President Biden, channeling a combination of Nero fiddling while Rome burns, Marie Antoinette (apocryphally) dismissing the peasants' starvation with 'let them eat cake,' and Alfred E.
Green tape that grants excessive power to fanatics.
Green, we are told, is good. And, indeed, googling the phrase will return all sorts of "good" examples.
At its core, however, "green" is really about hating liberty and human prosperity. Not the idealized, aspirational green that is about a cleaner and happier world for us to live in, but the actual green that is the opposite.“
I generally do not wish ill upon others, but I have to admit that when I see self-inflicted wounds by the green crowd (particularly in California) I can't help but succumb to schadenfreude.
I design electric transmission and distribution substations for a living (we can't all be rocket scientists) and I've seen plenty of examples of green nonsense. I had a recent project for a new station to feed a new distribution center for a popular internet provider of goods (you know who I mean) and the customer incurred extra expenses because of having to shift the substation on the property to a spot that required additional cost due to the alleged presence of the Trillium flower.
The punchline is that when Spring arrived there were no Trillium blooms to be had. The environmental jurisdiction maps were wrong. The extra costs for site work and taller pole structures were all for naught. I joked prior to the work that Roundup would solve the problem but my company's environmental folks didn't think that was as good an idea as I did.
I've had conversations about the real estate problem that wind-and-solar "green" is dismissing or ignoring. Not that long ago, there was big push-back here in NY against the "huge... tracts of land" that were going to be co-opted by various means for solar panels and windmills, and that's in a blue state (albeit in "red" territory).
Between NIMBYism (which has grown to BANANA, "Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything"), enviros itching for a fight over the next snail darter, the actual owners of lands to be confiscated, and others who may like windmills and solar panels... if they are sight unseen (see: the Martha's Vineyard rich), retooling the grid to handle the distributed production of non-nuclear green power is going to be a looooong series of fights, meaning that all this new power (assuming the raw materials bottlenecks and limits magically disappear) is going to be delayed even longer, even as politicians shut down viable nuclear and carbon energy plants.
We've probably built a dozen solar generation interconnect stations in the last couple of years. GA is viable for solar but wind not so much. There is a decent amount of Atlantic coastline, but as you said there's not likely to be any windmills there because that coast is primarily wildlife reserves and high dollar communities. We're pretty much obligated to connect generators to the grid, but it's at the generator's expense. I imagine they are getting tax breaks from the state to offset some of those costs. A lot of these facilities are in undesirable locations (i.e. the middle of nowhere) but there has been a lot of farm land replaced by solar panels.
GA Power is currently working on 2 new units to the Vogtle nuclear plant, which is the first new nuclear to be built in the US in 3 decades. This project has been in progress for many years and has had serious budget issues. I just can't understand why our lawmakers and regulators have made it so onerous to build nuclear that investors won't even consider it any more. It's just not worth it.
Politicians and bureaucrats only want to solve problems within "context." Context includes advancing their careers/getting re-elected, conforming to the narratives that their party has put forth, and appealing to their "base." Wind and Solar are de mode. Nuclear competes in the "clean" world, so it's a threat.
If the government wanted to advance nuclear power's prospects, it could do so without spending any taxpayer money - just clean up the regulatory process.
Of course, in our litigious society, every enviro with free time and a burning desire for notoriety will advance or support litigation to slow the process. So, shit costs a lot more than it should.
Some degree of tort reform has long been needed in the US, but the trial lawyers are among the biggest lobbies out there.
“Green tape that restricts our liberties.
Green tape that slows our projects and progress.
Green tape that reduces our living standards.
Green tape that grants excessive power to fanatics.
Green, we are told, is good. And, indeed, googling the phrase will return all sorts of "good" examples.
At its core, however, "green" is really about hating liberty and human prosperity. Not the idealized, aspirational green that is about a cleaner and happier world for us to live in, but the actual green that is the opposite.“
Until these economies break and millions of people suffer, I don't hold out much hope for a rational awakening.
I think we are seeing some cracks. People like "green" when it's an abstract, but when it hits home, things change.
I generally do not wish ill upon others, but I have to admit that when I see self-inflicted wounds by the green crowd (particularly in California) I can't help but succumb to schadenfreude.
I design electric transmission and distribution substations for a living (we can't all be rocket scientists) and I've seen plenty of examples of green nonsense. I had a recent project for a new station to feed a new distribution center for a popular internet provider of goods (you know who I mean) and the customer incurred extra expenses because of having to shift the substation on the property to a spot that required additional cost due to the alleged presence of the Trillium flower.
The punchline is that when Spring arrived there were no Trillium blooms to be had. The environmental jurisdiction maps were wrong. The extra costs for site work and taller pole structures were all for naught. I joked prior to the work that Roundup would solve the problem but my company's environmental folks didn't think that was as good an idea as I did.
I've had conversations about the real estate problem that wind-and-solar "green" is dismissing or ignoring. Not that long ago, there was big push-back here in NY against the "huge... tracts of land" that were going to be co-opted by various means for solar panels and windmills, and that's in a blue state (albeit in "red" territory).
Between NIMBYism (which has grown to BANANA, "Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything"), enviros itching for a fight over the next snail darter, the actual owners of lands to be confiscated, and others who may like windmills and solar panels... if they are sight unseen (see: the Martha's Vineyard rich), retooling the grid to handle the distributed production of non-nuclear green power is going to be a looooong series of fights, meaning that all this new power (assuming the raw materials bottlenecks and limits magically disappear) is going to be delayed even longer, even as politicians shut down viable nuclear and carbon energy plants.
We've probably built a dozen solar generation interconnect stations in the last couple of years. GA is viable for solar but wind not so much. There is a decent amount of Atlantic coastline, but as you said there's not likely to be any windmills there because that coast is primarily wildlife reserves and high dollar communities. We're pretty much obligated to connect generators to the grid, but it's at the generator's expense. I imagine they are getting tax breaks from the state to offset some of those costs. A lot of these facilities are in undesirable locations (i.e. the middle of nowhere) but there has been a lot of farm land replaced by solar panels.
GA Power is currently working on 2 new units to the Vogtle nuclear plant, which is the first new nuclear to be built in the US in 3 decades. This project has been in progress for many years and has had serious budget issues. I just can't understand why our lawmakers and regulators have made it so onerous to build nuclear that investors won't even consider it any more. It's just not worth it.
Politicians and bureaucrats only want to solve problems within "context." Context includes advancing their careers/getting re-elected, conforming to the narratives that their party has put forth, and appealing to their "base." Wind and Solar are de mode. Nuclear competes in the "clean" world, so it's a threat.
If the government wanted to advance nuclear power's prospects, it could do so without spending any taxpayer money - just clean up the regulatory process.
Of course, in our litigious society, every enviro with free time and a burning desire for notoriety will advance or support litigation to slow the process. So, shit costs a lot more than it should.
Some degree of tort reform has long been needed in the US, but the trial lawyers are among the biggest lobbies out there.