Renewable Energy Policies Actually Work (arstechnica.com) 205
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."
The Elephant in the U.S. room (Score:2, Troll)
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 app
Re:The Elephant in the U.S. room (Score:4, Insightful)
In the U.S. one of our two major political parties represents a minority of voters
Assuming you are referring to the Republican party and the last presidential election:
No, the Republican party represents a majority of Electoral College voters. These are the people who vote the president in. This is the vote that counts.
The Republican party received less votes when counting the totally unofficial and not used for anything popular vote. The competition wasn't run on the popular vote.
If the game were to get the most votes (with no EC in between) then you can be sure that both parties would have played the game very differently. For this reason you cannot project the popular vote count of the last election onto this hypothetical election and say Democrats would have won.
The rules were laid out and the Democrats didn't play the game as well. It's time to move on from that. If you want to change the way votes are counted then a preferential voting system is far superior to a simple "majority rules" system.
My country uses this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
We have almost 100% voter turn out (compulsory voting). We don't have Gerrymandering. We have an independent electoral commission.
These are mainly good things (I don't agree with compulsory voting, I do see it's benefits).
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Having a procedure electoral college between voters and the president doesn't in any way invalidate what the GP said given that there electoral college hours based on the decision of the population.
All you really did whole pretending to disagree with the GP was provide a nice expatiation of why they were right.
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Assuming you are referring to the Republican party and the last presidential election:
No, the Republican party represents a majority of Electoral College voters.
That does not mean they do not represent a minority of voters. The Electoral College is the mechanism by which they can win while representing a minority of voters.
Also, you forgot Congress exists. The Republicans in the Senate represent a minority of voters, yet hold the majority.
Talking about the Electoral College (or Senate apportionment) does not change that. You are just talking about the mechanisms that enable minority rule.
Where this is going to end up highly unstable is the problem is getting wor
Re:The Elephant in the U.S. room (Score:4, Insightful)
Oddly it is the so-called "red" states that are leading in renewable power generation. But I guess that doesn't fit your idiotic narrative. The question is what you YOU doing about it? Do you own a car? Use electricity?
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The voting system works to your benefit (Score:3, Insightful)
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 t
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Also, the EC is what keeps California and NY from ganging up on all the other states.
All of which means California gets to dominate affairs in the US house of representatives and presidential elections out of proportion to their electorate.
Funny, you've just that the EC prevents that? Make up your mind!
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Also, the EC is what keeps California and NY from ganging up on all the other states.
And it does that by allowing *other* states to gang up on California and NY. Is that more acceptable for some reason?
All of which means California gets to dominate affairs in the US house of representatives and presidential elections out of proportion to their electorate.
Funny, you've just that the EC prevents that? Make up your mind!
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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.
Clearly we need to go back to some sort of 3/5ths compromise, right?
Also, the EC is what keeps California and NY from ganging up on all the other states.
If you eliminate the Electoral College, how does California and NY "gang up" on all the other states? They're both about 40% Republican, and those votes suddenly matter when you've eliminated the Electoral College.
There's 38.1 million people in the NYC, LA and San Francisco metropolitan areas. The other parts of both states lean heavily Republican. There's 157.6 million registered voters in the US. Let's pretend that every single person
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Clearly we need to go back to some sort of 3/5ths compromise, right?
You mean the compromise that limited the power of the slave owning states in the House of Representatives by 3/5ths? The people that wanted slaves counted equally were slave owners.
I am always curious what people would do who bring up the 3/5ths. What would you have done? Sided with slave owners and counted slaves equally? Or would you not ratify the constitution?
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Okay, people are not illegal. They may be in the country against US law, but a human being is not inherently illegal.
An alien can be illegal [dictionary.com] when they enter a country in an illegal manner. They are, in fact, criminals by the very fact of entering the USA illegally. Unless you want to claim a murderer is not a murderer, he may have committed murder, but a human being is not inherently a murderer.
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Going by the "nationwide average" would mean other states are also under appointed.
That is obviously true, but how does that negate the claim about California (that in itself was in response to another claim about California, not about any other state)?
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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.
Are you claiming that the other party does not dance to the money of donors? The how did Bill and Hillary become multi-millionares on government pensions and salaries? How did Bernie Sanders afford multiple houses on a government salary? Where did Maxine Waters get her millions from?
Stop being a partisan hack. It is unbecoming.
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In the U.S. one of our two major political parties represents a minority of voters but thanks to our voting system...
The popular vote is a poor measure of whether one of the other party has a majority of the electorate. It does measure how many votes were actually cast, but keep in mind that both California and New York were conceded to the Democrats before the campaign started. Trump wasted very little time or money in either state.
If the popular vote mattered, the end result would have been the same. How do we know that? Look at how the vote went for the House of Representatives - Republicans won. Or what if all states
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Climate change policy is doomed to fail
They could just tax the hell out of gasoline, coal and beef. How hard is that really?
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Sure, and watch your economy collapse.
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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.
Re:The "majority" (Score:5, Informative)
"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.
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A lot of effort (Score:1, Interesting)
So why are some countries so successful at droppin (Score:3, Informative)
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.
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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.
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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.
It's just a shell game (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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Before making your claim, you probably should have checked on China's CO2 emissions recently. 'Cause they're flat: https://www.google.com/search?... [google.com]
Once the easy wins are taken... (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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The proponents of "green" energy always point to the early wins
Considering the price developments, that seems rather nonsensical. Why point out the early things that were accomplished at very high price? Why not point out the recent installations with vastly lower costs? Nobody sane would do the former.
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Germany's energy looks cleaner, because someone else is burning extra coal.
Why "extra" coal? [energytransition.org] There's actually 20% less of it being burned.
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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.
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As a matter of fact, the traditional grid has no mechanism for storing energy, so the generation and consumption must match perfectly at all times. This is basic physics and not at all controversial. When the sun comes up in California, the utility company has to take generation offline. When the sun goes down, the utility company has to carefully spool up generators to shoulder the extra load. This is well documented information which you could find online if you were interested in actually understanding t
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World-wide, no major country has a national grid with enough storage run for any length of time. The only significant type of storage connected to the US grid (which is the one I am more familiar with) is pumped hydro. It can only store a few percent of daily usage. Also, most pumped hydro plants are old. It is very difficult to find suitable locations for new pumped hydro because the US now frowns upon the idea of damming beautiful natural canyons to make giant water reservoirs.
Major breakthroughs in stora
Re: No they don't (Score:2)
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.
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Whether America was in or not, what actions were taken because of the accord? What did it change?
Re:No they don't (Score:5, Informative)
Georgetown, Texas tried to go the renewables route. They ended up paying more and getting less [texaspolicy.com].
Thanks to renewables, Australia ended up paying $500 a day per family for electricity [blogspot.com].
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.
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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?
Re:No they don't (Score:5, Informative)
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... [kvue.com]
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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 thes
Re:No they don't (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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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? [financialpost.com] Sure. Centerist? That's not a problem either. [theglobeandmail.com] How about far-left wing? Oh well what the fuck. [thestar.com] How about the CBC? Well damn this is just great. [www.cbc.ca] This "unbiased assessment" from multiple media outlets here in Canada is pretty good at explaining just how much the entire thing "broke" Ontario'
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Look, you can try the "but look...people funding" it's EEEEVVVVVVIIIIILLLLL.
Read this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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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
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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
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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/... [wikipedia.org]
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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 Republic
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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
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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 fi
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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.
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so much for the poor eh?
Cheap energy benefits the poor the most.
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Re:No they don't (Score:5, Informative)
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).
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Today you pay between 0.085 and 0.185kWh.
People are fleeing such cheap electricity? Why not simply use less?
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"Simple" are the people who can't figure out how to "simply" use less.
Re:No they don't (Score:4, Informative)
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.
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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
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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... [ipolitics.ca]
Re: No they don't (Score:2)
According to those of your sources which aren't opinion pieces, the problem was poor execution, not bad policy.
Re:No they don't (Score:4, Insightful)
Here's some background [wordpress.com] 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 [wattclarity.com.au]?
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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 [tyndall.ac.uk] research [globalcarbonproject.org] organizations [cicero.oslo.no] 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.
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Argumentum ad monsanteam
Re:No they don't (Score:4, Interesting)
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... [bloomberg.com] ... that was three years ago and Bloomberg is hardly a bastion of tree hugging libtardism.
Re:No they don't (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Bingo (Score:1, Interesting)
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.
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I think the Slashdot leadership is based on the West Coast, where this shit is treated as gospel. They can't understand why their readership isn't buying it, so they keep trying to get us to see the light and repeat our SJW/liberal cachism like good little boys and girls.
Re:Bingo (Score:4, Insightful)
CO2 emissions are fixable without "demolishing civilization".
It's only the people who want to do nothing about climate change that are pushing the narrative that it's a problem that cannot be solved "without demolishing civilization".
Re:Bingo (Score:5, Insightful)
Just Millennial SJW types. They have never seen a real recession so they think these things are the worst things that can happen.
The Great Recession hit at the same time that most millennials were attempting to enter the job market. It hurt that generation worse than any other. Despite this, I think that it's wise to view catastrophes caused by climate change as, if not "the worst things that can happen," to be worse than temporary economic woes caused by a recession. I have children, and I will probably one day have grandchildren. It would be pretty shitty of me to prioritize short term amenities over the sustainability of life on the planet that my progeny will depend on. Unlike the baby boomers, I don't wish take a mortgage out on my children's future for my own benefit.
Of course, asserting that one has to choose between economic stability and sound climate policy is a false dichotomy anyway.
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Just Millennial SJW types. They have never seen a real recession so they think these things are the worst things that can happen.
The Great Recession hit at the same time that most millennials were attempting to enter the job market. It hurt that generation worse than any other.
Oh, fuck you. The last 3 generations have had to deal with worse financial crises. Try being 24 in 2001 like I was. This is what we get for no longer teaching history in school. A generation that thinks its the first and has it the hardest of any generation in history when in fact the opposite was true.
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I was 19 at the time (good times!)
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Not so.
I entered the job market in 1980. During the recession around then not only did unemployment rise to double-digit numbers, so did inflation. It was a much worse economy than the millennials went thru.
And what about the cohort who entered the job market in the 1930s? That depression had much more unemployment and lasted longer than the "great recess
From If its on the internet it must true dept (Score:1)
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.
Re:No they don't (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:No they don't (Score:5, Informative)
Obviously not written by someone who lives in Australia:
--- Our coal plants fail [energycentral.com] 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 [abc.net.au] 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 [smh.com.au]. 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 [environmen...ria.org.au] 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 [macrobusiness.com.au] 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.
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Our coal plants fail [energycentral.com] 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 l
Yes they do. (Score:2)
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 p
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The US did NOT sign the Paris accord; President Obama supported it, but per the US Constitution, the US cannot "sign" a treaty or accord unless it's approved by the Senate - and it never was.
As far as "what's a reasonable price", a guy just won a Nobel Prize in economics calculating that very number [econlib.org] and it turns out the Paris goal of 1.5 deg C is about 1.63 times more expensive than doing nothing. And yes, that calculates all the costs of externalities. Doing the "full Gore" approach (that is supported by
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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[The President] shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur...
Note that it doesn't say accord, but that's a little like arguing over gun rights and "well regulated militia"
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Re:No they don't (Score:4, Informative)
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.
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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?
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Who, for example? Your affirmation is not a little bit too strong?
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everywhere there implemented
What?
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Ours is more potent, somehow.
Because we win the dick size wars.
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As usual, I was correct.
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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?
Re: No they don't (Score:2)
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.
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Cortez is tired of you talking about her like that and she's going to "clap back" and "destroy" you on Twitter.
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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?