Chicago Mayor Releases Roadmap For Transitioning To 100 Percent Renewable Energy By 2035 (pv-magazine-usa.com)

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanual has released a roadmap for transitioning to 100% renewable energy by 2035 and to an electric Chicago Transit Authority bus fleet by 2040. The move is especially noteworthy as there are 11 nuclear reactors in operation in Illinois. From a report: Yesterday, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel unveiled the Resilient Chicago plan, which with action number 38 commits to "transition to 100% clean, renewable energy in buildings community-wide by 2035." The deadline for all city government buildings to be powered solely by renewables, first established in 2017, has been brought forward to 2025. The policy has been introduced as part of environmental group the Sierra Club's "Ready for 100" campaign, and Chicago is the largest city to join the effort to date. (Editor's note: While Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti has announced his city is on a path to 100% renewable energy, it is not clear if the formal goal is 100% renewable or 100% zero-carbon, and LA is not included in the Sierra Club's Ready for 100 list.)

The language of the Resilient Chicago text says "clean, renewable energy," and the Sierra Club does not include nuclear as part of its Ready to 100 campaign. The new policy is a particularly interesting move for Emanuel, once considered one of the more pro-nuclear politicians in the Democratic Party, and a man who brokered the deal that created Exelon. Were Chicago to include nuclear in a 2035 target, it would require either buying power from existing plants instead of investing in new generation, or starting new nuclear plants within six years. Given the high cost of nuclear compared to wind and solar, few decision makers are contemplating that option.

Comments

Re:Sierra Club

[Barsteward]

best you read the summary again, its the Chicago Mayor making the running on 100% renewables. They join the "ready to 00 club" like you do when you join the "mile high club"

Total bullshit for higher power bills

[Chas]

They're going to basically spend all this money paying for power from "renewable" sources.
Yet, in all likelihood, they're going to be delivered locally generated power from nuclear sources.
And exactly HOW many cars are on the road in Chicago EVERY DAMN DAY?

Also, Metra DOES have one Electric district train setup.
But the majority of their trains are diesel.

So shortsighted...

If they were REALLY looking to make big gains, they'd go after low-hanging fruit in building retrofits.
Remember, roughly 40% of ALL energy demand in the country is for HVAC load.

Take a thermal camera and look at most Chicago buildings.
They leak heat like a sieve.
Basically this means that excessive amounts of money are being spent trying to keep these buildings at livable temperatures, because they're losing heat via conduction and convection.

Simple changes in building codes for new and retrofit construction, along with incentives to do so could yield massive decreases in energy CONSUMPTION.

Re:Total bullshit for higher power bills

[Registered Coward v2]

Simple changes in building codes for new and retrofit construction, along with incentives to do so could yield massive decreases in energy CONSUMPTION.

Simple? Maybe for you. For property owners, it's an unfunded mandate, basically modern day slavery.

Which is why I think they way to do that is offer incentives, rather than mandate improvements, to reduce consumption. If a property owner doesn’t want to participate then they don’t get any of the incentives. Building owners get to weigh the incentives plus reduced energy costs vs. retrofit costs and decide what they want to do.

Re:Total bullshit for higher power bills

[thegarbz]

And exactly HOW many cars are on the road in Chicago EVERY DAMN DAY?

Exactly! We should only ever focus on one cause, even if transportation and power generation have equal shares in the problem. This is just another attack against the clean and healthy power industry at the expense of our ludicrously cheap power.

Re:Total bullshit for higher power bills

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Why the fuck didn't you just make things simple and penalize the people who aren't doing what you want them to do from the start?

Presumably because the previous generation was too stupid.

Re:Total bullshit for higher power bills

[KermodeBear]

"It's not a tax or a fine, it's an incentive! Honest!"

It's a tax. Why can't the tax-and-spend types ever be honest about that kind of thing?

When you get down to it, if you want people to upgrade their buildings, then you have to make it worth their money and time. In many cases, a simple education campaign would help. If you can show that a building 60 years old can save, I dunno let's pick a number, 25% in energy costs over the year with a $X investment, then you don't need to force people to do anything. Many will do it on their own.

Unless, of course, you're poor.

You see, poor people are - imagine this - poor. They don't have the money. They can't just dump thousands of dollars into new insulation and other materials. They can't get a loan to do it and, if they could, they would spend more in interest payments than the original project. So, the idea is to jack up prices on people who already can't afford much and certainly can't afford to upgrade things? Yeah...

And then, what about the energy involved in producing the new materials, installing it, stripping out the old stuff, and disposing of it? What about the waste? Every building in the city? I've seen how fast those union workers do their jobs.

I get the intention. We want people to have energy efficient homes. I do too. Over the long term it is better for everyone. But you can't just wave the Magic Wand of Regulation. It's not that simple. Keep jacking up taxes? You can, but remember: the wealthy can live anywhere they choose. They're wealthy. And when taxes get too high they will leave in droves. Illinois already has massive debt problems. They can't afford to sacrifice any more blood dolls.

We can make all the magical pie in the sky plans we want, and there is a place for dreaming up ideals as something to shoot for, but you still have to fund the damn thing.

Re:Total bullshit for higher power bills

[Freischutz]

They're going to basically spend all this money paying for power from "renewable" sources. Yet, in all likelihood, they're going to be delivered locally generated power from nuclear sources. And exactly HOW many cars are on the road in Chicago EVERY DAMN DAY?

Also, Metra DOES have one Electric district train setup. But the majority of their trains are diesel.

So shortsighted...

If they were REALLY looking to make big gains, they'd go after low-hanging fruit in building retrofits. Remember, roughly 40% of ALL energy demand in the country is for HVAC load.

Take a thermal camera and look at most Chicago buildings. They leak heat like a sieve. Basically this means that excessive amounts of money are being spent trying to keep these buildings at livable temperatures, because they're losing heat via conduction and convection.

Simple changes in building codes for new and retrofit construction, along with incentives to do so could yield massive decreases in energy CONSUMPTION.

To be fair, just because there are lots of polluting cars in Chicago does not mean they should not switch to renewables. That said, you are right, the whole switching to renewables project would go a lot faster and be easier if they offered tax breaks (or some other form of incentive) for people who insulate their houses since the less houses leak heat the less power you need and the slower demand for power grows. As for the cars, I think the pollution from gasoline cars will probably solve itself, particularly if the city encouraged the construction of charging points for electric cars. You can't just pick the issue apart and focus on individual aspects of it, you have to approach it with a holistic set of solutions.

Re:Total bullshit for higher power bills

[CrimsonAvenger]

If you can show that a building 60 years old can save, I dunno let's pick a number, 25% in energy costs over the year with a $X investment, then you don't need to force people to do anything. Many will do it on their own.

Assuming, of course, that $X is less than 25% of your energy costs over the remaining lifetime of the building.

And yeah, poor people aren't going to be in on that game. Unless the government offers low interest loans to poor people to do so. Which will require that the city government borrow moderately enormous amounts of money.

Which is their privilege.

That said, looks like Da Mayor is planning on putting Chicago on the hook for a LOT of money, which bill won't come due till...his successor is in office. Always a great way to run things - promise the sun, the moon, the stars, and if it ends up being too expensive, you get to blame someone else for not doing it right....

Re:Total bullshit for higher power bills

[JaredOfEuropa]

It’s pretty hard to go 100% carbon neutral without either access to reliable renewable power like geothermal or hydro, or by adding nuclear power into the mix. Many so called 100% clean renewable counties, provinces or companies manage that goal by using offsets, i.e. what they can’t generate directly with solar or wind, they buy from external wind and solar providers. The thing is, those providers sell as many MWh of green power as they actually generate, but the actually green power you buy it from them might well be generated by coal or nuclear at that moment. So this model breaks down when everyone tries to go green.

Re: Total bullshit for higher power bills

[ceoyoyo]

On average, renting is cheaper than owning. That home ownership thing you said is a line thatâ(TM)s been sold to a couple of generations now, presumably to spur the construction, real estate and mortgage industries, but it has the side benefit of forcing people to save money as well. Owning the home you live in is a pretty effective forced savings plan.

Re:Total bullshit for higher power bills

[Chas]

Note: I said changes to codes.

Not "We're inspecting you and you need to come up to this in X-days."
That's forced "New Green Deal" bullshit.

I'm talking improvements in code-minimums for new construction and retrofits.
So, if it were to change TODAY, exactly NOBODY would be immediately affected.

The act of submitting a new building for construction, or for a retrofit project is what would trigger this.
If they decide to NOT move forward, there's no residual onus on them to make the changes anyhow.

Like right now, code for insulation in walls in Chicago.

Walls (existing): R13
Walls (new): R21

New values would be determined (honestly, in a place like Chicago, going beyond R21 in walls doesn't yield terribly better performance.

There would be codes for things like air-sealing and elimination of cold bridges through the structure.

And remediation of things like this don't have to be hideously expensive or involved.
There are inexpensive ways to get this stuff done, even on a macro scale like a high rise or skyscraper.

Re:Total bullshit for higher power bills

[Chas]

Why the fuck didn't you just make things simple and penalize the people who aren't doing what you want them to do from the start? Because people are idiots and don't realize when they're being fucked over.

Because the science and technology behind this sort of thing has come a LONG LONG WAY in just the last 30 years.
The average building age in Chicago is 32+ years.
And the code minimums have gone UP quite a bit in that time.

Something built in 1990 has only slightly better thermal and air sealing characteristics than a turn-of-the-century barn.
You can build a modern home in the same style, yet require less than half the HVAC plant and less than a quarter of the actual power consumption.

Re:Total bullshit for higher power bills

[Chas]

Passive House and Net Zero have been around for decades.
The problem is inertia in the building trades.
And the fact that a house that costs you a quarter of your current bills isn't as sexy as something with marble countertops, oak trim, wood floors, and all the home-bling-bling.

And again, nobody is forcing anyone to build new or retrofit at any given point.

The idea is that, when you do, you simply conform to the newer standard.
And in an ideal situation, because of the way this type of building trades off, the final bill for everything should be at or under that of a current code minimum home (the absolute shittiest new/re-build the law allows.

Re:Total bullshit for higher power bills

[Chas]

No. I'm simply pointing out that the issues in Chicago are multifaceted.

Re:Total bullshit for higher power bills

[Chas]

Some of it is a tradeoff.
Yeah, marble countertops, rainfall shower room, hardwood floors.
Or you initially furnish more modestly, split the difference on your physical plant and wind up with a home that isn't going to require enormous monetary input that goes right up a flue or rots out in 5-10 years.

Re:Total bullshit for higher power bills

[WhiplashII]

That really isn't necessary. I'm the condo president of one of the largest buildings in downtown Chicago. Every other year, we have an energy audit done on the building. We basically implement the plan that has the highest return. No coercion is required.

The people that ran the building before it became a condo were not very good managers. Our first couple projects had a 180 day payback period! But now we are looking at payback periods of 15 years or so, which is still worth it if you finance the work.

Good management will make building more efficient over time. Poor managers eventually get replaced by good managers, because the building is worth more to the good manager. There is no need to hold guns to peoples head in the name of the environment.

Re: Total bullshit for higher power bills

[Anonymous Coward]

On average, renting is cheaper than owning.

Where is renting cheaper than owning? Seriously, citation please. I rented for 12 years & finally got enough cash for the down payment to buy a condo. The bubble burst a few years later & in that working class neighborhood, it finally came back to what I paid for it just last year.

I'd been renting it out since 2013 as I got married & moved. Lost my tenant so I sold it for just a few K more than I paid. What does this mean? I got a big fat check out of the deal that I would never have got if I had rented. With basically no increase in value, it was still far better than renting. The payments, association fees, & maintained was actually slightly cheaper than renting in that same neighborhood.

As you say, a forced savings plan. It worked out well for me. I even bought a second condo in that same area at the bottom of the market & rent it out. It works out to about 8% a year in return on the original investment not counting it's increase in value, almost 300%.

Re:Total bullshit for higher power bills

[thegarbz]

No. I'm simply pointing out that the issues in Chicago are multifaceted.

No you weren't. If you were then you really need to learn to write. Start by not emphasizing your incredible disagreement using carefully selected all-caps. You can then continue by not saying if they "really" wanted to make a difference they'd do something else.

Re:Total bullshit for higher power bills

[Chas]

So now I'm supposed to posit an argument however YOU decide I should.

Pfft. Fuck off.

Re:Total bullshit for higher power bills

[_Sharp'r_]

When you make new construction more difficult and more costly, existing apartment and housing prices also increase as a result of the decline in new construction to compete with it. See also, SF Bay area.

Re:Sierra Club

[Chas]

Social capital and lobbying dollars (mainly the second).

There is no such thing as renewables

[rossdee]

The sun is not renewable.

They need to start calling these energy sources "Non Carbon Energy"

Which also includes fission based power plants and geothermal.

Re: There is no such thing as renewables

[jovius]

In all practical sense Sunâ(TM)s radiative energy is renewable, as long as thereâ(TM)s Sun. Itâ(TM)s about the primary energy source. Some deplete by using them and some donâ(TM)t. Sun, wind, geothermal etc are not depleted from the use.

There will likely be big advances in how renewable energy sources are tapped and how the energy is stored. There hasnâ(TM)t been so much push before for that, so theyâ(TM)ve been mostly left out of focus.

Re:There is no such thing as renewables

[KermodeBear]

Thank you, Mr. Pedantic, for your insightful contribution to the discussion.

Maybe lower the murder rate first?

[jfdavis668]

You think the mayor of Chicago would be more concerned with the city's murder rate right now, instead of energy generation.

Re:Maybe lower the murder rate first?

[kick6]

Maybe increase the murder rate? Less citizens, less power usage...

Re:Maybe lower the murder rate first?

[LynnwoodRooster]

Regarding the homicide rate of big cities, Chicago is number 4, with Baltimore, Detroit, and Memphis ahead of it. This is for the rate, not the number of homicides. And when you consider that Chicago has about 1.5 times the number of residents as those other 3 cities combined, there is no question why Chicago is considered the murder capitol of the US. High rate, high population, high number of murders.

Re: Maybe lower the murder rate first?

[LynnwoodRooster]

Actually, you are less likely to be murdered in Chicago than you are in rural America.

Citation needed.

Re:Maybe lower the murder rate first?

[alvinrod]

They mainly do kill other gang members though, so releasing the most efficient killers is probably more effective at reducing the number of gang bangers in the street than anything else. I say they should ramp up such efforts. Just tell the gang members that it’s highlander rules and eventually there will be only one. Just take that guy to the next city with a gang problem and rinse and repeat.

Re:Maybe lower the murder rate first?

[ScentCone]

But the problem is that the high rate of mostly gang-related murder in these small, concentrated areas, is used as an excuse to strip constitutional rights away from the 300,000,00 or so people who have nothing to do with it. Places like Chicago and Baltimore are allowing their local dystopias to damage the entire rest of the country.

Re: Maybe lower the murder rate first?

[LynnwoodRooster]

Looks to me that cities and the immediate suburbs are much more dangerous than rural America. Violent crimes and property crimes are twice (or more) likely per capita in cities and their immediate suburbs as compared to rural America.

Re: Maybe lower the murder rate first?

[LynnwoodRooster]

You pointed out nothing. A random list of names of agencies, no links, no citations, nothing. I've provided hard facts that counter your position. Sorry, you're wrong. Proven so. Violent and property crimes are much higher, per capita, in cities and their immediate suburbs than in rural America. Facts are facts, and your wishes don't change them.

Re: Maybe lower the murder rate first?

[LynnwoodRooster]

In this entire thread, the only links have been from myself. You've posted nothing other than making provably false statements. Sucks to be you!

easy when you apparently don't have to pay for it

[argStyopa]

Chicago has $9 bn in assets, and $42 bn in liabilities. It is a city so poorly run that they have been losing population steadily and in pretty sizable numbers.

Pray, tell: who will pay for this, or are they just going to sell unicorn rides?

Bold plan with substantial costs

[TuballoyThunder]

It will be interesting to see how they end up funding the change given the other large obligations that the city and county have. In particular they are facing a steep pension funding shortfall. Raising taxes will probably increase the rate of high earners leaving the area. They could try to reduce pension benefits, but I'm not sure how much traction that will get. I guess there is always the bond market...

So Fucking Easy!

[Anonymous Coward]

It might sound hard, even impossible to accomplish such an aspiration. Most especially when you consider all the buildings still running on 100 year old or more heating systems.

But, it's fucking easy to do. They just reclassify/redefine what renewable energy is/means. It's a growing trend in the greenwashing field.

Remember how using paper was a bad thing and everyone was encouraged to save a tree? But, now it(wood) is a renewable resource that we need to use more of. Think about it... By the same measure, coal is a renewable resource. Oil probably is renewable too.

The politicians have an entire new generation of gullible idiots slurping up their bullshit and praising their self-serving malfeasance.

That Rahm Emanual is (STILL) the mayor of Chicago tells us just how incredibly fucking stupid his constituents are.

Re: But AOChe says no!

[ScentCone]

Right, because only traitors think nuclear power is an important source of electricity, while patriotic socialist heroes who say we should shut them all down have a totally sane grasp on our actual energy needs. Gotcha. Thanks for your insightful contribution, especially the way you addressed the substance of the matter.

Lame duck mayor

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

Rahm is quitting because his office sat on a video of a cop shooting an unarmed black guy a dozen times and the community was justifiably pissed. He can promise free trips to Mars if he wants but he's out in April and no one wants his endorsement - the ultimate lame duck.

Let's just hasten the death of IL..

[bobbied]

All this "green energy" zero emissions stuff is fine and dandy, as long as it's not a mandate. Once you do stupid stuff like this, making it mandatory, you do two things.

1. Make it more expensive. You heard me right "green" is NOT free, it's actually much more expensive than current alternatives, namely Natural Gas. This economic truth is rarely understood much less acknowledged and the effect of this on the local economy is measurable and not in a good way. When energy becomes more expensive, people, industry, and jobs leave.

2. Spend lots of money on revamping, renewing, changing technology. When you change all your vehicles to electric, it means that you have to git rid of the current fleet and by a new one. In this case, government will have to replace all their vehicles, from the police cars all the way though city buses. This means junking parking lots full of expensive things which where supposed to last another few decades. It also means buying all the infrastructure to support the new energy sources, which is in itself expensive.

So, what does all this mean? In the end, it means the already brisk pace folks are leaving Chicago and the state will continue to increase as they ditch Illinois for it's high taxes, high costs of living and lowering standards of living. It also means that the city of Chicago will be adding greatly to it's already unmanageable debt, either raising taxes or lowering services to compensate and either of those accelerates the departure of the people who are just trying to live a better life.

Illinois is heading to being like Detroit on a state wide basis. Keep it up you loonies.. Just shoot yourselves in the foot, both hands and the head and get it over with. A quick death is better than a long lingering bout in the ICU.

Save the planet, just go ahead and commit suicide if you like, just do it quick. This slow meandering death is bad for the environment. Just set up the "death" centers and start up a lottery to decide who gets to visit because the way I see it, to get what you want we need to cut down the population by about 50%, world wide...

Re:Let's just hasten the death of IL..

[thegarbz]

1. Make it more expensive. You heard me right "green" is NOT free, it's actually much more expensive than current alternatives

You don't say! Green is more expensive? Man it sounds like you DEFINITELY need to mandate it then otherwise no one will do anything and we'll happily crap on our own future health and survival because hey, gotta save that dollar man!

2. Spend lots of money on revamping, renewing, changing technology.

Errr... Good.

Re:Let's just hasten the death of IL..

[bobbied]

You must not be from around Chicago... Everybody knows that the city AND the state are on the brink of bankruptcy and the population of both are in a rapid decline as those who have the means are leaving, taking their money with them. Which leaves mostly the poor and middle class, who DON'T have the money to do this green thing, so it's going to just destroy their standards of living... Again.... But that's the breaks in Illinois these days, the taxpayer is getting reamed while the government is blowing money on stupid stuff that helps nobody.

The only thing this idea will ensure is that both Chicago and Illinois will be further in to debt, able to provide even less services and security for it's citizens, and make that inevitable bankruptcy happen sooner, while it lines the pockets of the "green" energy executives who sell all the services and equipment that will need to be purchased. Companies like Soylindra will go boom democrat donors will collect huge paychecks, then the boom will be a bust when Chicago's creditors stop buying bonds to finance the democrat machine that runs the city and state.

So yea, feel free to go "green" if you like... It won't work, even if you try. All you will do is create pain and suffering, expand urban blight, drive more folks out of the middle class into poverty. But that's what this green thing really boils down to isn't it? To *really* address this climate change issue, we are going to need to return to pre 1900's days, including farming and transportation techniques, which will necessitate the return to pre 1900's population levels, WORLD WIDE. This is absolutely impossible, short of a natural disaster or pandemic that removes half the world's population. Like it or not, if you do this "green" thing and push it too far by regulations, the social and economic impacts will end up with the deaths of untold numbers though starvation, war, pestilence and just plain violence. I don't want to see that.

Re:Let's just hasten the death of IL..

[thegarbz]

You must not be from around Chicago... Everybody knows that the city AND the state are on the brink of bankruptcy

Interesting. This exact argument has often been used to justify why poor 3rd world shitholes should continue to pollute unabated because it's "cheaper". My my how Chicago has fallen.

Re:Let's just hasten the death of IL..

[bobbied]

Sometimes, you gota do what you gota do.

When your town is bankrupt, you got to stop spending somewhere somehow. Adding expenses should not be undertaken lightly or for vain reasons. You have to stop running on the emotional "Yea, I like that idea" and start running on the "We cannot live w/o that" for awhile. Chicago needs to major on things it *needs* like police, fire services, keeping the roads clear and in good repair and picking up the trash. It needs to have a commitment to paying off it's massive debt load and at least try to keep it's tax base from fleeing any faster. It's got to stop the death spiral.

Doing the green thing doesn't help ANY of that. It will only force the city into bankruptcy faster, ending all of these programs before they can have any noticeable effect on Chicago or the world, make Chicago into a urban waste land like Detroit and create a environmental nightmare of rotting buildings and homes where nobody wants to live and nobody has the money to knock down so they will crumble, burn and harbor crime for decades to come. THAT's not good for Chicago at all.

We're pushing 9% unemployment

[rsilvergun]

if you take out temp work, 6 month contractor gigs and Uber. We need stuff like this to employ folks. These are the "jobs of the future" everybody keeps getting promised when talk of Automation comes up.

The only downside to stuff like this (e.g. the "Green New Deal") is it benefits _everybody_. If you're one of the 1% that's no good. Also, if you're a bitter old "I got mine fuck you" coot (and to be blunt, /. is full of those, I might have turned into one myself if two major family illnesses hadn't opened my eyes).

And besides, we better do something with those out of work coal miners. Trump hasn't helped them in the slightest (two more plants just closed) and they're gonna get more extreme with the next Demagogue they get behind. Meanwhile if Trump actually does anything with that national emergency besides declaring it then we're on our way to a dictatorship. I mention that because the "I got mine" crowd claims to abhor dictatorships. So now's the time to put up or shut up.

Re: We're pushing 9% unemployment

[blindseer]

If they actually meant it, they'd set a 20-30 year time horizon, which would cut the cost of the project by more than half, since it can replace infrastructure as it nears maximum lifespan.

If they actually meant it then they'd set a two year goal to go with the 20 to 30 year grander plan.

Without that goal in the time frame of an election then there is no accountability. Maybe they could make a 4 year plan, to fit in a term of POTUS. Maybe a 6 year plan to fit that of a US senator. Maybe an 8 year plan like JFK did in 1962 to send a man to the moon and bring him back safely. That would fit in the two terms that a POTUS could serve.

Any plan beyond the term in office of the person making the plan is worthless. Maybe I can believe a 20 year plan if it's got milestones at every 2 years or so. That way we can know they are serious. If they miss the 2 year goal then they must explain why it was missed and how they plan to meet the next goal in another 2 years.

You want to get to 0% carbon in 30 years? Okay, then tell me you will get a 3% reduction in the next year. Then another 3% the year after. And so on. If you can't do even as little as 3% this year then why should I expect 100% in 30 years?

Re:We're pushing 9% unemployment

[_Sharp'r_]

The only downside to stuff like this (e.g. the "Green New Deal") is it benefits _everybody_. If you're one of the 1% that's no good.

Reading through AOC's “Green New Deal” document as published by NPR, there seem to be a few additional downsides for everyone, including banning:

all forms of plastic and fossil fuels,
all carbon emissions, regardless of source,
all nuclear power plants,
non-union jobs related to renewable energy (or anything to do with the GND),
airplanes,
and famously, farting cows.

But don't worry, they'll guarantee:

Economic security for all who are unable or unwilling to work

And hey, they even have momentum:

Nearly every major Democratic Presidential contender say they back the Green New deal including: Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, Jeff Merkeley, Julian Castro, Kirsten Gillibrand, Bernie Sanders, Tulsi Gabbard, and Jay Inslee.
        o 45 House Reps and 330+ groups backed the original resolution

But yeah, Executive orders instead of laws was bad when Obama did it and it's still bad if Trump does it. Funny how I don't recall you opposing Obama's use of them to magically create full blown immigration programs, though.

Re: But AOChe says no!

[Anonymous Coward]

Kill yourself faggot.

Re: Sierra Club

[Chas]

Except most people don't have a 100+ year track record and supposedly 3 million members that, ostensibly, agree with the "party" line.

Fantasy

[Pinky's Brain]

Chicago set cold weather records this year, how the fuck will you heat homes with renewable energy by 2035?

I'm not saying there are no ways to carry renewable energy forward in time or across the country for winter use, but not by 2035. District heating with massive hot water reserves, power to gas, cross country HVDC distribution networks ... that's all much further out.

Even then any sane state should still have fuel based backups and a strategic reserve of fuel.

End times

[drwho]

Well, say goodbye to Chicago. A weakened city, brought to its knees. I wonder how many people who will freeze without proper heating will vote Demo/Green after this. Go Nuke or Go Broke.

Re:Sierra Club

[Ungrounded Lightning]

The Sierra Club, these days, seems to be an agent of land developers. (Whether wittingly or unwittingly, and whatever they might have been long ago, is immaterial.)

As of a few years back, when my wife checked their government-mandated public records, more than half their donations came from developers.

The algorithm seemd to be:
  1. Developers contribute to the Sierra Club
  2. The Sierra Club harasses and sues a farmer. The farmer adjusts the drainage on a spot that puddles in the rainy season, ending an infestation of disease-carrying mosquitoes? Sue him for "destroying wetlands". Some rare animal happens to nest on his property (typically on some area he doesn't disturb, such as the strip around a field boundary or a drainage ditch), sue him to "protect the endangered species". Block him from building a new shed, using the middle of his land or crossing it with farm equipment, etc.
3. The farmer's operation becomes unprofitable.
4. Now that the farmer's been driven out of business, he sells his land to a developer.
5. The developer builds a subdivision of pricey houses on the site. Goodbye intermittent swamp. Goodbye large areas congenial to the endangered critter. (The developer may make a show of leaving an inadequate patch as critter habitat, but the critter won't be there next year.)
6. The Sierra Club DOESN'T sue their donor.
7. PROFIT!

It won't work...

[blindseer]

The guy can promise rainbows and unicorns and get the same result.

Chicago is called the Windy City not because of the climate, it's called that because of all the hot air from politicians that inhabit the place. They simply cannot build enough windmills to run the entire city and keep it affordable. There will not be any city in the USA that can run on 100% renewable energy except with the same funny bookkeeping that many businesses use to make the same claim. If they reach this goal it will be because they buy more expensive electricity from wind and solar projects around the USA and ignore that they are able to do this because of the ample production of cheaper (and far more reliable) energy from coal, natural gas, and nuclear.

There's also the matter of the time frame. He can make no promise that extends beyond his term. If he made a promise that was within his term in office, such as a 3 or 5 year plan, then I might believe him. A plan that's 10 to 20 years in the future starts to get to the point where any politician is unlikely to be in office, and perhaps beyond their own expected lifespan. No, this will not happen. Just more hot air from a windy politician.

Again, if he made some goal for the next 2 or 3 years, maybe as far as 8 years, then I might believe him. That way he could be held responsible. When JFK made his "going to the moon" speech people may have thought him crazy but at least it was within the potential frame of his time in office. We need more politicians like that. I'm thinking the nation is just craving for them. Give me a goal in the next 8 years, and even the slightest idea of how to get there, and I'll vote for that.

Like money, electricity is fungible.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

They're going to basically spend all this money paying for power from "renewable" sources.
Yet, in all likelihood, they're going to be delivered locally generated power from nuclear sources.

When the energy from renewable sources and nuclear reactors go into the same grid, how do you identify which energy was pulled out?

Re:Like money, electricity is fungible.

[Chas]

Bingo.

Re:Like money, electricity is fungible.

[blindseer]

When the energy from renewable sources and nuclear reactors go into the same grid, how do you identify which energy was pulled out?

That's easy, the renewable energy costs twice as much.

I keep hearing on how renewable energy will dominate the world because it is cheaper than coal. Well, then why do I keep getting these letters in the mail from the local utilities that want to charge me more for "green" energy? If it's cheaper than coal then they should be sending letters on how if I switch to "green" energy that my electric rates will be reduced.

Wind and solar are not cheaper than coal. If it was then they wouldn't need government subsidies, and higher rates from consumers, to sell it.

I saw an announcement from a local nuclear power plant that they intend to shutdown years before the originally planned retirement date because they could no longer compete with wind subsidies. That might be fine for the electricity consumers on the short term, they get cheaper electricity because the costs they bear are spread out among the taxpayers in coal country. What happens if everyone does this? Or, the subsidies end? That means a spike in electricity rates and a rush for more cheap energy. This means more nuclear and/or coal.

We can't keep driving nuclear power out of the market artificially and not expect rates to climb, energy shortages, or both. I prefer more nuclear sooner than later. The sooner we get more nuclear the less risk we run of another energy crisis.

cough

[Texmaize]

cough,typical of democrat run city, cough

Clean? Where? input? output?

[Your Average Joe]

Well where does that nuclear energy come from? Does the nuclear plant errich fuel as well or is that done in some third world country where lives do not matter? Then what do you do with the spent nuclear fuel?

Re:Lame ducks proposing radical legislation

[sysrammer]

There is a cheaper, healthier and easier answer to this question but fat ass Americans won't hear it: Vegetarianism...Even more reason to push for vegetarianism over renewable energy sources.

Agreed. A properly marinated and roasted vegetarian is cheaper and better for the environment.