldn't amount to even 0.01% of the annual world total emissions).
I am not saying we shouldn't move in that direction, but people need to get real about the time line. Nuclear fission COULD play a huge role, especially if we GREATLY reduce the red tape so they could be made and much more quickly. And just as important is increasing the security, reliability, and self-reliance of the energy supply.
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So if the US cuts its emissions 33%, that's a 5% global reduction. You're wrong by two orders of magnitude.
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The reality is that this bill will not make any meaningful dent in CO2 emissions when the USA is responsible for only 15% of the emissions.
Yeah that's quite likely. But not passing a good bill doesn't make nuclear any more of a suitable solution either. Nuclear cannot be part of the solution. It's just not possible. It's not actually possible to build *any* 1GW+ baseload plant in the timeframe required, even if you cut 100% of the nuclear red tape. Then realise red tape isn't the only complex construction issue and that these things still take well over a decade in countries like China. They recently built reactors in just over 10 years from b
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This kind of hand wringing is misleading. While the US is only responsible for 15% of global emissions today, it historically benefitted greatly from massive CO2 emissions. The US cumulatively contributed 400 billion tonnes, the EU 350 billion tonnes, and China about 200 billion tonnes.
If developing nations follow the same path as the US, we are screwed. We need them to keep their emissions down, peak earlier than we did, and then fall to net zero faster than we did. Obviously, developing nations are not go
Re:Not enough nuclear (Score:5, Informative)
http://euanmearns.com/how-long... [euanmearns.com]
At the other end of the scale, 18 reactors were completed in 3 years! 12 of those in Japan, 3 in the USA, 2 in Russia and 1 in Switzerland. These are a mixture of boiling water and pressurised water reactors. Clearly, it does not need to take forever to build new reactors given good supply chain, expertise and engineering protocols. The mean construction time of 441 reactors in use today was 7.5 years.
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Hey Einstein (literally,) all energy is heat out of matter. Yes I know you're trolling, and yes I took the bait because there actually are dumbasses who believe stupid shit like you're saying.
Re:We really don't actually (Score:5, Informative)
Wind and solar have both advanced to the point where they can be used as base power even in places like Seattle.
Well that's a lie. Seattle uses hydro(and some nuclear) not solar and wind. No one has deep decarbonize with solar and wind.
I don't really get this website's preoccupation with nuclear especially in light of Fukushima. I suspect it's because people didn't really look that closely into it.
Maybe they did look into and saw zero deaths. Meanwhile fossil fuels and biofuels kill 8.7 million a year. Just on that fact you should look at nuclear.
In light of all that and the fact that solar and wind attack has improved so much there just isn't any reason besides nostalgia to fall back on nuclear.
Maybe the fact that solar and wind are intermittent and no country has deep decarbonized with them.
The IRS angle should be an outrage (Score:3, Insightful)
Congress admitted that the goal was to fund this by giving the IRS the manpower to ruthlessly audit the middle class. That's wrong on so many levels it hurts. Sinema even held up her support until they guaranteed a measure that would protect Wall St billionaires from paying more taxes. They're also admitting that they're not going to go after EIC fraud which accounts for $18B minimum according to some of the stuff I've read. So there you have it, folks. They're going to continue to let the poor rip off the Treasury and make it easy for the top 0.5% to evade paying proportional taxes.
Oh and add onto this that there is probably not $1 of new funds for hiring more OIG criminal investigators for DoD, DNI, DHHS and the SSA which is where a significant percentage of all federal fraud, waste and abuse occurs.
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You're not allowed to question the #MediaIndustrialComplex narrative. Everything Democrats do is, by definition, good, and cannot be questioned.
You shall be modded down, as a sacrifice to the woke.
Ha Ha, Now the lie is openly admitted (Score:5, Insightful)
With inflation as the primary concern of voters, The Democrats titled this "The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022" [senate.gov] and all of the press took their marching orders and pushed that propaganda.
Even after the non-partisan CBO released their analysis [cbo.gov] showing that the reduction in the deficit would only be $11 billion over a decade ($1.1 billion per year out of a $5872 billion dollar budget [cbo.gov]) which is so negligible it will have essentially no effect on inflation, the press continued to call it an inflation reduction act.
Ahhhh, but now, immediately after it has passed through the Senate under the "reconcilliation" rules put in place by the old KKK creep Robert Byrd, suddenly everybody is admitting it was not an inflation reduction act and was actually a re-labelled and tweeked "green new deal" bill.
The citizenry is being propagandized and played - and the establishment Republicans are no better in their abuse of these tactics (they simply lack the allegiance of the majority of the press and are thus less capable of pulling this sort of garbage). If you fly on private jets, you're celebrating (some of the green energy firms whose stocks you bought when they looked cheap and risky are about to zoom in response to the massive new subsidies they can expect), but if you are not already wealthy, your economic future just got worse.
If you are a truly honest person, who can put your preferences aside and report FACTS without bias, there's a need for you in an apparently wide-open new career path called "journalism" - there seems to be nobody doing it these days.
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The word "climate" appears in TFS several times. The fact this bill is about climate is not being hidden or misrepresented.
Except when presented to the Senate Parliamentarian, who is only supposed to allow the use of the reconciliation process (that is, a process which doesn't allow for filibusters and thus can pass on pure majority vote) for budget bills. So which is it: a budget bill or a climate bill? Only in Washington can it be both.
Thing is, this isn't new. Obamacare passed using reconciliation even though everyone knew it wasn't a budget bill. Pisses me off. If you don't want to follow the intent of the rules as written,
Re: Ha Ha, Now the lie is openly admitted (Score:2)
But it does in fact reduce the defecit.
Also the defecit != Inflation
Discretionary defecit spending means the government sells bonds. Someone has to buy those with USD which means no new money is added. In fact Congress cannot "create" money, only the Federal Reserve can.
Not inexpensive (Score:2)
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Well, it will be exceptionally expensive to do anything really effective. Not doing anything or doing it later will be massively more expensive though. The time to get this relatively cheaply would have been in the 1980's when it was clear what was coming. But some people had to get even richer instead. By now "cheap" or "no massive lifestyle changes" is off the table.
Which fossil fuel is left in the soil due to this? (Score:2)
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Oil is a global commodity so production will follow demand to a certain point. Part of the reason we have high gas now is during the pandemic a bunch of drilling and refining went offline due to demand drop. Eventually the demand for oil will slow stop growing and start to recede and production will tail off, especially for the most expensive extraction methods that are only profitable when it can be sold at a certain price.
Not to say I don't see some critical lack of demand for petroleum for centuries th
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How exactly will this law cause any fossil fuel to be left unearthed?
It won't, at best it will reduce the demand enough to follow depletion down. We still need lubricants and megatons of plastic. As long as population keeps increasing the best we can hold foil demand steady.
As for natural gas, there are a lot of homes and industries that use it directly for heat. Although you can power the air conditioning with solar panels, you can't run the space heating on them because of the 16 hour night and heavy over
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As we've seen, that's what happens when we drive down demand. EVs won't do that overnight, but they absolutely will as more people switch over time.
The used market will grow, and cheaper options will start to appear as the technology matures and the infrastructure improves. We're already seeing conversion kits that will let you make the switch for ~10k, battery included. ICE is obsolete. Prepare to get over it.
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I guess I can do a google search for you. Just this once though. You've really got to learn to do these things for yourself.
The following closed due to the drop in demand since 2020 Source: [reuters.com]
Calcasieu Refining- Lake Charles, LA
Marathon - Gallup, MN
Marathon - Martinez, CA
Shell Convent - St. James, LA
Others closed for different reasons related to demand. For example, the Phillips 66 in Rodeo, CA converted to a renewable fuels plant. The article also lists some that closed for other reasons.
But don't let lit
It will more than double the size of the IRS (Score:3)
It will make IRS larger than Pentagon, State Department, FBI, and Border Patrol combined
Senate GOP proposed an amendment that the new agents can only audit people or businesses making more than $400k/year. It failed along party lines 50/50
If you are middle class, this law is coming for your wallet
Re:Does nothing (Score:5, Insightful)
Have you seen any new EV chargers?
Yes.
That bill was supposed to build 500,000 of them
We haven't even had a single year under the new law. WTF? It will literally take ten years at best pace to build that many. I've seen three new ones go up in Nashville directly funded from this bill. You're just yelling to be yelling at this point with unrealistic expectations for how long it actually takes to build things.
In other words, we should be putting money into R&D --inventing new shit
You know every fucking time we do this, the second it is done, everyone then starts yelling "The President is picking winners and losers!!" I'm so tired of this BS. Thanks for your comment, file it with the other 100 million people who do not understand how governments work.
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> Have you seen any new EV chargers?
I don't know why they were built, but I see a lot more chargers around than 2 years ago.
> In other words, we should be putting money into R&D --inventing new shit
Inventing new shit is good. But we also need to deploy that new shit. So we need money in that too!
Re:Does nothing (Score:5, Informative)
You seem confused, here [whitehouse.gov] is an informative site that may be of use to you
You can read what the bill will provide, and frankly most of these projects take more than a year to get rolling, so your bald asses trolling is just a lot of hot air
FYI, a few dozen republicans voted for the infrastructure bill, because it really is a good sense, bipartisan effort, but they are getting drummed out of the GOP for it, which really points the finger at the largest group that is working to make this country fail
Build things! (Re:Does nothing) (Score:2)
If we really want to end climate change, we need to allow and fund research...
Wait, before I even read what the research is about I know this is bullshit. Research won't lower CO2 emissions. Building things will lower CO2 emissions.
We need more onshore windmills, geothermal power plants, hydroelectric dams (preferably with pumped hydro storage capability), and nuclear fission power plants. These are technologies that have a history of low CO2 emissions, low energy costs, and high levels of safety. And before anyone even asks I can say with confidence that solar power isn't part o
Re: It is my privlege to pay my tax dollars for... (Score:4, Insightful)
Why do I need all these gas stations and highways? My horse can't use any of those!
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
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Why the /s? Human misery is one of their goals.
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If you have only 50% willing to play ball and you need all of them, you won't get a good deal.
But add 10 more senators willing to play and you can negociate without getting squeezed by the Manchins of the world.
As long as the destructive hard divide splits the Senate, that's the best you can get.
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Well yes, but as long as we're talking about how bills *should* be...
I'm all in favor of reform, but while I'm waiting for things to change the way they *should* I'll accept progress being made with the process as it *is*.
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Don't act like a retard. He's not against the people who enforce laws. In fact people who enforce laws are not even related to his post (that would be people who enact laws), and that's before you put some basic effort into reading comprehension and realise he was talking about the process, not the people.