US Joins in Other Nations in Swearing Off Coal Power To Clean the Climate (apnews.com) 204
The United States has committed to the idea of phasing out coal power plants, joining 56 other nations in kicking the coal habit that's a huge factor in global warming. From a report: U.S. Special Envoy John Kerry announced that America was joining the Powering Past Coal Alliance, which means the Biden Administration commits to building no new coal plants and phasing out existing plants. No date was given for when the existing plants would have to go, but other Biden regulatory actions and international commitments already in the works had meant no coal by 2035.
"We will be working to accelerate unabated coal phase-out across the world, building stronger economies and more resilient communities," Kerry said in a statement. "The first step is to stop making the problem worse: stop building new unabated coal power plants." Coal power plants have already been shutting down across the nation due to economics, and no new coal facilities were in the works, so "we were heading to retiring coal by the end of the decade anyway," said climate analyst Alden Meyer of the European think-tank E3G. That's because natural gas and renewable energy are cheaper, so it was market forces, he said.
"We will be working to accelerate unabated coal phase-out across the world, building stronger economies and more resilient communities," Kerry said in a statement. "The first step is to stop making the problem worse: stop building new unabated coal power plants." Coal power plants have already been shutting down across the nation due to economics, and no new coal facilities were in the works, so "we were heading to retiring coal by the end of the decade anyway," said climate analyst Alden Meyer of the European think-tank E3G. That's because natural gas and renewable energy are cheaper, so it was market forces, he said.
Is this until the next election? (Score:5, Funny)
Or will this "resolve" die even faster?
Re:Is this until the next election? (Score:5, Insightful)
Na. Coal is bleeding out. Nothing will save coal because it's no longer financially competitive. Republicans can revoke all regulations of every kind for coal power and it still won't come back.
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Well that's where the taxpayer subsidy comes in. Yes, subsidies are bad words when it comes to Republican politics; except for one very important hypocritical exception: fossil fuel extraction.
Re:Is this until the next election? (Score:4, Informative)
Honestly, I still don't think that would work.
Texas is trying that right now as their solution to our grid problems. Texas was offering direct subsidies for anyone that would rehab a closed FF power plant to provide back up power for outages. No one took it and ERCOT cancelled the soliciation last week.
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Well that's where the taxpayer subsidy comes in. Yes, subsidies are bad words when it comes to Republican politics; except for one very important hypocritical exception: fossil fuel extraction.
Voters don't like it when energy costs rise. Democrats have been kicking nuclear power in the balls for the last 50 years. What are Republicans to do? Democrats don't much care if energy prices rise, in fact they've said publicly that rising energy costs are a good thing.
An interesting part of this is in comparing the official party platforms of both major parties after the Democrats made their big shift to support nuclear power a couple years ago. It was amazing to see just how similar they were. I'm
Re: Is this until the next election? (Score:3)
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Replacing coal doesn't mean just nuclear and gas.
If you want to keep the lights on it does.
More wind, solar, hydro are also valid options, ones adopted in many Western nations.
Wind is intermittent. Solar is intermittent and expensive. Hydro is cheap, quite often very reliable, but there's no rivers left to dam to get more power.
I realize that Western nations adopted all the above. To just maintain what they have for a standard of living, and certainly to improve it, will require nuclear power or natural gas. Remove nuclear power and natural gas then things will not go well. Ask Germany about that. If someone can prove otherwise then
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Yup, Republicans want to protect your tax dollars - except if the subsidies give them votes. Like all politics of any stripe, ideals take a back seat when it comes to getting elected or getting into power.
Re: Is this until the next election? (Score:2)
Because you lot pull your chicken little act whenever gas prices change.
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Hey, so they can pretend to do some things to make climate change worse in order to make their followers happy, but without the actual damage!
Re:Is this until the next election? (Score:5, Insightful)
Politics can't change economic fact.
Coal's price advantage is basically gone, and the downsides are very much still there. If you're spending money to build new power generation, coal isn't a very good place to achieve RoI regardless of what chimp gets elected.
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Quick, you better tell the Chinese to stop building coal power plants- they have no idea how much money they are wasting on coal-powered generating plants!
Re: Is this until the next election? (Score:2)
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Quick, you better tell the Chinese to stop building coal power plants- they have no idea how much money they are wasting on coal-powered generating plants!
China is building virtually zero new coal plants. That is evident in the fact their coal consumption hasn't materially moved in over a decade. China is *replacing existing* coal plants, which makes a lot of sense given the infrastructure is in place to deliver supply and process coal already.
And China's investment in renewables is dwarfing that of replacing old cold fired stations, and the percentage investment in renewables is dwarfing the percentage invested by the USA. The "OMG BUT CHINA!" meme is gettin
Actually this foreshadows something far larger (Score:2)
Supreme Court appears ready to deal another blow to federal agencies' administrative powers [govexec.com].
Supreme Court leans toward curbing agency enforcement [eenews.net]
And don't even get me started [archive.is] on Project 2025. [archive.is]
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Thank goodness for all of these...it's about time we reign in the Federal overreach, especially by UN-elected bureaucracies which have basically been making "law" despite that being the sole job of congress.
Looks like too, the SCOTUS is basically gonna slap the ATF's overreach pretty hard here soon too.
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it's about time we reign in the Federal overreach
Damn right. It's getting a bit dangerous. What I'm afraid of is some kind of Federal vs State showdown. For example, say the Feds enact some really heinous policies and they incense the Left or the Right badly at the state level. Some governor says "Screw you Feds, we won't enforce that and we won't even let you enforce it, either." Then the next thing you know you have state police or "guard" drawing down on ATF and FBI, possibly until they exit the state or try to bring in reinforcements. Either way is ba
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It'll die just as soon as someone with power decides that they want some extra votes. Economically, coal is dying all on its own, and no pledges are needed to make this happen. Politically though claiming you can save a few legacy jobs in an industry that is dying by dumping subsidies on it. Modern subsidies seem to be a complete waste of tax moneys; they made more sense when it was to encourage diverse farming practices rather than to prop up industries that can't stand on their own.
Coal mining employees
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The sketch:
trumpets
clap clap clap
ANNOUNCER: Ladies and gentlemen. The next contest is between... Frank Goliath, the Macedonian baby-crusher, and Boris M
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Why are you so fast to blame "Trump", when it has been the position of US since at least the non-ratification of the Kyoto protocol?
Re:Is this until the next election? (Score:4, Funny)
Well, I'm not the guy you're asking the question of, but here's my guess:
1. The current President beat Trump and basically disavows anything the Trump Department of Energy was working on except nuclear stockpile maintenance.
2. The current President just announced this policy change, among many other policies that concur with worldwide political efforts to reduce carbon output.
3. The former President is currently campaigning on rolling back the clock 5+ years on basically everything environmental or energy policy related, as if that's actually possible or something a majority of people in this country would want.
4. The former President pandered heavily to coal money and coal country in the last two elections, and there is absolutely no evidence he won't do the same now.
5. The former President has made it very clear that he couldn't give a fuck about anthropogenic climate change, and any policy that may slow, stop, or reverse it.
6. The former President is currently the front-runner to be the Republican nominee for President in 2024.
Seems like a decent line of logic for making the statement that "Trump would almost certainly reverse this" as he is one of the two people with the ability to possibly reverse it in the near future, and of that set, the only person that actually would consider it since the other person is the one enacting the anti-coal policy.
What exactly tripped you up there?
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Re:Is this until the next election? (Score:5, Interesting)
Trump's original campaign and administration proved you could run on policies that are bad for the economy and get a sizeable chunk of votes. Waste money on a wall that does nothing; re-enact protectionist policies long abandoned by fiscal conservatives, including trade wars that directly hurt the pocketbooks of US farmers. Economics in theory is something voters care about, but in practice there's a huge mass of voters who either don't care about the economy or are unable to connect the dots and see which policies will work and which don't. There's a reason that fiscal conservatives don't think Trump was conservative.
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On the up side since the USA prints it's own money he can't drive it into bankruptcy. ;-)
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Trump used the GOP's "Two Santas" scam.
http://www.milwaukeeindependen... [milwaukeeindependent.com]
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Because "Trump" is the figurehead for the school of act now think later.
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What "switch"? There is no "switch" until there is a commitment with a legal bite.
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But a purely economic approach hasn't worked, because our economic system doesn't account for (say) the huge economic problem of seaboard Florida being underwater in 20 years. On some economic level, it would make more sense for coal to have been phased out decades ago, even at a large cost of GDP, to avoid larger future loss of GDP due to global warming. Our current economic approach simply isn't complete enough.
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large cost of GDP, to avoid larger future loss
I understand that point. It's the "take the pain now" approach and I admit that it's logical, especially if it pans out and you can see it all in hindsight. However, things like this rarely pan out when it comes to the voters. They will refuse the acknowledge "exernalities" and only will see their electricity bills increasing. That is why it's better to focus on technical displacement instead of a losing game of coercion.
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There was no switch. What is "committing to the idea" in legal speak anyway? Per TFS, we are joining 56 other nations? Are those oil rich nations? What about China who vastly out-coals us? Britton with its huge coal legacy?
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Even his minions couldn't formulate a valid policy [vanityfair.com].
Re:Is this until the next election? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Any presidency is going to appoint diplomats, secretaries, envoys, bureaucrats, etc. You don't vote for the Secretary or State or Diplomat to France, but they do important government functions.
Re:Is this until the next election? (Score:5, Insightful)
My dude, I hate to tell you this, but the Executive branch, which is given authority over foreign relations and treaties by the Constitution, has exactly two elected individuals. There's an entire Department of State set up to conduct foreign relations, full of unelected people working under the authority of the Office of the President of the United States, because we don't have the President and Vice-President running around doing it personally. When Orange Mussolini was in office, it wasn't any different. When the next President is in office, it won't be any different.
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There is a reason why treaties - real ones - have to be ratified by the Senate, and with a 2/3 vote at that. Less serious changes may only require Congress to pass a law, which under the Constitution the President lacks the power to unilaterally enact.
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Good thing the United States joined the UNFCC [unfccc.int] with the advice and consent of the Senate then, isn't it.
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Trump would almost certainly reverse this
I guess it would depend on how we joined (ie.. with a congressionally approved treaty or just a presidential nod). However, look at the lack of progress on the Paris Climate goals. [courthousenews.com]. Of all the signatories only Gambia is on track to meet their goals. Clearly a system involving multilateral agreements is difficult or impossible as a solution. We need completely different thinking.
This issue here isn't Trump. He's a sideshow. The issue is twofold and pretty simple. People need energy for basic survival and
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Coal is not cheap.
The LCOE of solar is $29-$42 / MWh. The LCOE of coal is $159 to $65 / MWh. The LCOE of full time natural gas combined cycle is $73 to $ 44/MWh.
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US Promises to do what it's doing. (Score:2)
In other news, US also promises to use more Natural Gas.
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In other news, US also promises to use more Natural Gas.
Does that also include the hot air billowing from hypocrites mouths as they fly all around the United States in private jets under a "Special Envy" pollution exemption?
Does that also include shutting down decades-long red-tape corruption-profit centers that prevent nuclear plants from being built?
We can stop pretending NG will be the "cheap" solution for the next decade, as if Greed doesn't exist in that industry too. We can't even keep political corruption from raising gasonline prices every few months.
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Which is still an improvement over coal.
What, did you expect the US to swear off electricity? You first.
This should be the easiest uplift. (Score:3)
If you can't phase coal out, fuck it. Give up. Even if you don't accept the premise of climate change as the reason, the problem of particulate matter and the disaster that is mining should already be enough. Yes, it sucks to have a local economy that depends on coal mining. That's a shame, and I feel for you. But understand that's doomed - and it should be.
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I get it, it is scary, I have had to do it a few times and each time it gets harder. I used to live in the northeast, fishermen would complain that they weren't allowed to catch stripers any more, because they couldn't find ones that were large enough to legally catch... it never occured to them that the reason that they could
A big pile of nothing again (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's the correct order of operations:
1. Get something else in place that works
2. Get rid of coal plants
They keep forgetting #1 for some reason
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I've seen the studies on what works, and I would hope the politicians making energy policy did the same. What produces low CO2 emissions at low cost is nuclear fission, hydro, onshore wind, and geothermal. Maybe utility scale solar slides in a distant 5th place but there's an argument to be made that natural gas would be a better option.
Democrats love to put money into offshore wind and rooftop solar. The problem with those are they cost more than nuclear power, and produce more greenhouse gases. Oh, an
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I've seen the studies on what works, and I would hope the politicians making energy policy did the same. What produces low CO2 emissions at low cost is nuclear fission, hydro, onshore wind, and geothermal. Maybe utility scale solar slides in a distant 5th place but there's an argument to be made that natural gas would be a better option.
All the studies I've seen place solar around, and often below, the cost of onshore wind. For example: https://www.statista.com/stati... [statista.com]. And I think many of these studies underestimate how much PV costs are going to fall over the next few years.
I don't think we should focus on any one approach, personally, I think we should just let economics drive it (ideally with a carbon tax in place to internalize the emission externality, but that's probably politically infeasible). But I think solar performs bette
What are they replacing it with? (Score:5, Interesting)
This is not to "clean the climate," but to "clean public tax dollars" and put them in private accounts.
While I'm not an advocate for coal, it is possible to filter the exhaust sufficiently that the only escaping atmospheric pollution is on par with methane power production.
Ultimately, we need to change our forever growth economic model to a model based around human survival and quality of live. The Earth won't survive another 100 years of exponential growth in GDP.
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"Methane is 84 times more potent of a greenhouse gas than CO2 and all methods of extraction and transit are very leaky."
Which doesn't mean natural gas isn't superior to coal, not that anyone is accepting your premise that "they" are replacing coal with natural gas. Methane isn't a potent greenhouse gas after it is burned.
"This is not to "clean the climate," but to "clean public tax dollars" and put them in private accounts."
As if your stupid straw man is fact.
"While I'm not an advocate for coal, it is poss
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it is possible to filter the exhaust sufficiently that the only escaping atmospheric pollution is on par with methane power production.
Sure, it might be possible, but is it economical to do so?
If coal + filtering makes it more expensive per kWh than natgas turbines but without the quick start / stop you get from natgas turbines, guess which direction the utility companies are going to go for their capital investments?
They want cheap, and natgas can be turned off when not needed without multiple-hour startup times where you're burning fuel and not making a single watt trying to get the boiler hot again. So:
1. natgas is cheaper or cost-neut
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The Earth won't survive another 100 years of exponential growth in GDP
That depends on how we grow GDP. The largest factor that contributes to productivity is not natural resources or labor, it's knowledge, and knowledge has no inherent upper bound. We just need to ensure that we are focusing our development on minimizing negative environmental impact. As long as the incentives are aligned to increase productivity while minimizing (or even reversing) environmental impact, there's no reason that we can't both continue exponentially growing the economy and maintain or improve t
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While I'm not an advocate for coal, it is possible to filter the exhaust sufficiently that the only escaping atmospheric pollution is on par with methane power production.
Implying that exhaust is the only source of pollution and environmental damage? Even if what you said is true (it's not, the carbon intensity of coal is far higher than for natural gas, and most methane leaks are not related to methane production, but rather *oil* production), you conveniently ignore the massive devastation that is coal mining, the horrendous health impacts of transporting coal, and the wonderful giant dams of toxic tailings slurry that get stored (and in some cases wipe entire towns off a
Not all - "unabated" ones (Score:2)
Depending on your perspective, this one word makes this news much easier or harder to swallow.
This agreement still allows coal plants as long as they attempt to reduce their pollution, essentially using carbon capture which has questionable effectiveness.
https://billmckibben.substack.... [substack.com]
Just In Time For The Holiday Season (Score:2)
Looks like Santa Claus (Kris Kringle, Father Christmas, etc.) will have lots more coal to pass around this holiday season.
I just hope the power stays on when the outdoor air temps drop to bone-chilling levels because the alternative is a good supply of body bags.
Meaningless until China joins... (Score:2)
More than half of all coal fired power generation is from China - and they are currently building more (and in the last 7 years has built 6 times more than the rest of the world combined)
John who? (Score:2, Insightful)
John Kerry is a former senator and failed presidential candidate who never left town (Washington DC) and now gets appointed to positions that do not actually exist in our government and has no actual authority. Sure, a President can ask somebody to be a "special envoy" on this or that, effectively creating such posts, and announce that the appointee will be allowed to exercise some of the President's authority on a particular subject... but that's just a nice handout to a political ally and has no actual le
Meanwhile, in China (Score:2)
They are building new coal-powered power plants as fast as they can with no intention of stopping.
Good investment? (Score:2)
If the pension funds could get a far higher rate elsewhere, it would mean it was a bad investment. It's already the case that an awful lot of pension funds are in deficit...
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Compare and contrast with US Treasury bonds (Score:2)
Unless the rate that the nukes is offering is higher than that, then it's a BAD investment. Although very recent years saw remarkably low rates of interest, by historic standards this was a WEIRD period.
https://www.macrotrends.net/25... [macrotrends.net]
Re: Good investment? (Score:2)
Re: Good investment? (Score:2)
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You are a moron.
Projection [wikipedia.org]
So the government pays down 7% loans to 1%
LOL. The taxpayer does not bear any cost. 1% loans will be paid back. Plus remember the government can literally print money. If it was up to me I would just have the government build 200 new reactors.
why am I in TN paying for a power plant in Ohio?
Why am I in California paying for all of the funding red states receive like TN? Remember red states are welfare states while blue states are donor states. What about all of the 1% covid loans that were forgiven? Why am I paying for that?
There's a reason we don't do things like that, and it isn't because no one thought of it before...
Yet China is doing exactly that, and they are pla
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Pensioners would be thrilled with the 1% return on their retirement savings, right? Who doesn't love the idea of having their most important long-term investments set to a rate specially designed to screw them and give YOU a free benefit.
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Did you miss the word OR in my statement. I offered two solutions.
1 government backed loans at 1%. Which is what China is doing.
2 Fund new nuclear with public pension funds. The return from the nuclear power plant would be much greater than 1%.
Re: We need nuclear (Score:2)
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Sorry, if my retirement is being used to fund an investment, I'd rather it be an investment that can't get wiped out and turned into multi-billion dollar liability in an instant due to a private company with a profit motive to cut corners and reduce safety margins, and the entire profit upside is capped through regulated energy markets. Oh, and you won't see a nickel of return for the next 10 years while it gets kicked around the court system for years before the first pound of concrete is poured.
That's a
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Did you miss the word OR in my statement. I offered two solutions.
1 government backed loans at 1%. Which is what China is doing.
2 Fund new nuclear with public pension funds. The pension plan actually owns the nuclear power plant. The return from the nuclear power plant would be much greater than 1%.
60 years with annual profits exceeding 1 billion. That's a good return.
And the reason the economics are shit is because banks are charging 9-10% interest on them. Which ends up tripling costs. I offered two
Re: We need nuclear (Score:2)
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The one thing you nuclear shills can't ever grasp: the economics of building one of these things is currently absolute fucking shit, which is why almost nobody even tries.
And why is economics of it "absolute fucking shit"? Because anti-nuke advocates challenge each project on behalf of obscure wildlife, demanding decade-long environmental studies to study environmental impacts, and, so on.
The cost of actual construction/operation is very manageable, the legal costs defending the construction/operation are what sink the projects.
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2/3 of the cost of new nuclear energy is interest on loans. 2/3!!!
Quick, now do home mortgage interest costs...
It's insane that we let bankers take that much money. It is also a solvable problem. If we did what China is doing with their nuclear power plants and offered a 1% interest rate for clean energy, it would reduce the cost significantly.
No it doesn't, it shifts the borrowing costs somewhere else
Or we can fund new nuclear using public pension plans. That would be a great investment for the pension plan, and it would cut the cost by 2/3.
Do you even understand what you are saying?
You think pension plans are struggling to find investments that return 1%? (The only way you lower costs 2/3rds is by setting the interest rate at 1%, remember.)
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No it doesn't, it shifts the borrowing costs somewhere else
Yeah it shifts the borrowing costs away from the greedy bankers while lowering the interest significantly. The entire point is get rid of the crazy interest.
The only way you lower costs 2/3rds is by setting the interest rate at 1%, remember.
OR just pay for it outright. Remember I offered two solutions. The first government backed loans at 1% like China is doing. The second would be for public pension funds to just build new nuclear power plants without any interest.
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The only way you lower costs 2/3rds is by setting the interest rate at 1%, remember.
OR just pay for it outright. Remember I offered two solutions. The first government backed loans at 1% like China is doing. The second would be for public pension funds to just build new nuclear power plants without any interest.
You're ignoring the opportunity cost. You could spend five billion on a 1.4 GW nuclear plant and bring in maybe $5 to $10 per MWh, so multiply times 1400 * 24 * 365, and you get $61 million per year. In 40 to 80 years, you will have paid for the cost of construction. The plant will last maybe 60 years. If we optimistically assume the high side of that, you'll end up with $7.5 billion, or 50% profit in 60 years. That's like a 0.7% interest rate. You could stick the money in a low-yield savings account
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Your math is wrong. All though it would be nice to have electricty that costs half a penny per kWh. Just to note the average cost of a kWh here in California is 31 cents per kWh.
The math was based on numbers that are about a decade old, but things haven't changed too much since then. Remember that nuclear fuel costs, spent fuel disposal costs, and other basic operating costs typically eat most of the wholesale price of nuclear power. That $5 to $10 per MWh is what remains after all expenses are paid for. That spread is the profit on the plant, assuming you own the plant outright and are not paying back loans.
Also remember that most of the profits on electricity don't go to the g
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You are weirdly treating an investment of one kind as different from an investment of another kind. Your use of the word "or" doesn't have anything to do with it.
If I, or a bank, or a pension fund gives you ten billion dollars we expect some kind of return. That could be interest or dividends or increasing share price, but it doesn't really matter. It's just a name, some conventions about the repayment schedule, who gets paid first when you declare bankruptcy, and maybe some tax implications.
1% return is a
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If I, or a bank, or a pension fund gives you ten billion dollars we expect some kind of return
The public pension plan would have a return. A significant return. Billions annually for 60+ years. Much greater than 1 %. The 1 % return is from government backed loans.
Remember I offered two separate plans.
1) government backed loans at 1%. Which is what China is doing. And since it is the government they don't require a significant return.
2) Fund new nuclear with public pension funds. The pension plan actually owns the nuclear power plant. The return from the nuclear power plant would be much gr
A flaw in the constitution (Score:2)
Whereas most countries make entering treaties relatively straight forward, the US constitution makes it HARD. Therefore Presidents are restricted in what they can actually commit to.
The interesting question is whether this is a bug or a feature!
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Feature.
Government intrusion should be difficult to implement. Though I suspect most here might not believe it, less government is far preferable to more.
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That's...not what I said, but sure; let's go there.
I know it's my responsibility to create value and negotiate for myself, so that doesn't apply to me.
Bad example (Score:3)
The British succeeded in lowering working hours without significant government involvement in the 19th Century, and even time off emerged spontaneously:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
though in the latter case religious tradition may have helped.
Re: Bad example (Score:2)
Good challenge - except... (Score:2)
You're focusing on the role of the government in protecting CHILDREN, which did indeed become a major cause in the 19th century, and, yes, women were banned from working down coal mines. But that, and some health and safety legislation, was the limit of state action, and actually still is; there is no upper limit to the hours that people can work overall, though there are regulations about significant gaps between stopping and starting.
So overall the role of the STATE in controlling working hours for ADULTS
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Please point out the 40 hour work week treaty, they didn't cover it in my history classes...
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I think you would have a problem with promises generally, it would get in the way of back-stabbing and exploitation, two pillars of your tribe.
Re:Great until... (Score:4, Interesting)
Just like Democrats do - what do you think Biden (and Obama) did on their first day in office? They sat down and signed dozens and dozens of executive orders reversing what the previous administration implemented.
Biden - https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/2... [cnbc.com]
Obama and Trump - https://www.govexec.com/manage... [govexec.com]
It really is nothing new, and it is not unique to either party.
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And by "our quality of life" you, of course, mean "my quality of life" because, judging by what you have written on slashdot over the years, you don't give a shit about anyone else. It is kind of a bile fascination observing someone that egocentric, I must say.
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There's no doubt that they will continue to sell coal to any country that needs it.
Such as Germany?
Germany really shot themselves in the foot. They built all this intermittent wind and solar capacity, built a natural gas pipeline to Russia for heating and backup electricity, close their nuclear power plants, and then get all panicked for coal when Russia stops selling them gas.
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The state where I live hasn't generated a single watt of coal power since 15 October 2020. Utility rates are regulated and have not changed, and the demolition of the plant is scheduled to be complete by the end of this year. They basically tore down all the coal handling equipment and the boiler, but kept the electrical transformers and transmission equipment so they can put combined-cycle natgas turbines there instead.
Coal is done if even the utility companies don't want to operate it.
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Which state? And does your state draw power from neighboring states that do have coal-fired power plants? Burning the coal to generate power over the border doesn't change the climate impact, it just moves the pollutant generation a few miles down the road.
Unless your state is Texas, I'm pretty sure your interconnected with all your neighboring states...
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Depopulation is a natural consequence of a nation getting wealthier
The primary correlation for smaller family size is women's education.
But women's education tends to correlate quite strongly with wealth.
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Me - I want to see how Musk modifies his CyberTruck for "rolling coal".
Cigarette paper? Tobacco leaf? Musk rolled some interesting stuff on YouTube before, I'd like to see how he rolls coal too.