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Renewable Energy Policies Actually Work (arstechnica.com)
Renewable energy use and reduced energy use overall have helped carbon emissions remain flat or below average as the global economy continued to grow over the years. But, as new research has found, government policy also appears to play a large role. Slashdot reader AmiMoJo shares a report from Ars Technica: The researchers started by identifying countries that show a "peak and decline" pattern of carbon emissions since the 1990s. They came up with 18, all but one of them in Europe -- the exception is the United States. For comparison, they created two different control groups of 30 countries, neither of which has seen emissions decline. One group saw high GDP growth, while the second saw moderate economic growth; in the past, these would have been associated with corresponding changes in emissions. Within each country, the researchers looked into whether there were government energy policies that could influence the trajectory of emissions. They also examined four items that could drive changes in emissions: total energy use, share of energy provided by fossil fuels, the carbon intensity of the overall energy mix, and efficiency (as measured by energy losses during use). On average, emissions in the decline group dropped by 2.4 percent over the decade between 2005 and 2015.
Half of this drop came from lowering the percentage of fossil fuels used, with renewables making a large contribution; another 35 percent came from a drop in energy use. But the most significant factor varied from country to country. Austria, Finland, and Sweden saw a drop in the share of fossil fuels within their energy mix. In contrast, a drop in total energy use was the biggest factor for France, Ireland, the Netherlands, Spain, and the United Kingdom. The U.S. was an odd one out, with all four possible factors playing significant roles in causing emissions to drop. For the two control groups, however, there was a single dominant factor: total energy use counted for 75 and 80 percent of the change in the low- and high-economic growth groups, respectively. But there was considerably more variability in the low-economic growth group. All of the high-growth group saw increased energy use contribute 60 percent of the growth in emissions or more. In contrast, some of the low-growth group actually saw their energy use drop. So why are some countries so successful at dropping their emissions? Part of it is likely to be economic growth, but the biggest reason may have to do with government policies. "By 2015, the countries in the group that saw declining emissions had an average of 35 policies that promoted renewable energy and another 23 that promoted energy efficiency," reports Ars Technica. "Both of those numbers are significantly higher than the averages for the control groups. And there's evidence that these policies are effective. The number of pro-efficiency policies correlated with the drop in energy use, while the number of renewable policies correlated with the drop in the share of fossil fuels."
Half of this drop came from lowering the percentage of fossil fuels used, with renewables making a large contribution; another 35 percent came from a drop in energy use. But the most significant factor varied from country to country. Austria, Finland, and Sweden saw a drop in the share of fossil fuels within their energy mix. In contrast, a drop in total energy use was the biggest factor for France, Ireland, the Netherlands, Spain, and the United Kingdom. The U.S. was an odd one out, with all four possible factors playing significant roles in causing emissions to drop. For the two control groups, however, there was a single dominant factor: total energy use counted for 75 and 80 percent of the change in the low- and high-economic growth groups, respectively. But there was considerably more variability in the low-economic growth group. All of the high-growth group saw increased energy use contribute 60 percent of the growth in emissions or more. In contrast, some of the low-growth group actually saw their energy use drop. So why are some countries so successful at dropping their emissions? Part of it is likely to be economic growth, but the biggest reason may have to do with government policies. "By 2015, the countries in the group that saw declining emissions had an average of 35 policies that promoted renewable energy and another 23 that promoted energy efficiency," reports Ars Technica. "Both of those numbers are significantly higher than the averages for the control groups. And there's evidence that these policies are effective. The number of pro-efficiency policies correlated with the drop in energy use, while the number of renewable policies correlated with the drop in the share of fossil fuels."
So why are some countries so successful at dropping their emissions? Part of it is likely to be economic growth, but the biggest reason may have to do with government policies.
Ya think. And where do those "government policies" come from?
In the U.S. one of our two major political parties represents a minority of voters but thanks to our voting system has had a stranglehold on policy and that party is dedicated to doing everything possible to maximize donor profit. To them that means oppose anything and everything that has anything to do with mitigating climate change. For that matter anything to do with preserving or improving the environment. Our current EPA head was appointed for the express purpose of destroying the EPA.
Their mindless followers vote them in being mesmerized by keywords like "job creation" and chimeras like "the liberals are coming to get your guns." They will churn up FUD with their industry-funded studies. Much you will see repeated right here on /.
Don't look to the U.S. to help with this problem until we get rid of the minority rule. The majority wants something done about climate change.
America did sign the Paris accord -- Trump withdrew from it. However, my understanding is that the withdrawal won't be complete for a couple more years anyway. So America's drop in CO2 happened *despite* pulling out the agreement, certainly not because of it.
Georgetown, Texas tried to go the renewables route. They ended up paying more and getting less.
Thanks to renewables, Australia ended up paying $500 a day per family for electricity.
America, the country that didn't sign the Paris accord, dropped CO2 emissions more than anyone else.
It's currently technologically impossible for renewables to provide baseload power at a competitive, or even reasonable, price, and will not do so anytime in the near future no matter how much religious environmentalists claim otherwise.
Firstly, here is some background on your source:
The Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF) is a conservative think tank based in Austin, Texas. ... In 2015, TPPF had total revenue of $10.8 million. Donors to the organisation include energy companies Chevron, ExxonMobil, and other fossil fuel interests.
That place is as likely to deliver an unbiased assessment of whatever went on in Georgetown Texas as mice re likely to give an unbiased assessment of cats. From what I can gather about Georgetown Texas from other sources, their problem seems to have been that they made some really badly advised long term fixed price contracts for renewable energy. That is too bad for Georgetown Texas but hardly a reason for the rest of us to write off wind and solar power and grid storage because a bunch of useful idiots at a conservative think tank funded by oil companies says so.
Seems like a lot of effort creating specific conditions to try and make leftist policies look effective... why would anyone doubt the findings.
Really what is up with this endless damn stream of propaganda here on slashdot.
Apparently a site that was originally focused on computer tech and Linux in particular, has morphed into the hobby horse of people in a doomsday cult.
Wow blogs quoting other blogs using .jpg files with numbers on them with no way to tell where the numbers came from. Its all a big circle jerk of blogs propping up fake-news.
If you believe such weak sources, I have a bridge and swamp land to sell you.
I live in South Australia and buy power from the grid, and I think I would have noticed if this were true as presented here.
The referenced article appears to refer to wholesale spot prices - the electricity market in Australia is, through an artificial market created in the wake of privatization, structured as wholesale provider (usually, generators) selling to retail entities, that then sell power to end users. Consumers sign up for an "agreed tariff" contract arrangement with a pricing structure at least as opaque as any mobile phone regime, and retailers buy off the wholesalers at spot prices that vary more or less minute by minute, depending on demand. Those wholesale prices do routinely spike and crash over the course of a day - especially during summer - as factories start up and shut down, people turn their air conditioners on and off, and so on. It doesn't help that power is distributed across different timezones - SA users routinely use power generated in Victoria, and vice versa, which itself creates artificially high peaks and troughs.
It also doesn't help that politics gets involved - most providers see the writing on the wall and are trying to transition away from coal-based generation, but with a major coal industry to support they've seen significant push-back from government, which last year proposed putting out to tender the construction of new coal-based generation, because private industry wasn't willing to undertake it in a free market.
Obviously not written by someone who lives in Australia:
--- Our coal plants fail during peak demand, like our hottest-on-record January this year. Congrats coal, you fail at the definition of baseload.
--- The conservative coalition promised a saving of $500 when our experiment at a carbon price was axed. Surprising nobody, we didn't! I believe these figures more than the nonsense from that Borepatch site, a site that's keen to list externalities like the cost of food when power goes up, but not when we burn the Earth's densest carbon sinks.
--- There's a phrase in Australia: gold-plated power grid. Different states privatised their energy grids, and their new owners went on a spending spree which was passed on to us. The cost is significantly higher than the glorified rounding error in that Borepatch article.
--- Victoria has some of the dirtiest coal in the world. Hazelwood, the power station listed in that article, was the least efficient and most greenhouse-pollution generating station in Australia, and needed to go.
--- AGL, Australia's largest electricity retailer, has said they're not investing in new coal plants because its not economical. The private sector, which conservatarians always tell us works best because they have a profit motive, doesn't want more Australian coal.
I can see where you're coming from. The only way we're going to make the significant and immediate reductions to carbon we need to mitigate or limit climate issues (we're past the point of avoiding) is investment in nuclear.
Cheers, ~ Ruben
Both of your links are to extreme right wing, anti-environmental web sites. The information is dubious, at best.
The US did sign the Paris accord. The US didn't pull out until Donnie Dipshit pulled out only very recently.
What is a "reasonable price" for human health and well-being, exactly? Neither of the links you provided even considered measurable financial benefits (or otherwise) benefits from cleaner power.
How can you see into the future, to say that it will be technologically impossible to provide enough clean energy?
I don't respond to AC's.
In the U.S. one of our two major political parties represents a minority of voters but thanks to our voting system has had a stranglehold on policy and that party is dedicated to doing everything possible to maximize donor profit.
California has 55 electoral votes, 7 of which are due to illegals(*). The US census counts people, not citizens, in an area to determine how many electoral votes a state gets.
California gets a significant extra amount of influence in elections due to the electoral college - are you willing to give that up?
Also, the EC is what keeps California and NY from ganging up on all the other states. In effect, it prevents the US from having a civil war, and breaking up into smaller national entities.
Are you willing to give *that* up? Just because your candidate lost the popular vote?
And finally, House representatives are also allocated by the census count. California gets 7 more reps due to its illegal population.
All of which means California gets to dominate affairs in the US house of representatives and presidential elections out of proportion to their electorate.
Their mindless followers vote them in being mesmerized by keywords like "job creation" and chimeras like "the liberals are coming to get your guns." They will churn up FUD with their industry-funded studies.
a) A lot of jobs *were* created. Chrysler just opened an idled plant, creating 6500 more. Look around - the economy is doing great!
b) The house just passed a law making private sale of guns illegal. Also, NY just passed a gun confiscation law, which is ripe for abuse.
(*) About 2.3 million illegals, at 700,000 per house rep/electoral vote. The electoral formula is non-linear, and estimates of illegals are sketchy, but it's about right.
(Incidentally, this is why the Dems are so much against the wall. They don't care about any of the issues - cost, crime, jobs, and so on - that's not their problem to fix. That's why Pelosi kept the government shutdown past $6 billion to avoid spending $5 billion on a wall "that would do nothing". It would have been more cost effective to build the wall even if it did do "nothing".)
As I have previously posted in reply to this, it's the unreliability of base-load coal power plants in our excessively hot weather that causes these issues - they'll go down unexpectedly, or suddenly require urgent maintenance, and then we're left with LNG plants sitting back waiting for the minute-by-minute spot price of electricity to spike by magnitudes more than normal, reaping massive profits.
Increasing storage from renewables generation is already starting to have an effect, and will continue to smooth out these spikes, if not remove them altogether.
You also forgot to mention that private enterprise would rather build renewables based plants rather than coal, as new coal is too expensive. In the next decade or 2 existing coal will become more expensive than building new renewables based plants.
The link reckons the Australian electricity costs from the peak rather than average costs, which determine what consumers actually pay. Furthermore, a decision by a judge to prevent the opening of a new coal mine could not possibly effect electricity prices two days later.
The other thing links to an unsourced powerpoint that combines just plain gobbledygook bullet points ("No pure electrons"), with dubious, unsourced figures, e.g. "return on investment" in solar being "$775/MWh" which of course is not an ROI figure at all. It's just the total subsidy figure divided by the amount of electricity generated, which of course is really low for coal because (a) the huge installed base of coal plants and (b) nobody in his right mind would pour money into coal.
Why?
The LCOE for wind has been lower than coal since around 2010. The LCOE for newly constructed photovoltaic plants has been dropping every year, and by some calculations the LCOE for new photovoltaic plants is already less than for new coal plants. So, yeah. Money isn't pouring into coal plant construction, either private or public.
That said, natural gas kicks the crap out of everything when it comes levelized cost.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
That's fine if you don't like the messenger. Here's what I'd like to know, was anything they said a lie?
You don't like the message so you kill the messenger, that does not change the truth. If they lied then what's the truth? Do you have counterexamples?
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Look, you can try the "but look...people funding" it's EEEEVVVVVVIIIIILLLLL. On the other hand, I can look from my own damn backyard and see the gigantic clusterfuck that "renewables" did to Ontario.
Right wing news? Sure. Centerist? That's not a problem either. How about far-left wing? Oh well what the fuck. How about the CBC? Well damn this is just great. This "unbiased assessment" from multiple media outlets here in Canada is pretty good at explaining just how much the entire thing "broke" Ontario's electrical system. This is the same bullshit now going on in multiple US states, the exact same shit. FiT(Feed in Tariff) programs, paying extremely high rates, with very specific companies who have/had an interest, causing the electricity price to go right through the roof. Oh and those "green energy jobs" that progressives, environmentalists and leftist cow on about? They don't appear. But boy oh boy do businesses flee. And of course Ontario isn't a on-off either, there's Germany, and Greece, and Spain, and Italy, and, and, and, and...
~10 years years ago, if you lived in the most populous place in Canada(between Windsor and Ottawa), you payed between 0.045 and 0.085kWh. Today you pay between 0.085 and 0.185kWh. Businesses fled. People fled. The electricity rate is so out of reach for the poor that they had to mandate under law no winter electrical disconnection just to make sure people wouldn't freeze to death. These rates for electricity hit the poor so bad, that a few years ago that charities ran out of money in December to cover heating costs. The winter period in Southern Ontario is generally late-October to as late as the end of May, you'll find that most people don't consider spring starting until the May 24 weekend, even then seeing 4C daytime highs happens often enough.
Look. Believe whatever you want about useful idiots, "because oil." Then dig your head out of your ass and then look to British Columbia. Same bullshit. Then look to Alberta under the NDP, same bullshit. Then look back to Ontario. 'Hey boys what happened to the Liberal Party of Ontario that held a majority status from 2003 to 2017?' Oh, they are no longer a recognized political party, and can fit in a 1986 Dodge Minivan? Well hot shit.
Om, nomnomnom...
Look, you can try the "but look...people funding" it's EEEEVVVVVVIIIIILLLLL.
Read this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Because stating that renewables are not currently competitive and sufficient is the exact same thing as writing them off. Try real arguments instead of hyperbole.
Really? https://www.bloomberg.com/news... ... that was three years ago and Bloomberg is hardly a bastion of tree hugging libtardism.
Here's some background on the source for the source of your second link: TLDR, RWNJ who tends to play extremely fast and very loose with the data.
Of course, the record-breaking high temperatures occurring across two states on that day had nothing to do with the price of of that electricity, did it?
Here's the truth about Georgetown (I live nearby so caught the local news about it):
"City Manager David Morgan said the power cost adjustment increase is because they leaned on forecasts back in 2012 and 2013 that predicted a shortage of power and a significant rise in energy prices.
"Ultimately, we selected wind and solar because we could lock in at competitive prices long-term,” Morgan said.
Morgan said the cost increase has nothing to do with the renewable energy sources.
"The reality is if we would have had those similar kinds of contracts, but they were with gas or coal. And we priced those out, we took bids from different types of energy sources. If we had those same types of contracts, we'd be in the same position today,” Morgan said."
https://www.kvue.com/article/m...
That place is as likely to deliver an unbiased assessment of whatever went on in Georgetown Texas as mice re likely to give an unbiased assessment of cats.
Right. As opposed to the multitude of climate change research organizations of the subject paper's authors, who are pure as the driven snow and certainly are not subject to bias in the direction of the dollars funding them.
The ad hominem gets old after a while.
That's fine if you don't like the messenger. Here's what I'd like to know, was anything they said a lie?
You don't like the message so you kill the messenger, that does not change the truth. If they lied then what's the truth? Do you have counterexamples?
I have an issue with the idea that picking one single example of one town in Texas from a report made by an institute funded by people with vested interests in discrediting the renewable energy industry should be taken as the irrefutable truth. If you want to discredit renewables I won't even get up out of my armchair to answer the phone until you have got multiple sources of data that do not have a massive conflict of interest, like a conservative think tank funded by oil companies and your dataset consists of quite a lot more than a single town in Texas that signed some rather ill conceived long term fixed price contracts.
Argumentum ad monsanteam
So why are some countries so successful at dropping their emissions?
Because they export their polluting industries to the 3rd world like the US did to Mexico? This is an excellent example of an intentionally misleading analysis. CO2 emissions in CA and Germany have increased from 2010 till today. This is the period when we actually had a renewable energy policy, and the increase in CO2 was mostly due to bad renewable energy policy and doesn't count the extra emissions from methane we had during that same period.
"Those that start by burning books, will end by burning men."
They ended up paying more and getting less [texaspolicy.com].
From the document you linked:
Storage ... Dependent on Rare Earth Metals Controlled by Chinese
Obvious facepalm, unless you're counting on huge banks of NiMH batteries, which is unlikely to happen.
And who the fuck receives $775 of subsidies per 1 MWh of solar production? What kind of idiocy is that? Are those numbers from 1998 or what?
Ezekiel 23:20
Because stating that renewables are not currently competitive...
...is total bullshit in 2019. It will be even more bullshit in 2020, 2021, 2022...you get it.
Ezekiel 23:20
everywhere there implemented
What?
Ezekiel 23:20
I pay .25 per kwh. Stop whining and chop some firewood.
Climate change policy is doomed to fail
They could just tax the hell out of gasoline, coal and beef. How hard is that really?
I pay .25 per kwh. Stop whining and chop some firewood.
How many houses, or apartments in say the GTA(roughly 1/3 the population of Canada) do you think have a fire place, and aren't heated with only electricity do you think? Not forgetting that if you live in the GTA the nearest woodlot for you would be at least 80km away. And the city has explicit bylaws against heating using wood.
Om, nomnomnom...
Hmmm... US emissions are down, so we must be exporting it to Mexico? I guess that's why Mexico's emissions are also trending down. Couldn't be we've let that "evil invisible hand" of capitalism work, could it?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
In the case of BC, it was a right wing government balancing the books by demanding hydro pay billions in dividends to the Province. As well as deciding to build a massive dam without doing due diligence and forcing twinning of some power lines as they might be needed in the future.
Now I understand that you're against hydro as it is renewable and figure we should all be burning coal but here in BC, we've been using hydro for over a hundred years and that is the source of 99% of our energy. (There's some remote communities burn diesel for power).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Ours is more potent, somehow.
Because we win the dick size wars.
Just another day in Paradise
Why the US arguments turn out to be ultimately about bifurcated sexuality? An energy mix is not a all-or-nothing proposition, with all alternatives having different costs associated with them. That said, energy efficiency and pollution control programs should be much easier to sell everybody cross the political spectrum. No annoying windmills ruining property value at the summer cottage or mansion, and causing stress due to noise.
"Insightful"?
Bullshit. It's a strawman. The countries that are reducing their carbon output have done none of the things that the parent suggests are required to reduce CO2 emissions.
Again, bullshit!
China has been investing heavily in renewable energy sources and, guess what, the USA emits more CO2 than India, and of course, on a per-capita basis, the USA's CO2 output is far greater than any other country.
On this path, the USA is going to have the world's most expensive energy and is going to be a huge competitive disadvantage.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Sure, and watch your economy collapse.
Just another day in Paradise
As usual, I was correct.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
Couldn't be we've let that "evil invisible hand" of capitalism work, could it?
The Obama administration did quite a bit to promote renewables, higher emission/efficiency standards for vehicles, and limit CO2 production overall. Sometimes the invisible hand isn't that invisible. With that said, it's true that the market often only needs a gentle nudge in the right direction and can then take over.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
It's just a shell game. The fundamental trend over the time period in question has been to move all industrial production to China. Global CO2 increased because industrial activity increased. But the LOCATION of the production shifted to China. So if the laws are working, all they are doing is helping speed the catastrophic decline of the West's industrial base, and boosting China's GDP.
By including this sig, the copyright holders of this work or collection unreservedly place it in the public domain.
People will complain at first, and then they will get used to paying more or switch to something else. We've seen it happen with cigarettes.
Then we should be celebrating as the polluting US bully is knocked off zir perch as unelected world police? And China and India, developing nations of color, deservedly take its place? I'm not seeing the problem here?
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
So get some thicker blankets. Or move someplace warmer. Maybe you'd like to see climate change accelerate just to save money on your stupid power bill.
Of course we have but that won't matter. Nor will it matter that the two biggest polluters, China and India, will just get a free pass.
That is because no-one who argues in good faith would ever consider going by absolute numbers instead of per capita.
If we go by absolute numbers the micronations could start pumping out CO2 to an extent that would increase output ten times what it is today.
If we go buy absolute numbers then emissions could be solved by splitting a nation in two.
With that said, it is a good idea to keep the population size down, but when it comes to what we can do to keep emissions down it should always be judged by what every person emits. You can't expect a nation of 300 million to ever get down to the same emissions as one of 50 million.
Also, WTH?
If we go by your way of looking at the world your argument is "We are only the third worst and shouldn't do anything until we are worst."
Did "America first!" suddenly turn into "At least we are not last... yet."?
The proponents of "green" energy always point to the early wins. There are a lot of easy wins early on in the process, when most energy still comes from nuclear, coal, or whatever. Those existing plants can adjust their output to allow for the massive fluctuations of solar and wind generation, as long as the solar/wind is a minor part of the grid.
Things change when solar/wind become a large part of the generation capacity. On sunny summer days, Germany doesn't know what to do with all it's solar energy, and they've been know to pay other countries to take it. In bad weather, they import energy. Renewable energy on the massive scale Germany has implemented It only works, because they can leech off the capabilities of the countries around them. Germany's energy looks cleaner, because someone else is burning extra coal. If Germany is really does close their nuclear plants, the situation will get massively worse.
Unless large scale energy storage is solved, renewable energy will remain limited in its potential. In addition, we will always need something to handle baseline load, for which nuclear remains the greenest and safest option.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
The OP is similarly wrong about Australia. The meteoric rise in electricity costs were the result of a massive gold plating effort for long distance transmission. However that is completely irrelevant since what is being quoted is the difference in wholesale and retail electricity costs. The wholesale cost spikes to that extent not because of green or dirty power, but because of not enough power. It's an exercise in convincing industrial users to load shed by pricing them out of the market.
Incidentally these spikes are usually the result of high temperature on sunny days and would be best resolved in installing more solar capacity.
Today you pay between 0.085 and 0.185kWh.
People are fleeing such cheap electricity? Why not simply use less?
Ignore my last comment, you deserve a proper response: To go down a list of points:
1. Electricity grid mismanagement and renewable policies are not the same thing. There are places with bigger price rises in electricity happily burning more coal than they did in the past. There are places with far more green energy where prices have fallen. You are complaining about one thing and using it as evidence against another.
2. 0.185kWh isn't an insanely high cost of electricity. It's normal once you get away from your fantasy prices funded by the destruction of your own health. People shouldn't flee those prices they should adapt. The fact that they flee rather than actually reduce your ridiculously inefficient living (Canada is outdone by very few in energy consumption per household) is more of a poor reflection on those people than anything else. We'll welcome them with open arms here, but they'll need to open their wallets (0.22/kWh and we have shithouse green policies here and just opened a new coal fired power station 2 years ago to boot)
3. WTF are you doing that is breaking the bank heating houses with electricity. Don't tell me you are using turn of the previous century era bar heaters.
4. BC has used hydro power for a long time. So thanks for pointing me towards them, it further reinforces that green power has nothing to do with the problems you describe.
5. Just because a political party suffers the wrath of a population doesn't mean that what they were doing didn't make sense (or was even related to green energy for that matter). We too relegated one of our major parties to a minority party. They proceeded to win the immediate following election. Turns out they weren't as bad as people thought.
Read this:
That's nice, but you're shooting the messenger instead of actually looking to see whether or not the information presented is true or false.
To give you another example: Project Veritas does a video on ACORN. Progressives flip their shit and call it fake, it's not. They then try the same with Planned Parenthood illegally selling tissues, organs and bodies. They then most recently try with the facebook "deboosting" and targeting particular viewpoints to supress them. In all cases, the media poisoned the well. The information wasn't fake. People believe it, people then most likely refuse to look at a particular point of view because 'reasons' that sound good. In turn, people accept a falsehood because someone created a talking point that the truth was uncomfortable for "insert group."
If there is a conflict of interest, but the truth is being presented and not disputed. That doesn't make the truth any less noteworthy.
Please give your Kelly Ann Conway impression a rest and and try to address the real problem which is that you are struggling to understand the concept of conflict of interests. Are you seriously trying to convince us that a single report written by a think tank which is funded by oil companies who have a vested interest in killing off the renewable energy industry is enough to completely discredit all renewables? That PowerPoint presentation should be taken with several table spoons of salt for that reason alone.
According to those of your sources which aren't opinion pieces, the problem was poor execution, not bad policy.
If your economy is inextricably dependent on gasoline, coal and beef sales, it *deserves* to collapse.
Ezekiel 23:20
The policies may or not be helping the (man made or not) global warming or rather change of climate. However to hope that renewables will completely replace other sources is rather silly. At least for the moment. The experiment EU did in El Hierro was what some called 'partial' success. The aim to provide 100% energy from renewables was a fail. Currently the wiki article on the subject ends the following way: "In early 2018, El Hierro covered its entire electricity demand between the 25th of January and the 12th of February with its renewable resource base, avoiding the use of polluting energy sources for over more than 560 hours in 2018 - and a total of almost 2,000 hours since it started operating."
Whether it is cost effective or not it did not manage to get above 50% of yearly needs. The savings depend strongly on oil price as the complementary or rather main load comes from diesel generators. Germany where green marxism is a ruling ideology (in my view at least it looks like religion or any other totalitarian ideological system) the networks are regularly on the verge of collapse and parts of the system have to be switched off on almost regular base. Depending on whether electricity intensive factories like aluminum smelters continue their existence or not we may have part of the short term energy storage there as the smelter can be switched off for an hour or so w/o damage. They do it on regular basis these days and get money for doing so. Smart meters that EU commission wants us all to have may make such maneuvers more plausible thus avoiding complete blackouts. So yes we can move to renewables and we will pay much much more for them in terms of direct costs per energy unit. We will also pay for this in terms of energy security and complexity. German media do preparatory work already to blame blackouts on Putin and Hackers.
Just to make it clear - I think energy should be as clean as possible and we should not waste. Yet the effects of these efforts are minuscule and the inertia in the system called earth will make the whole thing continue in its trajectory so if one is expecting the flooding seas and terrible things because of global warming one should possibly prepare flooding walls instead of putting solar panels and windmills everywhere.
Of course you were. That post was clearly using the language of trolls and flamebaiters.
You can't expect a nation of 300 million to ever get down to the same emissions as one of 50 million.
If, say, that nation of 300 million was a densely populated country like Japan with high-tech infrastructure... and the nation of 50 million was rural abd agrarian... then yes, I would.
The EU successfully prevented the export of CO2 emissions by simply including emissions in the country of manufacture when calculating carbon taxes on EU companies. It also passed laws like RoHS that forced Chinese factories to clean up even though they were out of jurisdiction.
Emissions since 2010 is a carefully cherry picked timeframe. Emissions are still falling, there was just a blip which was at its lowest point in 2010 due to the global financial crisis that is now being corrected.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Actually, multiple investigations found that ACORN didn't break the law or do anything substantially wrong, and that the videos were heavily edited to give a false and misleading impression.
It's all well documented with many citations and links to the actual investigations here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Our coal plants fail during peak demand, like our hottest-on-record January this year. Congrats coal, you fail at the definition of baseload.
This interested me, so I actually read your link. Your statement seemed to imply that the coal plants failed because of either the high demand or the hot weather. I don't know if you meant to imply that, but it's how the statement came across to me. For anyone else who saw the same thing: The plants actually went offline for maintenance because they're old, not because of high temperature or high demand. It's not clear why it was decided to sideline them for maintenance during peak season; that seems like a bad idea.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
To give you another example: Project Veritas does a video on ACORN. Progressives flip their shit and call it fake, it's not.
Really? 'Cause those lovely folks at Veritas edited the videos so nicely to change the question that the ACORN person was responding to.
Also, good ol' James wore a different outfit when talking to the people at ACORN than he did in the video he released, in an attempt to bolster his argument by appearing outrageously dressed in the video. How truthful!
Also, every actual investigation of ACORN resulted in no charges, despite Veritas's claims. The vast majority of those investigations were done by Republicans. Almost like the folks at Veritas were lying....
But hey, it worked for you, so they'll keep lying to you. And you'll love them for it. See:
They then try the same with Planned Parenthood illegally selling tissues, organs and bodies
where the unedited video was released via lawsuit, and showed that the claims were completely false and the released video was selectively edited to create their case.
But hey, it worked again for you, so they'll continue to keep lying to you. And you'll love them for it.
People believe it, people then most likely refuse to look at a particular point of view because 'reasons' that sound good. In turn, people accept a falsehood because someone created a talking point that the truth was uncomfortable for "insert group."
Talking to a mirror?
Who, for example? Your affirmation is not a little bit too strong?
"the truth" doesn't exist (maybe only on the Bible, for who believes it...)
Germans aren't exactly known for making garbage systems that don't work,
They let Hitler run the system, and that didn't work out for them — and that's what the Germans are best-known for.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
You are paying with your time. I realize that has zero value to some people, but to others, it is worth way more than money.
Whether America was in or not, what actions were taken because of the accord? What did it change?
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
"Simple" are the people who can't figure out how to "simply" use less.
Cortez is tired of you talking about her like that and she's going to "clap back" and "destroy" you on Twitter.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Nancy as control of the government now, right? I think that is what she should go for now that they've settled the infanticide question.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
that top-down government forced renewables policies are NOT needed. T
But, how are we going to have a parade if these people don't run out to the front?
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
You didn't read the articles then. In Ontario where when you cross the border into NY or MI, and the electricity prices are under 0.05kWh yes it becomes expensive. In turn businesses flee, people lose their jobs, PT work becomes more common. In turn people take more PT jobs to cover the costs of a single FT job.
To point 3, the previous government and cities mandated by law that electrical heating was the only legal option. Around 80% of all apartment building use it, and that's your only option.
To point 4, so has Ontario. Far longer then BC(before it was even a province). You can also thank the Liberals for attempting to shut down Niagara Falls Generating, and their attempt to mothball it because it killed fish. I'm not even kidding on that one. It was reversed by the current PC government.
To point 5. No, their actions made no sense except to turn around and cause undue harm to the population as a whole. Their actions were anti-manufacturing, pro-service industry, it was bad enough that data centers were considering packing up and moving from 151 Front St.(the core of the IT sector in Toronto, including all of the national hubs) and moving to other cities. Some went as far as to planning to move just across the border to Hull, QC. Oh, and going by what the auditor general has released so far? The previous government was worse.
I'm going to point out because you might not know it, but the brain behind those ideas is the same one who pushed Trudeau's carbon tax. The same on that nearly every province in Canada told the government to "fuck and you" over.
Om, nomnomnom...
Also, every actual investigation of ACORN resulted in no charges, despite Veritas's claims. The vast majority of those investigations were done by Republicans. Almost like the folks at Veritas were lying....
It's harder to charge organizations that are no longer function because even the democrats found the public opinion of them to be 'toxic' isn't it. Too bad, that you can watch the fully unedited videos and they show that it was actually worse then that.
where the unedited video was released via lawsuit, and showed that the claims were completely false and the released video was selectively edited to create their case.
But hey, it worked again for you, so they'll continue to keep lying to you. And you'll love them for it.
You mean the case where people involved along with PP, tried to stop the release of the video and it being included in evidence? To the point where the judge actively lashed out against the defense for attempting to suppress evidence? You might want to go pay more attention to what's actually going on. Gee it's almost like you didn't even read the court transcripts in that case. Wow.
Talking to a mirror?
Talking to reality, you might want to try it sometime.
Om, nomnomnom...
Please give your Kelly Ann Conway impression a rest and and try to address the real problem which is that you are struggling to understand the concept of conflict of interests.
Please give your Justin Trudeau impression of doubling down on information that you don't want the public to actually know about. While trying to downplay information by claiming to hold the gold standard of truth, and stating that even if there's a conflict of interest - it's not in the public interest to know the factual information.
Are you seriously trying to convince us that a single report written by a think tank which is funded by oil companies who have a vested interest in killing off the renewable energy industry is enough to completely discredit all renewables? That PowerPoint presentation should be taken with several table spoons of salt for that reason alone.
Then you shouldn't have any problems disproving what they've said. By all means, disprove it. Those of us who've already experienced the "green dream" of progressives just happen to curse their bullshit because it was economy kill, job killing, pipe dreams that translated into nothing that was promised, not even the "green jobs" to take care of the equipment. And actively accelerated manufacturing and tech jobs because of the high cost of electricity. Keep in mind that I'm a strong supporter of expanded nuclear energy and a global HVDC grid, since it doesn't suffer the "line loss" that long-distance HVAC suffers from.
Om, nomnomnom...
so much for the poor eh?
Cheap energy benefits the poor the most.
It's harder to charge organizations that are no longer function because even the democrats found the public opinion of them to be 'toxic' isn't it.
The charges would be filed against individuals, not the organization. And those individuals did not stop existing.
Also, Democratic politicians have a cowardice problem. Democrats fleeing from something is not evidence of much.
Too bad, that you can watch the fully unedited videos and they show that it was actually worse then that.
Uh....no they actually don't show it to be worse. Again, that's why there were no charges brought when Republicans investigated. But you need to tell yourself a story to avoid examining your beliefs, so I completely understand why you insist this is true.
You mean the case where people involved along with PP, tried to stop the release of the video and it being included in evidence?
Uh....Planned Parenthood filed the motion to force the release of the full video. How, exactly, were they trying to stop the release when they were the ones demanding the release?
To the point where the judge actively lashed out against the defense for attempting to suppress evidence?
[Citation Required]
You'll find it wasn't the Planned Parenthood side that was attempting to block the release.
Gee it's almost like you didn't even read the court transcripts in that case. Wow.
Well then, you'll have a very easy time providing that citation then!
Talking to reality, you might want to try it sometime.
The "reality" you are claiming to be true is that of a man literally convicted of lying (aka fraud). Perhaps you should spend some time digging into the public record of those you claim to be truthtellers.
Newsflash: Price is a great motivator. If the total cost of delivering renewables including covering baseload, implementing energy storage and installing the actual renewable generation capability is lower than traditional sources, people and corporations will install them. It's simple math. The US isn't going to be locked into expensive energy. That claim is absurd.
WE are wealthy and like things that wealthy people like. We make no more or less polution than the rest of the worlds top 10%.
US cities are farther apart and US roads are long and strait because we found the German roads to be useful in getting from place to place to view our rescue job. We drive everywhere because we lack public transport by 100+ years of choice. And we have this luxury called personal space where we do not have to interact with everyone at train/bus stations.
Even the poorest of us drive to our vacations because our vacations require a car on the other end outside of 10 cities.
I invite to spend your tourist dollars here. I certainly have spent my share in places from Rome to Munich to Dublin That part of the EU burns just as much petrochemicals as we do in the US.
Oh horse shit. My post didn't fit the narrative as dictated the status quo. I actually think for myself and don't bleet in line with the sheep. You know, look at the evidence and make my own mind. What a lot of people use to do here on slashdot. You know make reasonable arguments with the data I have and debate it?
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
I'm not sure about just solar being the answer on the hot days. The power issues seem to occur in the late afternoon and later, because the existing solar generation is starting to fall off. It would probably need to be a combination of solar and storage of some description, batteries or pumped hydro.
I'm going to point out because you might not know it, but the brain behind those ideas is the same one who pushed Trudeau's carbon tax. The same on that nearly every province in Canada told the government to "fuck and you" over.
By "nearly every province" did you mean Ontario and Saskatchewan? As I recall they are the only two to launch lawsuits. Two out of eight isn't really "nearly every". I suppose New Brunswick and Manitoba aren't in favour either, so that's four out of eight - not really "nearly every".
It does seem as thought the majority of Canadians individually support a price on C02 emissions, including a majority of people in Ontario, regardless of the provincial support. - https://ipolitics.ca/2018/11/0...