US Invests $20 Billion More to Finance Clean-Energy Projects (msn.com) 86
Thursday America's Environmental Protection Agency "awarded $20 billion to help finance clean-energy projects across the country," reports the Washington Post.
The money comes from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund established by President Biden's signature climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act. The fund seeks to leverage public and private dollars to invest in clean-energy technologies such as solar panels, heat pumps and more.
The program is potentially one of the most consequential — yet least understood — parts of the climate law...
Simply put, the program allows people to access low-interest loans for clean-energy projects that they might not otherwise have received. Imagine a community group that wants to install electric vehicle charging stations at its neighborhood recreation center but can't get a loan from a bank or a lender. As is often the case, potential lenders say they're hesitant to support a novel green technology or a business without a track record of success. Low-income and minority communities have long encountered such obstacles in trying to attract private capital. The program aims to overcome this problem by providing a huge influx of federal cash — $27 billion in total — for nonprofit organizations to dole out to clean-energy projects nationwide. Each nonprofit will serve as a "green bank" that offers more favorable lending rates than commercial banks. "It's just really hard to get banks to bring capital into low-income communities, especially for these new projects that they're not used to financing," said Adrian Deveny, the founder of the firm Climate Vision and the former director of energy and environmental policy for Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), a key architect of the Inflation Reduction Act....
The EPA is awarding money to eight nonprofits, which have committed to leverage nearly $7 in private capital for every $1 of federal investment. The nonprofits have also pledged to ensure that at least 70 percent of the funds will benefit disadvantaged communities, and that the financed projects will reduce up to 40 million metric tons of carbon dioxide a year — equivalent to the annual emissions of nearly 9 million gasoline-powered cars... [The nonprofit] Coalition for Green Capital, will use a $5 billion award to establish a "national green bank," co-founder and CEO Reed Hundt said. "We're going to be able to cause about $100 billion of total additional investment over a seven-year time period with that number, because we can leverage it," Hundt said.
The program is potentially one of the most consequential — yet least understood — parts of the climate law...
Simply put, the program allows people to access low-interest loans for clean-energy projects that they might not otherwise have received. Imagine a community group that wants to install electric vehicle charging stations at its neighborhood recreation center but can't get a loan from a bank or a lender. As is often the case, potential lenders say they're hesitant to support a novel green technology or a business without a track record of success. Low-income and minority communities have long encountered such obstacles in trying to attract private capital. The program aims to overcome this problem by providing a huge influx of federal cash — $27 billion in total — for nonprofit organizations to dole out to clean-energy projects nationwide. Each nonprofit will serve as a "green bank" that offers more favorable lending rates than commercial banks. "It's just really hard to get banks to bring capital into low-income communities, especially for these new projects that they're not used to financing," said Adrian Deveny, the founder of the firm Climate Vision and the former director of energy and environmental policy for Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), a key architect of the Inflation Reduction Act....
The EPA is awarding money to eight nonprofits, which have committed to leverage nearly $7 in private capital for every $1 of federal investment. The nonprofits have also pledged to ensure that at least 70 percent of the funds will benefit disadvantaged communities, and that the financed projects will reduce up to 40 million metric tons of carbon dioxide a year — equivalent to the annual emissions of nearly 9 million gasoline-powered cars... [The nonprofit] Coalition for Green Capital, will use a $5 billion award to establish a "national green bank," co-founder and CEO Reed Hundt said. "We're going to be able to cause about $100 billion of total additional investment over a seven-year time period with that number, because we can leverage it," Hundt said.
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Conveniently there is always another meth head in line to steal the copper or anything else they can get after the first meth head shorts it out.
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The charging cables aren't live until plugged into an EV and they handshake on an agreed voltage and current, there would not be a "zap" from chopping off the cables if not connected to a vehicle.
Found the meth head who has been stealing all the charger cables. (I kid, I kid...)
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Then imagine the meth heads stealing the cords.
After trying to charge at two broken charges at a Whole Foods, you're not too far from the truth. There seems to be a collective delusion that EV chargers are these magical things which require no supervision or maintenance, and then when they break or get vandalized and more money is required to fix them, suddenly it's surprised Pikachu face.
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Yes.
Tesla does a good job of maintenance keeping their chargers operational (99+%).
Everybody else lets them rot.
These new government regulations now specify a 97% up time to qualify for the subsidy
Re:Finally somebody gets it (Score:4, Interesting)
Just as the Inflation Reduction Act drastically lowered inflation, this elegant legislation will surely fix all our weather problems. Let's hope other politicians see the brilliance in solving literally every problem under the sun by shoveling more money into the burn pit of more and bigger government programs.
To be fair, inflation *is* down a LOT -- 9% to 3.15% (3.2% as of the following article in Aug 2023) -- but ... from Inflation is down, but the Inflation Reduction Act likely doesn’t deserve the credit [pbs.org]
While price increases have cooled over the past year — the inflation rate has dropped from 9 percent to 3.2 percent — most economists say little to none of the drop came from the law.
So why the name? It may ultimately help to hold down prices in the future — and it fit the politics of the moment.
“I wish I hadn’t called it that because it has less to do with reducing inflation than it has to do with providing alternatives that generate economic growth,” Biden said ...
Re:Finally somebody gets it (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course the Inflation Reduction Act reduced inflation. It's in the name of the bill! /s
Well... it's less ironically named than many other things in and coming out of Congress, like the House "Freedom Caucus". :-)
For more wrt bill names, see In Congress, the name of a bill may have nothing to do with what’s in it – it’s all about salesmanship [theconversation.com] ...
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Undo mod mistake.
Re:Finally somebody gets it (Score:4, Informative)
That nonsense BS only works on people who don't understand what inflation is or how it's calculated by the govt to release those official BS stats. Prices aren't going down, that just means prices were be 3.15% higher than the 9% higher they were the year before. 12.5% higher than whatever percentage they were from the year before that.
So you're saying you don't understand how the Inflation *Rate* works? It's now lower, meaning that prices rise at a slower rate. For prices to go down, the inflation rate would have to be negative (deflation) -- Google it.
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You want a real indicator of inflation? Look at the cost of the good nearly every American buys to keep up with the Joneses, the latest and greatest cell phone from Apple and Samsung and accompanying plans from the major providers. Since Biden assumed office housing has tripled and they've gone from $300 phones to barely improved $1200 phones and both have sold like hotcakes despite virtually nobody being able to afford them meaning there is enough cash and credit [spendable money] floating around to buy them and inflation of at least as much.
IPhone 12 was launched in 2020, at a price of 799 USD. IPhone 15 was launched in 2023, at a price of....wait for it... 799 USD. The world of "let's make up facts" is very harmful for civil discourse and democracy.
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The world of "let's make up facts" is very harmful for civil discourse and democracy.
It starts with religion, where made up beliefs are held more sacred than hard observable and repeated measurements and it just spreads from there. Finding solutions to the problems in objective reality is hard enough, we don’t need made up beliefs making it even more intractable. Just look at who this infighting benefits and where the money and fruits of actual labor are concentrating and it suddenly makes quite a bit of sense why outrage fear bait and division tactics has such money behind it.
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So you thought you'd make some up? Neither the IPhone 12 nor the IPhone 15 launched at $799 and neither did Apple's flagship phone which is the pro max, the flagship IPhone 15 Pro Max is $1599 from Apple.com right now. Note the price difference is greater than it appears, Apple removed about $150 worth of basic accessories which have to be purchased seperately.
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No, the rate just needs to be below target until the actual prices converge with where they'd be if they'd been on target all along. Currently they are still well above target, meaning we are still moving in the wrong direction and the longer this continues the longer it would take to fix [already more than a decade 0 inflation].
In reality, it is highly questionable whether the index used to measure inflation gave an accurate indicator of overall reduction in spending power of the dollar, the inflation redu
Re: Finally somebody gets it (Score:1)
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Furthermore, I get the impression some of you people think that when inflation drops, the prices go down.. THEY DO NOT ...
Yup, that would be "deflation" -- as I noted in another post. A lower (positive) inflation *rate* just mean prices are going up more slowly.
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"Only the overall inflation rate was 9% to 3.15%.. When you zoom in on specific sectors, the numbers are a fuckton worse than that.."
Yup
"Furthermore, I get the impression some of you people think that when inflation drops, the prices go down.. THEY DO NOT.. Having an increase of 25% that then drops to 0% (for example) means all of the prices remain where they were at the 25% mark... When inflation drops to 0%, the prices don't go up further, but they NEVER drop down (until you have deflation). So a $1.00 wi
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Also worth noting it doesn't solve the inflation problem to simply reduce the rate of ADDITIONAL inflation, you actually need a period of below target inflation that lasts long enough for us to get back in sync with where pricing would have been without any inflation.
It is also also worth noting that the inflation reduction act did little more than target the indicators of inflation... we measure the price of bread as an indicator, you haven't fixed the inflation that indicator clues us in on by subsidizing
Re: Finally somebody gets it (Score:2)
So we are becoming poorer at a slower pace, cute.
Here's a thought, how about we stop printing money and aim for NO inflation?
Re: Finally somebody gets it (Score:1)
First of all, inflation is currently higher than 3%, second of all those are compounding numbers. As with interest, every year you add on more inflation, you pay in more and more money. There hasnâ(TM)t been any reduction in inflation, it has only gone up, and that is the problem. We are now at 25% inflation on most goods over the last 4 years and salaries havenâ(TM)t kept up.
Same game is played with government spending, just because I overdrafted $1000 last month and this month I only overdraft $
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First of all, inflation is currently higher than 3%, ...
You're confusing, or conflating, inflation with the inflation rate, which is current;y 3.2%. The rest of your commentary can be corrected/adjusted based on that. For prices to go down, the inflation *rate* would have to be negative, which would be deflation. In general, prices go up over time, for a variety of reasons, some controllable some not.
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It was said "inflation is down a LOT". Inflation reduction means the inflation is reducing. The inflation is not reducing because the inflation rate is not going down significantly. If you have 15% inflation in year 1, you need -13% year 2 to get to a so-called healthy 2% inflation rate. Ideally you'd have -17% just to give back what you stole the first year around.
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So imagine you have toenail fungus and cancer, if somebody offers you the cure for cancer are you're gonna say "no thanks, it won't fix my toenail fungus!"?
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Broken equivalence.
Imagine someone is bleeding you 9 times a day and they've offered to only bleed you 3 times a day, meanwhile 1.5 of those cuts a day is what your body can sustain and break even due to new blood production. At 3 bleedings a day you are still going to die and you might already have lost enough blood that you'll die in any case. Your only real chance is to reduce below 1.5 bleedings a day so that your body can get a net positive blood production.
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They grant it to themselves via the fuzzy concept of "promote the general Welfare".
Yes.
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Where does the federal government get the legal authority to "invest" in "clean energy?"
They grant it to themselves via the fuzzy concept of "promote the general Welfare". Yes.
Probably National Defense too as more local clean energy could lessen the dependence on foreign imports.
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The US isn't dependent upon foreign imports now.
The US both imports and export oil depending on type of oil, refining capability and other factors. See:
-- Why the U.S. Must Import and Export Oil [api.org]
-- Why importing and exporting oil makes sense [washingtonpost.com]
And other sources: Google: why does US import and export oil [google.com]
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We are in a very technical sense. There is easier to refine oil than what we produce so we tend to import the cheap to refine oil and sell the harder to refine oil we produce. But we literally own the technology required to refine all of the above and to refine damn near every hydrocarbon source out there as well as turn just about anything organic into hydrocarbons we can refine.
From what the folks working rigs around Houston have told me most of the refineries actually already have the capability to refin
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We would be taking our goddamn flying fusion-powered cars to Texaco (trust your car to the system with a star!) and nobody would've given a damn about the mid
Re:Question (Score:5, Informative)
Where does the federal government get the legal authority to "invest" in "clean energy?"
Where does the federal government get the legal authority to "invest" in electric vehicles? Where does the federal government get the legal authority to "invest" in coal companies? Where does the federal government get the legal authority to "invest" in oil companies?
I'm pretty familiar with the constitution and I don't see the word "invest" in Congress' enumerated powers.
Clearly you're not familiar with the Constitution. Congress has the purse strings. They can spend the money as they see fit. All a president can do is say yes or no. But since you asked:
To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.
Could bullshit like this be the reason we're $30 trillion in debt?
Yes. Investing in coal, and oil, and natural gas, and sugar, and car companies in general, has led to the $30 trillion in debt. Blame Congress. They have the purse strings.
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So according to you there are no limits on Congress' authority.
Correct. Because we all know here (as do you since you said you're familiar with it) that the constitution is only one sentence long.
Dumbass
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You reduced the entire document to "purse strings." Then you avoided my question because you know what you are saying makes no sense.
If there are no limits on Congress' authority, then Congress can simply repeal the Constitution and start herding everyone into gulags.
If there are limits, then why don't we abide by those that were ratified in 1789 instead of making shit up?
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"To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof."
Congress has the explicit authority to do make the laws needed to do their job. So what are the "foregoing powers?" Well one of them... the first one listed in fact... is the authority to provide, and collect taxes to pay for, the defense and general welfare of the nation.
It is
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Congress has the explicit authority to do make the laws needed to do their job.
Fine. Then if Congress has unlimited power, they can repeal the Constitution, grant themselves prima nocta and find some new brides to fuck. Gotta pick a lane. Either we are a nation of laws or we are a nation of subjects.
So what are the "foregoing powers?
They're listed in Article I, Section 8.
general welfare of the nation.
Delivering wads of cash to some random non-profit organization does not fit that description.
It is unarguably in the nation's interest - its general welfare - to decouple our energy needs from international market influences for the sake of our independence and national security
The same argument can be made for any pretended crisis. Congress already has the power to "decouple" our energy needs from international markets because they
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Even presuming that your premise is correction (which non-profit organization would that be?), a large portion of the electorate and a string of court decisions say otherwise, so you'll just have to ineffectually rage at the country for "doing it wrong."
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> I helped build the Internet, Tubby. I know its history backwards and forwards. The federal government played a minimal role, if that.
Unless you're in your 70s, you're a lying sack of shit [blogspot.com]. Also wrong even if you are that old. (FYI $124.5M in 1970s money is about $1B today when you adjust for inflation)
And that's not even including all the investments since that initial research, like the High-Performance Computing Act of 1991 which threw another $1B at it ($2.3B today's value) to actually built the phy
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Unless you're in your 70s, you're a lying sack of shit [blogspot.com].
Son, I wrote and published one of the first 15,000 web sites. I uploaded it through twisted copper from a machine with 4MB of RAM. I've written production code on every enterprise platform invented since 1975. I've forgotten more about computers and networking than you'll ever know. Don't lecture me.
By the way, if you're trying to assert your technology knowledge, linking "blogspot" is not the best option.
The number of man-hours funded in the private sector vs. government man-hours for the Internet is a rat
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> Son, I wrote and published one of the first 15,000 web sites.
That's great! Lots of people had shitty Geocities blogs, though. Doesn't mean you know shit about the internet, which you clearly don't if this is the credentials you front with. (And if you really know anything about the history of the internet, you'll know why Geocities specifically is relevant to your claim lol)
> Chickenshit money
0.09% of the federal budget for that year. The money you're complaining about now? 0.3%. Where's the line? A
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While some things can obviously be extrapolated (as in, your right to be secure from unreasonable searches of your papers and effects extends to modern "effects" which the Founders would have believed represented straight-up working magic), other issues which
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Maybe because just about everyone who isn't deliberately being ignant recognizes that trying to run a fully industrialized and computerized 21st century society based on a document from a late 18th century agrarian society and nothing else is insane?
Oh I see. So what date would you consider the proper cutoff? Before what date can we say "everything prior to this is insane so we can ignore it?" How about 1940? That gives us about 80 years of modern advancement. Oh sure, we lose two states and six constitutional amendments but at least we're not being insane.
If Congress believes their powers are too antiquated to deal with modern life, they can propose an amendment to the states for ratification. And if the states say no, the answer is no. That's cal
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Congress has no legal authority at all to give taxpayer money to non-profits as "investments" in clean energy.
Funny how you only mentioned clean energy and skipped right over all those other energies. And everything else Congress has invested in. Apparently you're fine with Congress having the authority to invest in the ones you like, but not others. Even more, apparently you're fine with Congress giving taxpayer money to companies i.e. for profits. How many hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars are s
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Funny how you only mentioned clean energy and skipped right over all those other energies. And everything else Congress has invested in. Apparently you're fine with Congress having the authority to invest in the ones you like, but not others.
Allow me to quote myself:
"Congress has no legal authority to 'invest' in anything for any reason."
If they make a law which says they can use taxpayer money to invest in whatever, and the president agrees, guess what. They can.
Congress has the specific, limited authority to do what the Constitution says they can do, and nothing else. Their enumerated powers are listed in Article I Section 8. They are forbidden to exercise any other powers by the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.
Which is exactly what they've been doing for over 200 years.
And neatly explains why we're $30 trillion in debt.
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Perhaps you should cite such articles. Then read them aloud to yourself. And finally: grasp them.
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Yes
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You're not very familiar with the Constitution if you don't see the words "provide for the... general Welfare of the United States" and understand what it means [congress.gov]. If your argument is as basic as "Congress can spend money," hence that part of Article I, section 8, clause 1 being known as the Spending Clause, "but it
Where does the money come from? (Score:1, Insightful)
$300 trillion? (Score:2, Insightful)
And me. And most Slashdotters. And all of our progeny for the foreseeable future.
I've often thought about what the end of all of this spending looks like, way, way in the future. Will people who have our debt be able to take actual states from us? Shipping ports? If so, how? There is no world court to handle this that I understand. Anyone care to speculate?
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I'm assuming the US economy hasn't collapsed because some clever people somewhere are telling those representatives what they want to hear while enacting the best policies they can under the circumstances.
Fiscal conservatism has been popular among both US parties for several decades now. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] It's
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Anyone care to speculate?
The American military is so incredibly powerful for many reasons, among the most important is forcing adoption of the dollar onto as many other world economies as possible. Right now, 65 fiat currencies are pegged to the dollar, not even counting other currencies and markets that trade in dollars. This way, when the money printer goes “brrrrrrrr” you can print far more money and not suffer inflation because it’s much harder to dilute the entire planet. As a bonus, debt is good because
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Interesting, thanks for your reply. By 'redistribution of favors', you mean domestically?
Historically yes, but the reality now is corporations and political donors are now intertwined with both domestic and foreign influences. Money is being given out as favors, and those favors are in return laundered as donations, often indirectly, to political campaigns and the cycle repeats. Dollars are not a zero sum game, even the value they represent is arcane and nebulous even if it’s backed by physical goods and services.
Is it possible for foreign countries to eventually unionize and rebel?
This would be a real concern, so disinformation and other campaigns
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Congress creates money on paper when they approve government spending. We're not on the gold standard anymore grandpa.
Re: Where does the money come from? (Score:2)
Wouldn't the bigger question be about, you know, the rest of the two or three trillion, as opposed to a small investment that likely pays for itself very quickly if it loosens up any kind of economic growth whatsoever, as it seems like it would have to at a ratio of 7 private dollars for every public dollar spent?
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Wouldn't the bigger question be about, you know, the rest of the two or three trillion, as opposed to a small investment that likely pays for itself very quickly if it loosens up any kind of economic growth whatsoever, as it seems like it would have to at a ratio of 7 private dollars for every public dollar spent?
Sure...If you want to totally ignore the fact that the $20 billion is 100% debt. That's kind of like a person who has a million dollars in credit card debt adding another $20,000 for an "investment".
We all know the only way to not be broke is to spend less than you take in.. The government should operate no differently. Spend less than revenue and build a fucking emergency fund... Then when shit hits the fan you don't have to dig yourself into a debt hole... Once you've got a solid surplus built up
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The automobile turned having a horse from a commodity into a luxury.
The automobile made it possible for the real estate market to reach a point where most people find it acceptable to own or rent properties where it would be infeasible to keep a horse. Horses themselves are still just the same slow and smelly form of transportation that they've always been.
Re:This will not likely end well. (Score:5, Informative)
Also worth remembering that horses poop. A lot. A horse produces about 20 pounds of manure per day.
At the turn of the 20th century, New York City had an estimated 100,000 horses. That's about 2 million pounds of horse poop per day. Naturally this wasn't a problem unique to NYC.
To bring this back on topic; MacMann posts are similarly a nearly unmanageable amount of horse shit. For example, he conveniently disregards the billions of federal dollars poured into automotive infrastructure in the first half of the 20th century, so say nothing of the billions more spent on propping up the fossil fuel industry to power them.
We needed government funds to get those technologies into common use then, and I'd argue we need them more so today because we're up against much more powerful and entrenched incumbent industries.
=Smidge=
Re:This will not likely end well. (Score:5, Insightful)
In the fine article is a mention that the government will be extending loans to energy projects that banks will not because the banks believe these project are not likely to be able to pay back the loan with interest. If the government extends the loan then somehow these projects will prove profitable? Not likely.
No, it doesn't say that. It says simply that it is difficult to get banks to invest in low income areas. You make the assumption that it is because they can't make a profit, but that isn't how things work. It is simply because they can make MORE of a profit elsewhere. This is just leveling out opportunity cost.
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The government is not subsidizing anything.
They are giving out cheap loans, to projects that otherwise would get no loan.
That is exactly what a government is for.
Next in EPA green project news... (Score:3)
More reparations... (Score:2)
"The nonprofits have also pledged to ensure that at least 70 percent of the funds will benefit disadvantaged communities"
It shouldn't take long to find a non-profit denied for refusing this pledge or someone rejected by one of the non-profits for failing to meet the criteria. Then the whole thing gets squished under the equal protection clause.
clean (Score:2)
"Clean" is not what is normally meant by "clean."
More like 20 billion (Score:2)