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White House Reportedly Exploring Wartime Rule To Help Coal, Nuclear (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: According to reports from Bloomberg and E&E News, the Trump Administration has been exploring another way to help coal and nuclear generators: the Defense Production Act of 1950. The Act was passed under President Truman. Motivated by the Korean War, it allows the president broad authority to boost U.S. industries that are considered a priority for national security. On Thursday, E&E News cited sources that said "an interagency process is underway" at the White House to examine possible application of the act to the energy industry. The goal would be to give some form of preference to coal and nuclear plants that are struggling to compete with cheap natural gas.
If the DOE decides not to invoke Section 202(c), the president may turn to the Defense Production Act. According to a 2014 summary report (PDF) from the Congressional Research Service (CRS), the act would allow the president to "demand priority for defense-related products," "provide incentives to develop, modernize, and expand defense productive capacity," and establish "a voluntary reserve of trained private sector executives available for emergency federal employment," among other powers. (Some even more permissive applications of the Act were terminated in 1957.) Using the Act to protect coal and nuclear facilities would almost certainly be more controversial, as the link between national defense and keeping uneconomic coal generators running is not well-established. The Administration could apply the Act to "provide or guarantee loans to industry" for material-specific deliveries and production. "The president may also authorize the purchase of 'industrial items or technologies for installation in government or private industrial facilities,'" reports Ars.
If the DOE decides not to invoke Section 202(c), the president may turn to the Defense Production Act. According to a 2014 summary report (PDF) from the Congressional Research Service (CRS), the act would allow the president to "demand priority for defense-related products," "provide incentives to develop, modernize, and expand defense productive capacity," and establish "a voluntary reserve of trained private sector executives available for emergency federal employment," among other powers. (Some even more permissive applications of the Act were terminated in 1957.) Using the Act to protect coal and nuclear facilities would almost certainly be more controversial, as the link between national defense and keeping uneconomic coal generators running is not well-established. The Administration could apply the Act to "provide or guarantee loans to industry" for material-specific deliveries and production. "The president may also authorize the purchase of 'industrial items or technologies for installation in government or private industrial facilities,'" reports Ars.
I keep hearing all this bullshit from one side of the aisle about the "free market" being the best thing ever but then when the free market stops promoting their favorite industries then they suddenly need to swoop in and bail them out. What's worse is that they are rapidly expending shared capital: our uncontaminated environment.
The truth of the matter is that goods (including energy generation) should have to pay for the pollution caused by their production. That money can then in turn be used to remove said pollution from the environment. This is how the free market should really be and it would be utterly devastating to regressive industries that pay no mind to the damage they do to our environment.
Unleash the free market and destroy those who are hellbent on destroying the planet.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Natural gas is not merely cheap, it also has a relatively low time to spool up for on-demand loads. Coal has a much harder time. Solar and wind have both problems with intermittency and peak loads. While grids can smooth that a bit there's no solution for that in the power source itself. Someday we will have flow batteries to handle surges and bridge short intermittencies, but even when those become technologically mature it's not likely they will have capacities in the giga-joule hour range. So that means some sort of base production with reasonably fast spin up times.
Germany perversely solves this problem by burning coal (cause it's cheaper there than gas, and nukes are out). They solve the spin up time problem by just running the plants all the time whether power is needed or not, then selling the power they don't need to their neighbors over the grid. Sometimes they even sell at a loss. It makes sense to sell at a loss since some money is better than no money if you were going to produce the power anyhow. So ironically the more they deploy solar the more coal they burn.
But if we do have things like flow batteries working for us, it's not just good for solar. It's also good for nuclear power too. These have slower spin up times than gas, but they may be cheaper (depending on how you factor in the externalities of waste and CO2 pollution and mining and fracking). So having stored energy like a battery also helps these become a reliable power source too.
Thus it seems like the future ideal power mix is Nuke+Solar/wind+battery and some off line gas plants for emergencies.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Re Trump and his approval rating among Republicans. It is possible that the Republicans have chased a fair number of the normal people out of the Party that simply cannot stomach him. So his approval rating would remain high in the left over dregs.
GOP are bigger on it, but if anybody thinks that is the only way, they are kidding themselves.
Dems support of Hollywood and Silicon Valley comes quickly to mind.
Clinton publicly promised to kill off H1B, and the privately promised to increase it from 50K yearly to 500K yearly.
Not much difference between her and Trump/top GOP.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
ROFL.
What jobs will Americans NOT do? We do them all, just not at below minimum wage.
And the illegals are actually bankrupting companies. The reason is that most are paid less than minimum, but more than their own nations pay (hence why they are here). It is the same issue for Europe and even China now.
BUT, the fact is, that illegals have taken many high paying jobs. For example, construction used to pay good money. Back in early 80s, I was paid $8-12 / hr for doing labor and $13-20/hr for carpenter work. Now, illegals are making the same amount of money, but not paying taxes.
BUT, if they go home, then our military vets can get paid decently, and we can automate a lot. Same as what is seen in other nations all over the world.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.