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Senate Passes Bipartisan Energy Bill To Develop New Technologies, Improve Cybersecurity (washingtonpost.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Washington Post: The U.S. Senate acted in a bipartisan fashion to pass a sweeping energy bill, touching on everything from cybersecurity for power plants to the future of the grid. The bill resulted from collaboration between Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Washington Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell. The bill, if it merges with House legislation and becomes law, would unleash billions in research and development on new energy technologies, including energy storage, hydrokinetic and marine energy and advancing the electric grid. Many of these initiatives have substantial aisle-crossing appeal, and some could, at least indirectly, help address the problem of climate change. The bill also reauthorizes the Land and Water Conservation Fund, and contains provisions promoting more research on the sequestering of carbon emissions from coal burning and hastening the approval of pipelines and liquefied natural gas exports. The bill, said Alliance to Save Energy president Kateri Callahan, "not only saves homeowners and businesses money and creates jobs, but it also has a huge environmental return by avoiding 1.5 billion tons of carbon emissions. Energy efficiency truly is a win-win-win for our country, making our economy more energy productive, protecting our environment and enhancing our energy security."
Which oligarch comes out on top with this bill? I mean, it's talking about "job creation", so it stands to reason that someone profits massively, right?
And yes, I am a disillusioned foreign observer of American politics.
fold to the Republicans again.
The future is now, and simple "win-win" strategies are no longer good enough! We're only going to accept 110%... no make that 120% effort and "win-win-win" results. Of course, if other countries adopt "win-win-win-win" strategies, rest assured we'll be looking at future "win-win-win-win-win" initiatives even more closely. Energy bill bipartisanship FTWWW!
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
US Senate passes bill creating a slush fund for campaign contributors.
227-3517
Overly strict thorium regulations are the reason why America is losing jobs to China. It's found where rare earth materials like neodymium and dysprosium are found, and so it hampers US mining. Thorium reactors are far safer than uranium reactors, they don't have a pressure vessel to explode, and shut themselves down if they overheat or lose power. Thorium salt reactors can reduce nuclear waste by using it as fuel. You can't manufacture wind generators, cars, smartphones, solar pannels, etc. unless you have access to rare earth minerals. China has a corner on the MFG market because it allows rare earth mining and is building Thorium reactors... They'll have all the patents on the tech if we don't step up our game.
Thorium is wrongly classified as a source material for making nuclear bombs: It's not a source material or we'd have made bombs out of Thorium instead of plutonium and uranium. The old rickety uranium nuclear reactors are more dangerous because they operate under pressure, they only use 5% of a fuel rod, but they were built because we needed the enriched uranium to make nuclear weapons.
We need to have thorium reactors.
I bothered myself to take a look for various reasons. It had a section on data centers. I swear I have never seen a more buzzword filled paragraph ever. It even had a section on "reducing water usage in data centers" that went on. Clearly they didn't get that data centers get cooler and more efficient by THEIRSELVES.
"Senate Passes Bipartisan Energy Bill"
Wait... the Senate can do something bipartisan???? I thought that wasn't allowed anymore!
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
How can a *bi-partisan* bill get passed? Seems impossible given recent descriptions of Congress.
OTOH, it seems that bi-partisan bills are often pork barrels and little else.
Rather than a real compromise that tries to incorporate and balance the best ideas of both sides, these sorts of bills seem to just have equal parts of bad ideas with enough funding that almost all players "get something".
Taxpayers get something too, but it's the pointy end of the stick.
Seriously, we need to get these companies going on building small reactors that can burn up nuke waste, and give cheap SAFE energy.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Seriously, the Senate tends to put partisanship aside. At least for now.
OTOH, the house does not. And that is why this bill was passed by the senate and not the house.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
It remains to be seen if the house will put America first and back something similar.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
This bill was about exactly two things:
hastening the approval of pipelines and liquefied natural gas exports
Nothing else in that bill matters to our rulers, and nothing else in there will happen.
Hahahahahahaha
Cyber
In my mind any energy plan that does not include nuclear power is going to fail. This is especially true if this energy plan includes a desire to reduce carbon output.
To those of you that claim nuclear power is too dangerous, too expensive, or too much whatever else I say that if this is true then global warming is not a threat. Besides hydro electric power nothing beats nuclear power on safety, price, availability, or reduction in carbon output. If global warming threatens the lives of billions then we can do nuclear power to save them even in the highly unlikely event that means another Chernobyl.
Wind, solar, and whatever else that is "green" just cannot provide the energy we need. Any reliance on some future technology to make them viable again means that global warming is not a threat. If we can wait 20 years for fusion to come along, meaning we keep burning coal until then, means that global warming is not a threat.
Since the US Senate has not passed a bill that includes support for nuclear power then they don't seem to believe that global warming is a threat. By "support" I don't mean subsidies, there are other ways to show support besides money. Requiring the US DOE to actually do their job and provide a path free from fossil fuels would be a start.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
How will they improve security by forcing backdoors into encryption?
How many KWH does bipartisan energy generate?
Can one assume it is wind-based originating from congressional blowhards?
There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
The more I listen to members of congress the more I want the stocks brought back. Set up about 30 of them on the Mall and then I'll own the
rotten tomato concession. When any member of congress or the president fucks up, it's in the stocks for three days getting pelted with rotten tomatoes.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
There must be some freedom-trampling involved, because otherwise why would you bundle "cybersecurity" (ugh) with energy?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Have you seen what some of these freaks are even *into*? Their graphic descriptions of just what they're going to do to their little pug "as soon as gay marriage is allowed" and all those other threats they make?
And you want to tie them up and hit them with soft fruit? I SAY NAY! We should not be risking 3 days of some creepy old bastard having orgasms and then going right back to screwing us!
We use the French approach, that their heads get an off we'll not be forced to shield our children's eyes from!
Anytime a bill is bipartisan, you better believe everyone is getting screwed.