Trump Orders a Lifeline For Struggling Coal and Nuclear Plants - Slashdot

Trump Orders a Lifeline For Struggling Coal and Nuclear Plants - Slashdot
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According to The New York Times, President Trump has ordered Energy Secretary Rick Perry to "
prepare immediate steps" to stop the closure of unprofitable coal and nuclear plants
around the country. From the report:
Under one proposal outlined in the memo, which was
reported by Bloomberg
, the Department of Energy would order grid operators to buy electricity from struggling coal and nuclear plants for two years, using emergency authority that is normally reserved for exceptional crises like natural disasters. That idea triggered immediate blowback from a broad alliance of energy companies, consumer groups and environmentalists. On Friday, oil and gas companies joined with wind and solar organizations in
a joint statement condemning the plan
, saying that it was "legally indefensible" and would force consumers to pay more for electricity.
The administration has also discussed invoking the Defense Production Act of 1950, which allows the federal government to intervene in private industry in the name of national security. (Harry S. Truman used the law to impose price controls on the steel industry during the Korean War.) If the Trump administration were to invoke these two statutes, the move would almost certainly be challenged in federal court by natural gas and renewable energy companies, which could stand to lose market share.
Such an intervention could cost consumers between $311 million to $11.8 billion pear year,
according to a preliminary estimate
(PDF) by Robbie Orvis, director of energy policy design at Energy Innovation.
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Trump Orders a Lifeline For Struggling Coal and Nuclear Plants
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Trump Orders a Lifeline For Struggling Coal and Nuclear Plants
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Capitalists no more?
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, Insightful)
by
orev
( 71566 )
writes:
on Friday June 01, 2018 @07:29PM (
#56712864
Isn't the point of capitalism to allow failing companies to die? At least during the financial crisis there was a national interest reason (collapse of the economy and banks runs are bad), but coal mines?
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Re:Capitalists no more?
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, Insightful)
by
Rick Schumann
( 4662797 )
writes:
on Friday June 01, 2018 @07:45PM (
#56712932
Journal
Yes, but in spite of all his bluster and repeating himself
ad infinitum
about any number of things that are complete and utter nonsense, he has to do whatever he has to, regardless of the consequences to the country and everyone in it, to retain the support of his voter base. Without them, he's got nothing. So he'll fuck over the economy, fuck over all citizens, and fuck over the environment, to appease those who voted for him. Little does he know that many of them are capable of looking past the ends of their own noses and will see that things like this that he does will have far-reaching negative effects -- and ironically he'll lose supporters anyway. He's a train wreck, has been all along, and isn't showing any signs of changing.
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Re:Capitalists no more?
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, Insightful)
by
fahrbot-bot
( 874524 )
writes:
on Friday June 01, 2018 @08:00PM (
#56713018
Little does he know that many of them are capable of looking past the ends of their own noses and will see that things like this that he does will have far-reaching negative effects -- and ironically he'll lose supporters anyway.
You sure about all that? I'm not.
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Re:
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by
Rick Schumann
( 4662797 )
writes:
Unlike
this guy
[slashdot.org] who commented below you, I don't automatically assume that someone who votes Republican, and specifically voted for Trump, has room-temperature IQ. Some of them did it out of spite, disappointment, and bitterness, which is not excusable, but at least understandable. Smart people do dumb things all the time; that's just how our primitive little species is at this point in it's development, our intellect doesn't always win out over our hardwired responses and emotions. These are the people I t
Re:
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by
fahrbot-bot
( 874524 )
writes:
... Some of them did it out of spite, disappointment, and bitterness, which is not excusable, but at least understandable.
... These are the people I think are looking at Trump and realizing what a mistake it's all been and how much they want to take it back now.
Sure, I get that. But I wonder how many, like Trump himself, will double-down in the "us vs. them" environment it seems to be in the remote hope of coming out on top - even, or especially, if it's on top of the rubble of our society. Scorched-Earth campaigns have a certain appeal if you think you're better prepared than others to deal with the results or just don't care (about the results and/or others). Trump certainly doesn't seem to really care about anything except the adoration of the people at his
Re:Capitalists no more?
Score:
, Insightful)
by
jader3rd
( 2222716 )
writes:
on Friday June 01, 2018 @08:45PM (
#56713238
Little does he know that many of them are capable of looking past the ends of their own noses and will see that things like this that he does will have far-reaching negative effects
Pretty much the definition of a Trump supporter is that they aren't capable of that.
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Re:Capitalists no more?
Score:
, Funny)
by
PolygamousRanchKid
( 1290638 )
writes:
on Friday June 01, 2018 @07:54PM (
#56712978
but coal mines?
"I think we should look at this from the military point of view. I mean, supposing the Russkies stashes away some big bomb, see. When they come out in a hundred years they could take over... In fact, they might even try an immediate sneak attack so they could take over our mineshaft space... I think it would be extremely naive of us, Mr. President, to imagine that these new developments are going to cause any change in Soviet expansionist policy. I mean, we must be... increasingly on the alert to prevent them from taking over other mineshaft space, in order to breed more prodigiously than we do, thus, knocking us out in superior numbers when we emerge!
Mr. President, we must not allow... a mine shaft gap!
- General Buck Turgidson
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Theres still hope for Betamax
Score:
, Funny)
by
goombah99
( 560566 )
writes:
on Friday June 01, 2018 @08:03PM (
#56713030
Ha! good thing I didn't sell my stock in buggy whips!
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They never were
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, Insightful)
by
rsilvergun
( 571051 )
writes:
on Friday June 01, 2018 @09:41PM (
#56713496
these are the same folks who vote for the farm bill and oil subsidies every year. The same folks that made marijuana illegal to prop up private prison industry and cotton. The same folks that ran proxy wars in South America for bloody _fruit_ companies.
No, there's nothing even a little capitalistic about this party. They're just Kleptocrats.
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Re:They never were
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, Insightful)
by
110010001000
( 697113 )
writes:
on Friday June 01, 2018 @10:50PM (
#56713740
Homepage
Journal
Exactly. Who ever thought Republicans were free market capitalists? They are Corporatists, not Capitalists. I mean the politicians and the members of the Party of course, not the voters. Republican voters are just dumb.
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Re:Capitalists no more?
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, Insightful)
by
ezelkow1
( 693205 )
writes:
on Friday June 01, 2018 @07:50PM (
#56712956
Huh? The coal companies even said they are being pushed out by a glut of cheaper natural gas and renewable energy. If they can not provide a product at the same level of quality and at a similar price to competitors then why shouldn't they go out of business? People will still get power to their homes, by the providers that are providing the goods at the best cost.
Banks and coal mines are not comparable in any way, especially in the manner in which they are failing. Major banks fail and the economy collapses because no one can borrow money, whole populations do not get paid, and it all goes in to a downard spiral. Coal companies fail and
...................... we get the same product at the same cheaper price we did before
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Re:
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by
Maxo-Texas
( 864189 )
writes:
Plus they are automating away the jobs (and votes) anyway.
This plan doesn't even support Mr. Trump politically. I'd start looking for large payments to trump associates from this industry.
It doesn't make sense unless he's getting a cut somehow.
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by
orev
( 71566 )
writes:
Why are you saying the exact same thing I just said but presenting it in a way that you are arguing against it? This is really the problem with the Internet these days -- people just argue for the sake of arguing, even when in agreement.
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by
ezelkow1
( 693205 )
writes:
how am I arguing with you? This was in response to 'you no longer have electricity to power your home', I am in complete agreement with you. Unless you have -1 hidden and cannot see the post that it was in response to and assume it was directly at your post?
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by
Agripa
( 139780 )
writes:
Huh? The coal companies even said they are being pushed out by a glut of cheaper natural gas and renewable energy. If they can not provide a product at the same level of quality and at a similar price to competitors then why shouldn't they go out of business?
It is especially difficult when laws are passed requiring customers to buy from your competitors lowering your capacity factor. A suspicious person might think lowering the capacity factor of nuclear power plants which have low marginal costs was intentional.
After the nuclear power plants and coal power plants shut down because they are not being paid for their 24 hour availability, what do you believe will provide power grid stability?
Re:
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by
Hognoxious
( 631665 )
writes:
any more than you can convince a climate change denier that climate change is an illusion
I would have thought that's trivially easy. In fact it requires no effort at all.
Re:
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by
Barsteward
( 969998 )
writes:
"and the barriers to entry were as low for nuclear " - they are not cheap or fast to commission or decommission and the land they are built on will be useless and if another huge war erupts, you have some nice juicy targets to hit to take out all the power generation in the country fairly quickly if you are solely nuclear.
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by
Hognoxious
( 631665 )
writes:
you have some nice juicy targets to hit to take out all the power generation in the country fairly quickly if you are solely nuclear.
Right, because coal powered plants are so small you can hide them in a shed.
Re:Capitalists no more?
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, Informative)
by
careysub
( 976506 )
writes:
on Friday June 01, 2018 @10:28PM (
#56713676
Low quality AC BS.
Natural Gas Advanced Combined Cycle plants are cheaper than coal plants
right now
, which is why they are pushing coal fired power plants out of business
right now
. Check out up-to-date levelized costs for all the types of power plants, NG advanced combined cycle beats them all - which is why hard nosed capitalist businessmen have been replacing coal with natural gas power at (currently) a rate of 20 GW a year.
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Re: Capitalists no more?
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, Troll)
by
c6gunner
( 950153 )
writes:
Replacing nuclear and coal with wind or solar doesn't really change anything.
Right, replacing infrastructure which can output a predictable amount of energy 24/7 with power sources which fluctuate massively depending on environmental conditions
... that doesn't change anything at all.
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by
MillionthMonkey
( 240664 )
writes:
Right, replacing infrastructure which can output a predictable amount of energy 24/7 with power sources which fluctuate massively depending on environmental conditions
... that doesn't change anything at all.
We're replacing it with a power source that doesn't make environmental conditions fluctuate, moron.
Re: Capitalists no more?
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, Troll)
by
c6gunner
( 950153 )
writes:
... I think your brain just farted.
IMHO, we need nuclear
Score:
, Insightful)
by
Snotnose
( 212196 )
writes:
on Friday June 01, 2018 @07:31PM (
#56712870
Coal is outdated and needs to be replaced with natural gas.
Nuclear has issues (most of them caused by lawyers paid by the hour, most of the rest caused by executives paid by the quarterly stock price, and a small handful of technical issues) but they're still a good way to get a lot of energy from a small footprint with a minimum of global warming.
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Re:IMHO, we need nuclear
Score:
, Interesting)
by
Rick Schumann
( 4662797 )
writes:
on Friday June 01, 2018 @07:47PM (
#56712942
Journal
Natural gas is a stop-gap, but it's a better stop-gap than coal is. Nuclear needs to be un-demonized, but rather than the over-complicated, high-pressure reactor designs we've got now, we need a 21st century upgrade to newer, better designs that are less expensive and safer -- and these exist. I also personally think that thorium reactors should be given a serious look, but I know I'm in the minority there.
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Re:IMHO, we need nuclear
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, Insightful)
by
voss
( 52565 )
writes:
on Friday June 01, 2018 @08:57PM (
#56713314
Nuclear is an option but propping up old nuclear and coal plants is not the answer and does not incentivize new nuclear designs.
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Re:
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by
Rick Schumann
( 4662797 )
writes:
I'm making a
face
right now because I more-or-less said exactly what you just said but you apparently didn't see or comprehend that.
:p
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by
voss
( 52565 )
writes:
No what you said nuclear needs to be undemonized and mentioned other newer types of nuclear power. What I said is what Trump did does not do that and does not create incentives to do what you want. It was not "just what I said"
Nuclear power is intrinsically pretty dumb.
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, Insightful)
by
Brannon
( 221550 )
writes:
It's only economical if you don't budget for decommissioning and cleanup (pushing that to future generations) and it's only safe if either (a) it's regulated to death--which also makes it uneconomical, or (b) at no point in the 60 year operational lifetime no one ever gives control of safety over to an MBA (or just a bad engineer). And the penalty for making too many mistakes is a cataclysmic disaster. Oh, and it requires a gigantic capital investment that only pays off over many decades and only if alterna
Re:
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by
Barsteward
( 969998 )
writes:
Unfortunately the total nuclear proponents never ever mention commissioning/decommission costs or how the land after decommissioning would be "lovely"
Re: Nuclear power is intrinsically pretty dumb.
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, Informative)
by
c6gunner
( 950153 )
writes:
on Saturday June 02, 2018 @09:39AM (
#56715206
Homepage
Here's a lesson for young engineers out there: A good engineering solution is one that is intrinsically safe and simple, one that naturally fails in a safe way
Which modern designs absolutely are. Even older nuclear plants didn't depend on "everyone doing their jobs perfectly", they only depended on people not doing incredibly stupid things in large numbers at the same time. This invariably meant that at some point I'm the 70ish years we've had them, at least a few would fail in dangerous way. Their safety record was still fantastic, but not perfect.
With modern designs you don't even have that possibility. You could put a bunch of liberal arts majors in charge of the plant and the worst thing that happens is it stops working. Granted, there's still the possibility that one of them will try eating the nuclear fuel, but the damage from that particular failure will be quite limited in scope.
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Re: Nuclear power is intrinsically pretty dumb.
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by
c6gunner
( 950153 )
writes:
Stop. This nonsense about humans being able to create systems that are 100% human proof has to stop because of, oh, I don't know, history.
So I've got one guy telling me that things need to be engineered to be human proof, and I've got you telling me that it's impossible. Great. You two go argue it out. I'll get my popcorn.
Re:Nuclear power is intrinsically pretty dumb.
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, Informative)
by
Rick Schumann
( 4662797 )
writes:
on Saturday June 02, 2018 @12:47PM (
#56716002
Journal
I'm astounded at how little people comprehend -- or even completely read -- what people write.
I already said the current designs aren't great, there are better ones, and potentially better technologies (e.g. thorium) but like too many you don't see to READ WHAT I WROTE and that annoys me.
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So, you're plan is vaporware?
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, Informative)
by
Brannon
( 221550 )
writes:
The most modern 3G safe reactor designs out there still have safety problems.
[telegraph.co.uk]
And the economics of the industry has been devastated:
A dozen reasons for the economic failure of nuclear power
[thebulletin.org]
Nuclear is done, it's more expensive than the alternatives with greater risk for catastrophe. You can drop the whole exasperated genius routine, we're not buying it.
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by
ChromeAeonuim
( 1026946 )
writes:
What I find perennially amusing is how, every time there's talk about the government financially supporting nuclear power, the people who previously supported subsidies & tax breaks for 'green energy' suddenly become free market capitalists. Just watch, happens every time.
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by
careysub
( 976506 )
writes:
Don't presume to speak for me.
A case can be made for providing subsidies for nuclear power to push carbon releasing power out of the picture faster. But subsidizing nuclear
and
coal is corrupt insanity. If the case were made for how we could get rid of coal
faster
I'd be all for giving it a hearing.
Re:
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by
Barsteward
( 969998 )
writes:
What I find perennially amusing is how, every time there's talk about the government financially supporting 'green energy' , the people who previously supported subsidies & tax breaks for nuclear power/fossil fuel suddenly become free market capitalists.
;)
Nuclear is last centuries tech like fossil fuel so their subsidies should have stopped as they reached the mass market. Subsidies for renewable should also stop when its met a critical mass and is no longer a minor part of the power generation map.
I still oppose nuclear
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, Insightful)
by
rsilvergun
( 571051 )
writes:
on Friday June 01, 2018 @08:05PM (
#56713048
because I don't trust Americans. They'll want to privatize it sooner or later because it's easy to convince 51% of the population that the private sector is so much more efficient (which is funny, since most of them have worked for mega corps and seen exactly how efficient private business is). Of course private enterprise isn't more or less efficient, but people expected cost savings and dam-gummit they're gonna get those savings... by dangerously cutting corners and/or running plants far outside their useful life cycle.
This isn't even hypothetical. It's exactly what happened in Fukushima. And the people involved got off Scott free too. They cried a little on TV and all was forgiven. Meanwhile lots of the clean up workers died of cancer already and thousands lost their homes and jobs.
Until you can convince America that Ronny Reagan was full shit when he said "Government's not the solution, it's the problem" then I want nothing to do with nuclear. I suppose if you could make it cheaper to run a safe plant than an unsafe one, but that tech isn't even on the horizon.
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Actually, I do RTFA
( 1058596 )
writes:
I suppose if you could make it cheaper to run a safe plant than an unsafe one, but that tech isn't even on the horizon.
It's not missing tech. It's missing liability laws. Make the CEO and stockholders personally liable for all the damages from a meltdown, and safety will be the number one priority before the ink on the new law is dry
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by
careysub
( 976506 )
writes:
Is there any way that coal plants can be adapted to burn gas rather than coal?
Yes, and coal plant conversions are
a major business
[energynews.us]. They don't have the efficiency of an advanced combined cycle plant, and thus can't compete long term, but they have their place.
Re:
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by
willy_me
( 212994 )
writes:
Allowing "hot particles" to escape is essential. One has to condense steam back into water so that it can be circulated by pumps. This results is lost heat and is the main reason why turbines will never go much beyond 50% efficiency -- with 40% being more common. In theory you could use
Stirling engines
[wikipedia.org] to capture some of this energy - but only some of the energy and in practice it is not worth it.
Re: IMHO, we need nuclear
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c6gunner
( 950153 )
writes:
The biggest problem with nuclear is that is takes a lot of technology to make them safe
No, it doesn't. For the plants which are currently in use, yeah, that was true, but all of that safety "technology" is already in place and is essentially a sunk cost. Modern designs are inherently failsafe and far simpler in most ways. At this point IRS entirely a regulatory issue. Streamlining the approval process for the construction of modern plants would make them far cheaper to build and operate, while improving public safety by allowing us to decommission older (more dangerous) facilities.
52-dimensional chess
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, Insightful)
by
PopeRatzo
( 965947 )
writes:
on Friday June 01, 2018 @07:36PM (
#56712892
Journal
The administration has also discussed invoking the Defense Production Act of 1950, which allows the federal government to intervene in private industry in the name of national security.
Finally we have a president who truly understands the value of "free markets" without government interference.
At least Trump is demonstrating that every one of the most hallowed conservative principles really don't mean a thing to conservatives. They never did. It was always a con job. Trump could perform an abortion with a rusty screwdriver while raising taxes and banning guns on Fifth Avenue and conservatives would still meekly seek his approval and make excuses for him as long as he continues to send up the racist bat-signal.
A reckoning will come.
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Conservatives aren't
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, Insightful)
by
rsilvergun
( 571051 )
writes:
on Friday June 01, 2018 @07:52PM (
#56712966
they use the word to hide the fact that they're actually in favor of sweeping societal and economic changes. They're not Conservative (opposing change and supporting the status quo). Heck, one of the most Conservative politicians in history was Hillary Clinton. She'd have kept everything as is, making only small changes to keep everything on course; and she polled terribly. As a rule "progressive" policies (Medicare for all, College for everyone, New New Deal, ending wars, infrastructure spending, living wage, etc, etc) poll in the mid to high 60s, yet their candidates can't seem to win elections.
What I'd like to see is an honest label for the entire movement. Maybe "Regressives", since they seem to want to roll us back to the early 1900s or even late 1800s. Except not quite because they wouldn't support the isolationism and anti-bank sentiment that was popular back then. I wouldn't call them Neo-Liberals because they stop all sorts of liberty (Drugs, abortion, Gay Marriage, etc). I'm open to suggestions, but it bothers me that they use such a deceptive label. If people knew their actual policies they wouldn't have a chance.
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Re:
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by
togofspookware
( 464119 )
writes:
As a rule "progressive" policies (Medicare for all, College for everyone, New New Deal, ending wars, infrastructure spending, living wage, etc, etc) poll in the mid to high 60s, yet their candidates can't seem to win elections.
They do when they get the chance to run. The problem, as you just pointed out, is that of the 2 major parties that we seem to be stuck with under first-past-the-post voting, the one that people see as a progressive party is actually the status quo party.
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fahrbot-bot
( 874524 )
writes:
52-dimensional chess
Sounds like a house of cards.
His poll numbers are solidly in their 40s
Score:
, Interesting)
by
rsilvergun
( 571051 )
writes:
on Friday June 01, 2018 @08:10PM (
#56713066
and haven't budged once since he got elected (+/- 2% for error). And he keeps doing worse things. He supports TPP now, and DACA, and H1-Bs, and looked the other way while Carrier Air and Harley Davidson outsourced jobs, and protected Chinese jobs at ZTE, and failed at Repeal & Replace... I could go on.
All these broken promisies, the first two absolutely critical to his base, and still his poll #s are at or near 40%. Meanwhile the Dems are getting ready to run another Milktoast Hillary-bot 2.0 "centerist" candidate in all their races and give up both the House and Senate and eventually another presidency...
Trump at least _says_ he'll do something. He's lying, but the lies feel good. So far the right wing corporate Dems don't promise anything but the same policies that got us in this mess. Meanwhile the few Dems like Bernie and
Alison Hartson
[youtube.com] get hammered by the establishment Dems and shut down.
I don't see any sign of reckoning. All I see is business as usual...
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PopeRatzo
( 965947 )
writes:
All these broken promisies, the first two absolutely critical to his base, and still his poll #s are at or near 40%.
Are those the same polls that said Hillary would win?
Anyway, if you do a deep dive into those polls, you'll find that he's still an historically unpopular president. As long as he's sufficiently racist and does things like take children away from asylum seekers, he'll keep drawing his 5,000 at rallies, but he's about as popular with most Americans as he is with Melania.
No, it's from 538
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, Interesting)
by
rsilvergun
( 571051 )
writes:
on Friday June 01, 2018 @09:36PM (
#56713470
who consistently said Hilary was in trouble and needed to be campaigning harder while everyone else said Trump didn't have a chance.
Again, his poll number's don't budge. If you ask people about issues they consistently oppose Trump. If you ask them about _Trump_ they consistently support him. Thing is, that's not how politics work in America. In America we have wedge issues (Abortion, Gun Control, Gay rights) that split the voters almost evenly. Then there's a small number of 'swing' voters.
Thing is those voters vote on their 'gut'. They don't rationally weigh options and policies. They vote for the candidate that makes them feel the best. This is why you can take a Trump voter, run Trump's polices against them and find they oppose Trump 70-80% of the time but they'll still come out and vote for Trump. Trump makes them feel _good_. His rallies are fun. He Makes America Great Again. Hillary (and the Milktoast right winger Dems like her) make everybody feel bad. They call you a racist and a sexist. They tell you how bad you are for not making it through college or not having enough money to get your kid's through college. Trump tells you he's gonna get your jobs and healthcare. Hillary says she's gonna leave things as is, with you unemployed and not able to afford a doctor visit even if you have insurance.
This is the reality of the American Political system. None of it was by accident. It was built this way to keep wealthy landowners in power. It's doing exactly what it's supposed to do: provide the illusion of Democracy. I don't know how to fix it either.
A buddy of mine is absolutely fucked. Almost 50, lots of health problems, has a parent who just won't die and is weighing him down. Dead end job because they shipped his career overseas. Fucked. He's turned to phony-baloney "Alternative" medicine bought off Amazon to treat his various illnesses. Right now the symptoms can be lived with (albeit with a big hit to his productivity), but that's not gonna last. Still, he's convinced himself everything's OK, that he's getting better. That Homeopathy works. And that he's gonna get rich off some dumb ass crypto coin scheme he put $300 bucks into. Meanwhile he just starting working for some gig economy bullshit where they dictate everything he does but don't have to pay benefits or minimum wage.
He should be pissed that he and his parents got tossed aside like hot garbage. He should demand healthcare and a decent wage. He should be voting the the Dems primary to drive the party left and then in the general to drive them to victory. That's the problem I don't know how to solve. We're a nation of temporarily inconvenienced millionaires...
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Actually, I do RTFA
( 1058596 )
writes:
Then there's a small number of 'swing' voters.

Thing is those voters vote on their 'gut'. They don't rationally weigh options and policies. They vote for the candidate that makes them feel the best.
I disagree on that. I mean, obviously, swing voters are those who don't vote based on wedge issues. So if that's the "policies" you mean, then I'm totally offbase. But most swing voters seems to like some policies from each party. Or care about really obscure ones that are sometimes supported by one party
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angel'o'sphere
( 80593 )
writes:
You got it all opposite way around: the parties "offer" positions to catch votes, that is all. If your demography is so bad that 60% of the population is against gay marriage, the parties will oppose gay marriage. Your parties usually don't "make politics"
... they turn their coat to catch the wind that breezes, hence the US are as a society so backyard.
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by
Actually, I do RTFA
( 1058596 )
writes:
Sometimes politicians are followers. Othertimes they're leaders. Yeah, they're unlikely to fly in the face of 60% disapproval, but 52%?
US Society is backwards because there has been a propaganda campaign since the 80's or 90's, convincing people that if it wasn't for that horrible government in their way, they'd all be millionaires.
Re:
Score:
by
iMadeGhostzilla
( 1851560 )
writes:
Not consistently. Nate Silver only started downgrading Hillary's chances sometime in the late summer/early autumn of 2016. I remember there being a discussion on his site where someone claimed Nate was playing a dangerous game of small potential gains and huge potential loses. If Hillary won, the argument went, no one would credit Nate because it was obvious to all that she would. But if Trump won, everyone would say that if Nate Silver was so wrong about that how could he be right about anything else. He w
Re:
Score:
by
iMadeGhostzilla
( 1851560 )
writes:
Another possibility is Trump is not an ideologue and acts on hunches that are telling him something is beneficial to the country at the moment, without necessarily understanding (or trying to understand) why.
I know that sounds scary, but sometimes acting on a belief that everything is well understood and thought out leads to worse consequences, for example the intervention in Libya.
Re:52-dimensional chess
Score:
, Insightful)
by
PopeRatzo
( 965947 )
writes:
on Friday June 01, 2018 @08:28PM (
#56713134
Journal
Another possibility is Trump is not an ideologue and acts on hunches that are telling him something is beneficial to the country at the moment, without necessarily understanding (or trying to understand) why.
This is my favorite flavor of Trump apologia. It's the "Father Knows Best" argument for why he's really the greatest president ever.
This is also the theory of Scott Adams, who is now known mainly for making excuses for anything Trump does, and for being a feckless cunt.
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Re:
Score:
by
iMadeGhostzilla
( 1851560 )
writes:
Well, how do you appraise a theory? You evaluate its predictions. The theory you suggested in your first post is the kind of theory that predicted his defeat in the election, and then doom and gloom afterwards. The "hunch" theory has been claiming the opposite since the beginning. Which do you think the current reality reflects better?
Scott Adams, whom I haven't followed for a long time, deserves credit on his own for predicting Trump successes. Scott's problem is that he is a hyperrational person which alm
Re:
Score:
by
phantomfive
( 622387 )
writes:
Scott Adams, whom I haven't followed for a long time, deserves credit on his own for predicting Trump successes.
I want to point out that he also predicted Trumps failure. However he didn't fall for political derangement syndrome, which put him ahead of the pundits.
Re:52-dimensional chess
Score:
, Insightful)
by
GrimSavant
( 5251917 )
writes:
on Friday June 01, 2018 @09:10PM (
#56713366
Trump is not an ideologue in the traditional sense, yes, but the problem with your statement is who his hunches are telling him are benefiting from the impulsive action. It is not what is beneficial to the country as a whole, it is what is beneficial to Trump personally and to his political allies. Perhaps he is such an extreme narcissist that he conflates those two together, but that doesn't make it any better.
Propping up the coal industry should make this point plain as day to rational observers. Coal has a
load of negative externalities
[theatlantic.com], it imposes a cost on society far higher than is paid in the price paid by the end electricity consumer. The old economic excuse for coal, that it's cheap, rooted in a laissez faire or free-market capitalist ideological justification, is moot since coal is decreasingly competitive on price, particularly in comparison to natural gas. It wouldn't need these subsidizes otherwise.
All that remains is naked use political power for self interest and the interest of political allies. Much like coal itself, that is very old and very dirty.
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Re:
Score:
by
Raenex
( 947668 )
writes:
Propping up the coal industry should make this point plain as day to rational observers. Coal has a load of negative externalities
Missing from this argument are the externalities that come from renewables, in particular rare earth minerals.
Also missing from this argument is the actual national security reason given for saving coal plants: reliability. Unlike natural gas, coal fuel can be stored on site.
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Score:
by
iMadeGhostzilla
( 1851560 )
writes:
Note though that it is your judgement, that Trump is doing what he's doing to benefit himself. You interpret his actions one way or another based on your knowledge of people you've met in your life and on your own psychological makeup. A lot of people -- close to a half of the voting population -- do not share your judgment. If Trump's character were on trial, we'd have a hung jury.
I would agree with you about coal, except that I don't know almost anything about the realities of the coal, and I cannot say t
Re: 52-dimensional chess
Score:
, Insightful)
by
fahrbot-bot
( 874524 )
writes:
on Friday June 01, 2018 @08:05PM (
#56713046
I openly admit that I voted for Trump because I didn't want to see the blatant corruption get into office.
"blatant, unproven -- except within the Fox 'News' and Alt-Right echo chambers -- corruption" - Fixed that for you.
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Re: 52-dimensional chess
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, Insightful)
by
Waffle Iron
( 339739 )
writes:
on Friday June 01, 2018 @08:34PM (
#56713168
I openly admit that I voted for Trump because I didn't want to see the blatant corruption get into office.
I don't understand what is wrong with you people. This country has usually been run by corrupt politicians for almost 250 years, and things usually worked out.
What we haven't done until now is elect obvious mentally unstable megalomaniac sociopaths (who are also corrupt, BTW); that was left for third world countries to deal with. Why you could even begin to think that this was preferable to run-of-the-mill corruption is beyond me.
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Re: 52-dimensional chess
Score:
, Insightful)
by
drinkypoo
( 153816 )
writes:
drink@hyperlogos.org
on Friday June 01, 2018 @08:44PM (
#56713234
Homepage
Journal
I openly admit that I voted for Trump because I didn't want to see the blatant corruption get into office. Trump was a wild card. I admit he was a mistake, but I don't believe he was any more of a mistake than Hillary would have been.
Stop making excuses. It's obvious that he was more of a mistake than Hillary would have been, and if you still can't see that, I fear you're just going to fuck this up again next time. I'm no fan of the status quo, I am way the hell
left
of the Democratic party. But it's easy to see that Trump is actually worse than business as usual.
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Re:
Score:
by
Uberbah
( 647458 )
writes:
The fact that you're not a year into nuclear winter (Hillary campaigned on shooting down Russian jets in Syria) alone means Trump is the lesser evil.
Re: 52-dimensional chess
Score:
, Informative)
by
jader3rd
( 2222716 )
writes:
on Friday June 01, 2018 @08:48PM (
#56713262
I openly admit that I voted for Trump because I didn't want to see the blatant corruption get into office.
Trumps history is a series of one corruption being defended by lawyers/fixers after another. His corruption is so blatant it will be defining definition of corruption for generations to come.
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Re: 52-dimensional chess
Score:
, Insightful)
by
fafalone
( 633739 )
writes:
on Friday June 01, 2018 @09:44PM (
#56713512
So you looked at Trump and thought "here's an honest, non-corrupt person"? And you guys wonder why everyone is insulting your intelligence... geez. His unabashed corruption in his dealings was open knowledge, what would ever possess you to think he'd get in office and not put Clinton's corruption (not denying that she was corrupt too) to shame?
I'd love to see Sanders get the nomination, but all signs point to the Democrats doubling down on their failed strategy and nominating another anti-civil rights, pro-surveillance, pro-war, identity politics obsessed woman like Kamala Harris or Elizabeth Warren, then proceed to imply only a racist/sexist would oppose them, and then wonder what happened when once again voters stay home and don't vote for anyone (the direct cause of Trump's win) again in record numbers.
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Re: 52-dimensional chess
Score:
, Informative)
by
GrimSavant
( 5251917 )
writes:
on Friday June 01, 2018 @10:40PM (
#56713716
You don't have to like Elizabeth Warren, but at least get your basic facts straight about her political background. She rose to political prominence as a specialist on the issue of consumer finance, and was previously a professor focused on bankruptcy and commercial law. Her main claim to fame before running for senate in Massachusetts was being the mastermind behind the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and she's been clashing heavily with Republicans on that for years. Warren's political constituency significantly overlaps with Sanders on the left, as she was a higher profile anti-Wall St. crusader prior to his primary run, and if you actually believe in Sanders ideology for what it actually stands for then Warren is an obvious alternative.
It was actually her opponents that were really laying hard into identity politics, Scott Brown and more recently Donald Trump himself. Trump and associates were the ones called her Pocahontas and they were the ones that brought up the racial identity issue in the political arena, not her.
Don't take this as me advocating her running for president, however, she is a bit of a specialist. But her popularity on the left comes from many of the same places for the same reasons that Sanders does, and making it all about gender is more on you than on her.
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Re:
Score:
by
fafalone
( 633739 )
writes:
All I said applies to Harris but yeah I think you're right and I was thinking of Nancy Pelosi, not Elizabeth Warren, as the other name I wanted to specifically call out. My bad.
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Score:
by
GrimSavant
( 5251917 )
writes:
Pelosi's a bit of a different case, though I really don't expect her to run for president. Pelosi was an effective speaker of the house at actually doing the job of herding the cats of the democratic house caucus, but is also an amazingly effective lightning rod for Republicans and has a habit of saying politically stupid things that sell poorly to the general public. If she becomes president it'll be due to some ultra-long shot double whammy impeachment that gets both Trump and Pence if Pelosi is reelected
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Score:
by
h33t l4x0r
( 4107715 )
writes:
Trump and associates were the ones called her Pocahontas and they were the ones that brought up the racial identity issue in the political arena, not her.
The issue wasn't her racial identity - it was whether or not she lied about her heritage presumably to get votes or some other special consideration. She handled it exactly wrong by neither apologizing nor doubling down and she's probably too weak to win a general election. I like her though - I just don't think she can win.
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Score:
by
Hognoxious
( 631665 )
writes:
I have no idea who I will vote for in 2020
You're assuming there'll be an election in 2020. Well, there's something to be said for being positive...
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Score:
by
nasch
( 598556 )
writes:
He's saying of the two presidential candidates, Clinton was the corrupt one so he voted for Trump. I know, it really doesn't make any sense, but there it is.
Tragic comedy of the world stage
Score:
by
Latent Heat
( 558884 )
writes:
where the guy is loved by the leaders of Japan, Philippines, Saudi, Israel, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, and yes, Montenegro.
A tragic comedy where the leader of Saudi is telling the Palestinians to "go for whatever 'deal' the Americans offer"?
I all suppose that recovery won't be easy or cheap if you take the view that Harry Truman made a big mistake recognizing the State of Israel? That what the Germans or what this guy
[bing.com] thinks of us is important?
Hooray for the free market and small government
Score:
, Insightful)
by
nedlohs
( 1335013 )
writes:
on Friday June 01, 2018 @08:02PM (
#56713020
Glad to see the Republicans sticking to their principles.
Share
Re:
Score:
, Insightful)
by
fafalone
( 633739 )
writes:
They are.
Doing everything possible to support their rich CEO donors in their quest to fuck over people and the environment in pursuit of ever more profit.
What, you think they actually gave a damn about economic principles, fiscal conservatism, or family values? Please. Those are just tools they use to trick half the electorate into consistently voting against their own self-interest.
Nuclear is to Coal as Horses Are to...
Score:
by
retroworks
( 652802 )
writes:
...Dead salamanders. The only reason to align the two is political swamp-reason.
The coal industry employs fewer people than Arby&r
Score:
, Insightful)
by
fahrbot-bot
( 874524 )
writes:
on Friday June 01, 2018 @08:29PM (
#56713140
Just passing along that,
The entire coal industry employs fewer people than Arby’s
[washingtonpost.com] -- and just a bit more that Whole Foods:
The coal industry employed 76,572 people in 2014, the latest year for which data is available. (That number includes not just miners but also office workers, sales staff and all of the other individuals who work at coal-mining companies.)
Although 76,000 might seem like a large number, consider that similar numbers of people are employed by, say, the bowling (69,088) and skiing (75,036) industries. Other dwindling industries, such as travel agencies (99,888 people), employ considerably more. Used-car dealerships provide 138,000 jobs. Theme parks provide nearly 144,000. Carwash employment tops 150,000.
Looking at the level of individual businesses,
the coal industry in 2014 (76,572)
employed about as many as Whole Foods (72,650), and fewer workers than
Arby's (close to 80,000),
Dollar General (105,000) or J.C. Penney (114,000). The country's largest private employer, Walmart (2.2 million employees) provides roughly 28 times as many jobs as coal.
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Re:The coal industry employs fewer people than Arb
Score:
by
volmtech
( 769154 )
writes:
If a job is a job is a job, why are you not working for Walmart? You must have some idea how wealth is created and know that flipping burgers is not how.
And what about national security? How easy would it be to sever a natural gas pipe line? They run through miles and miles of empty country. Fifteen minutes with an excavator and a little C4 could shut down a entire state's supply. With a coal or nuclear plant only the plant grounds themselves have to be guarded.
I suppose you think we do not need a farm
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Score:
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careysub
( 976506 )
writes:
Deceptive counting.
Once you add in transportation, power plants, prospecting, refining, and the other dependent industries, the number goes up.
For example, there are 75,000 coal miners,
There are 30,000 employed in the transport of said coal.
Coal power plants employ another 60,000.
Prospectors employ another 10,000 or so.
Still not absurdly huge, but much larger than you are claiming.
This roughly correct, there are about 174,000 coal related jobs in the U.S., making it (if it were a single company) about the 48th largest employer in the country, behind Costco, and Walmart is still 13 times larger, and only one in 800 working Americans is employed by this industry at all. Of course replacing coal with other forms of power still keeps power plant workers employed, so any shift away from coal will keep many of these still working.
Re:
Score:
by
fahrbot-bot
( 874524 )
writes:
Deceptive counting.
Once you add in transportation, power plants, prospecting, refining, and the other dependent industries, the number goes up.
For example, there are 75,000 coal miners,
There are 30,000 employed in the transport of said coal.
Coal power plants employ another 60,000.
Prospectors employ another 10,000 or so.
Still not absurdly huge, but much larger than you are claiming.
This roughly correct, there are about 174,000 coal related jobs in the U.S., making it (if it were a single company) about the 48th largest employer in the country, behind Costco, and Walmart is still 13 times larger, and only one in 800 working Americans is employed by this industry at all. Of course replacing coal with other forms of power still keeps power plant workers employed, so any shift away from coal will keep many of these still working.
Deceptive counting, unless one can read... From the previously linked WP article:
There are various estimates of coal-sector employment, but according to the Census Bureau's County Business Patterns program, which allows for detailed comparisons with many other industries, the coal industry employed 76,572 people in 2014, the latest year for which data is available.
That number includes not just miners but also office workers, sales staff and all of the other individuals who work at coal-mining companies.
Note the stuff in
bold
. Seems your numbers differ from those of the Census Bureau's County Business Patterns program -- you know the people that track these things.
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Score:
by
fahrbot-bot
( 874524 )
writes:
For example, there are 75,000 coal miners, [workers - includes all of the other individuals who work at coal-mining companies]
There are 30,000 employed in the transport of said coal.
Coal power plants employ another 60,000.
Of course replacing coal with other forms of power still keeps power plant workers employed, so any shift away from coal will keep many of these still working.
As well as the people transporting coal who could transport other things. I'm not sure how useful it is to include people other than directly at the coal-mining companies as those people could probably readily find related work in other industries. As could the office-workers, sale staff and other non-miners at the coal companies, who are included in the 76,572 count. (To expand on my other reply - sorry I was incomplete.)
Re:
Score:
by
CanadianMacFan
( 1900244 )
writes:
If you are going to do that then find out:
The number of farmers growing the food for Arby's
The number of people employed processing the food
The people transporting the food and other goods to Arby's and to the processing plants
The people making the napkins, cups, and other items that they use
The people that haul away the recycling and garbage
And anything else similar
Picking winners and losers
Score:
, Insightful)
by
GrimSavant
( 5251917 )
writes:
on Friday June 01, 2018 @08:43PM (
#56713218
This is the nightmare of government interference into markets that conservatives have long used to attack the left for their regulatory and subsidy policies, summed up in the pithy phrase of "picking winners and losers". But this is unvarnished use of political power to the economic benefit of political allies, a crony capitalism that is an even more explicit form of the "swamp" behavior that Trump ran against.
If you think the above rebuke is wrong, please tell me what the genuine public interest is in the underlying rule "to consider guaranteeing financial returns for any power plant that could stockpile 90 days’ worth of fuel on-site". Several forms of power generation don't stockpile fuel (natural gas is typically piped in), or don't use "fuel" at all, such as wind, solar, and hydro. If fuel disruption was the legitimate security concern, then not requiring fuel distribution at all would be the most ideal for that end.
Propping up coal is particularly egregious, since the coal industry has a plethora of negative externalities, which means that if anything coal power has been selling at rates well below it's true overall cost to society. Coal power also is at the top of the list of
mortality
[statista.com] and impaired health of all forms of power generation, far higher than natural gas generation which has been the main competitor crowding it out on price.
Subsidizing coal power is plainly not in the general public interest, only the narrow interest of those who depend economically on the coal industry.
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Coal crowds
Score:
by
DogDude
( 805747 )
writes:
Shithole does it because the coal people have rowdy crowds show up to his rallies. That's the only reason. He likes "ratings", and coal people give him "the best" ratings.
Re:
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by
account_deleted
( 4530225 )
writes:
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Re:
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MoarSauce123
( 3641185 )
writes:
The "right" agrees with many provisions in Obamacare when asked. Still, they oppose Obamacare because in their mind not invented here = bad. Trump is the poster boy for unrestricted capitalism. This implies that bothering with the welfare of minions is not on their mind. For Trump things are great when it makes him money, if he is in the center of it all, and when he is made to look good....and of course, when it does not interfere with his weekly multimillion Dollar golf trips to Florida. How's that for go
Re:
Score:
by
CanadianMacFan
( 1900244 )
writes:
Training the workers for a new career doesn't get you campaign contributions and other favours from the mine owners.
Post post-Truth
Score:
by
thegarbz
( 1787294 )
writes:
We have gone from a post-Truth world to a post-Government world where absolutely everything the government does it does so with emergency powers not intended for that purpose.
- POTUS using executive orders to determine immigration policy.
- The purchase and import of German cars is a national security threat.
And now this.
- Companies (small enough to simply fail) going bust constitutes a natural disaster.
There's a name normally given to a leader who uses powers without oversight or recourse in a way not inten
Our failure
Score:
by
MoarSauce123
( 3641185 )
writes:
We can blast and bash Trump as much as we want, but it is OUR FAILURE that he is still in office and has a Congress that just does anything to please him. Quoting Adenauer: "Every nation gets the government it deserves." I'm not suggesting that you write to your representatives in Congress, start talking to those people who still think Trump is doing a great job. These people are the real danger.
Total BS
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by
WindBourne
( 631190 )
writes:
I'm good with helping getting new reactors off the ground. We need baseload power, but it needs to be clean. That means more hydro, Geothermal, and nuclear.
But the idea that we should continue to subsidize old nuclear and coal is plain foolish.
when did natural gas get cheaper than coal?
Score:
by
0111 1110
( 518466 )
writes:
When did natural gas get so cheap and why are we all so sure it will stay that way forever? If the coal plants are not needed in a particular area then I guess they can be shut down while natural gas is still cheaper, but in a few years they may have to be started up again if/when natural gas gets expensive again.
Good estimate Lou.
Score:
by
Agripa
( 139780 )
writes:
Between $311 million to $11.8 billion per year? That is only a range of 32dB; maybe you can find a way to increase it further.
Remind me again why we are listening to you for economic planning.
Re:Refilling the swamp
Score:
, Insightful)
by
Cipheron
( 4934805 )
writes:
on Friday June 01, 2018 @09:06PM (
#56713354
Because they haven't revealed *which* of the listed proposals will be implemented yet. That estimate is vague because the proposal is vague.
We only know that if it's implemented it will cost consumers somewhere between "lots" and "a hell of a lot". Forcing people to buy products they didn't want causes prices to go up.
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Re: Refilling the swamp
Score:
, Insightful)
by
SocietyoftheFist
( 316444 )
writes:
on Saturday June 02, 2018 @07:56AM (
#56714920
Does that make this OK? The inability to acknowledge is a huge problem in politics. Your ideology that doesnâ(TM)t allow you to publicly acknowledge that this is a government regulation/subsidy in action because it is proposed by your horse in the race shows a lack of logical reasoning.
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Re: Refilling the swamp
Score:
by
SocietyoftheFist
( 316444 )
writes:
Youâ(TM)re right, did miss the also.
Re:
Score:
, Insightful)
by
Anonymous Coward
writes:
Except ACA directly benefits the people, where as this only demerits particular businesses.
Also, had the ACA been implemented as single payer instead of the "bending for the Republicans" and allowing the for profit private insurances companies drive pricing and terms, the ACA would have been MUCH better off.
Re: Refilling the swamp
Score:
by
SocietyoftheFist
( 316444 )
writes:
Please mod up. As written it would have never succeeded and seems to have been an avenue to single payer.
Re:
Score:
by
Daemonik
( 171801 )
writes:
Speaking of revisionism, the Republicans came up with the ideas that lead to the ACA
over twenty years ago
[nytimes.com]. They only became opponents when Democrats implemented it.
They probably never expected the Dems to actually implement it to be honest.
Re:
Score:
by
riverat1
( 1048260 )
writes:
If coal didn't have the subsidy of not having to pay for the health problems it causes in the population it would be way too expensive to use.
If nuclear didn't have the subsidy of the
Price-Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act
[wikipedia.org] they wouldn't be able to insure nuclear power plants and they would all close.
Re:
Score:
by
SirSlud
( 67381 )
writes:
Well, they certainly shouldn't expect dumb people to take their estimates seriously. But then again, expecting dumb people to do reasonable things is dumb.
Re:
Score:
by
Actually, I do RTFA
( 1058596 )
writes:
What makes you think this is about the employees? This is about the guys who own coal mines/nuclear power plants, and are sad at the declining value of their assets.
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