5 ms·

Energy Department Proposes Forcing Utilities to Buy Coal Power

43 points by vezycash 8y ago

parvenu74 8y ago
Government forcing private industry to do something for purely political reasons is always wrong. It doesn’t matter if it’s to protect the coal industry or “green power” — government involvement is almost always the wrong thing.
- craftyguy 8y ago
  On one hand there's the "no government involvement. period", but then we end up with companies clearly taking advantage of citizens and the environment without any repercussions. On the other hand, there's the "regulate all the things", which is almost always abused by those in power to take advantage of citizens and the environment without any repercussions. Can we not have a mixture of the two, where there's just enough government involvement to keep us from destroying ourselves and each other, but not too much such that we destroy ourselves and each other? Back on topic: this instance of government involvement is purely political, at the detriment of the environment and those in it, and should not be legal. I hope this, if it's implemented, is immediately challenged in court.
  - jjoonathan 8y ago
    No, we can't, because "more vs less government" is an almost purely synthetic wedge issue that is purpose-built to be an ambiguous and adaptable distraction. If you so much as implicitly acknowledge its legitimacy by using it to frame your discussion, you have already lost.
    - craftyguy 8y ago
      There's very clearly a "more vs less government" stance being taken here. OP very clearly takes the side of "less government". Other comments on HN, reddit, on the street are very typically (when on the topic of regulation) either "regulate everything" or "regulate nothing". If you believe otherwise, then I would LOVE to know where I can mingle with folks who don't see things as one extreme vs another, because that's literally all I see here.
  - wallace_f 8y ago
    Good points. So what's wrong with seperation of powers? As you said, when too much power is concentrated, people will suffet. The commerce clause was obviously never intended to allow the federal government the powers it has today. At least in the case where state A is pointing a gun to your head and sending you to jail for growing medicinal marijuana for only personal use, when your state allows medicinal marijuana anyways, at least you can move with your feet to state B. As it is now this is not possible, because SCOTUS says that this falls under regulating commerce between states, somehow[1]. The only thing which the federal government should be allowed to do here is regulate the pollution externalities and commerce which literally crosses state boundaries. 1 - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzales_v._Raich https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzales_v._Raich
    - craftyguy 8y ago
      Yea, the commerce clause is ridiculously overpowered. Radio Lab/More Perfect did a great episode (1) a while back on this very topic that's worth listening to. 1) https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/one-nation-under-money/ https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/one-nation-under-money/
- greglindahl 8y ago
  The point of requiring "green power" is to fight climate change. It is appropriate for governments to do something about that.
  - mikeash 8y ago
    Not just climate change, but all sorts of nasty pollution. Burning more coal is going to kill people in the near term too.
    - parvenu74 8y ago
      That's public health, not energy policy. To the extent that green power is a public health policy question (let's not heat up the earth) then it should be addressed as such. The maxim is that your freedom to swing your fist ends where your neighbor's nose begins so if coal-burners are affecting public health then going after them on those grounds is appropriate (and I support that). But the article isn't about public health but energy policy.
      - mikeash 8y ago
        It’s about energy policy that affects public health. I don’t care what department is supposed to handle it, I just want my air not to be poisoned.
kevan 8y ago
It's pretty clear at this point that coal isn't economically viable compared to natural gas and even some renewable sources, and it won't get any better. Artificially propping up demand might delay it by 5-10 years. But you can only fight the inevitable for so long. Then the crash off of coal will be more severe and harder to manage.
- cletus 8y ago
  You can prop up an industry for longer than you think. Just look at corn.
  - XorNot 8y ago
    The thing is humans aren't actually going to stop eating corn - like, our taste in foodstuffs hasn't shifted that much. Whereas the trend into the future is to basically drive coal use down to nothing - it's dirty and harder to deploy then modern alternatives, and even if you kept the mines open the advent of gas turbines means that coal-seam gas would be the fossil fuel you'd be targeting.
    - vermontdevil 8y ago
      Corn is mostly produced for cow feed and gas. It’ll collapse at some point but it’ll be a while due to these two industries.
iaw 8y ago
Just to be clear, at the end of the day it will be rate payers who subsidize coal power producers if this goes through. Ignoring any of the environmental problems, I'd rather just be taxed if we're going to be giving coal workers welfare.
- gigatexal 8y ago
  I’m all for that vs telling companies what to do. Just make the coal worker after a certain point a protected class and support them while they transition either into retirement or other careers.
  - imglorp 8y ago
    Yup, paying for job retraining benefits everyone more than fossil subsidies OR welfare. https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/05/06/477033781/from-coal-to-code-a-new-path-for-laid-off-miners-in-kentucky https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/05/06/47...
    - iaw 8y ago
      I think there's a large group of people that don't want to be retrained, fossil subsidies create a number of problems and screw with electricity market incentives in a way that could have horrendous repercussions. Welfare for this class wouldn't help me directly but a subsidy for the industry would likely hurt us all in a diffuse fashion over the long-term.
- greglindahl 8y ago
  Given the tiny number of jobs involved, we could give all of the coal workers lifetime pay and a free Tesla and come out WAY ahead.
ghouse 8y ago
I thought the GOP was in favor of free-market and balanced budget. In this case, the administration already attempted the free-market approach (asking FERC to review whether the market rules properly compensated the unique attributes of coal and nuclear). That failed. So now it's big-government central-planning.
robotkdick 8y ago
This is just headline grabbing to make the poor people who worked at defunct coal mines believe Trump has their back when, in fact, the administration knows nothing will come after the headlines because coal is on its way out due not to the environment but cost.
ballenf 8y ago
It's hard to take the purported national security justification seriously given that it requires actively buying from coal plants instead of just requiring a minimum # days' worth of backup energy kept on-site. A regulation more along those lines would, indeed, seem like a smart move (if it's not already done).
- ghouse 8y ago
  If there were only one power plant responsible for the grid, I'd agree with a regulation requiring a minimum number of days of fuel on-site. However, there are many thousands of power plants on each of the three US grids (Eastern, Western, Texas (ERCOT). And many different points of failure. [1] How much more should consumers pay for a regulation to keep fuel onsite to mitigate a risk that has, effectively, never happened? [2] [1] http://fortune.com/2018/01/04/bomb-cyclone-grayson-power-outages/ http://fortune.com/2018/01/04/bomb-cyclone-grayson-power-out... [2] https://www.dallasnews.com/news/texas/2011/02/06/freeze-knocked-out-coal-plants-and-natural-gas-supplies-leading-to-blackouts https://www.dallasnews.com/news/texas/2011/02/06/freeze-knoc...

43 points by vezycash 8y ago

Government forcing private industry to do something for purely political reasons is always wrong. It doesn’t matter if it’s to protect the coal industry or “green power” — government involvement is almost always the wrong thing.

craftyguy 8y ago
On one hand there's the "no government involvement. period", but then we end up with companies clearly taking advantage of citizens and the environment without any repercussions. On the other hand, there's the "regulate all the things", which is almost always abused by those in power to take advantage of citizens and the environment without any repercussions. Can we not have a mixture of the two, where there's just enough government involvement to keep us from destroying ourselves and each other, but not too much such that we destroy ourselves and each other? Back on topic: this instance of government involvement is purely political, at the detriment of the environment and those in it, and should not be legal. I hope this, if it's implemented, is immediately challenged in court.
- jjoonathan 8y ago
  No, we can't, because "more vs less government" is an almost purely synthetic wedge issue that is purpose-built to be an ambiguous and adaptable distraction. If you so much as implicitly acknowledge its legitimacy by using it to frame your discussion, you have already lost.
  - craftyguy 8y ago
    There's very clearly a "more vs less government" stance being taken here. OP very clearly takes the side of "less government". Other comments on HN, reddit, on the street are very typically (when on the topic of regulation) either "regulate everything" or "regulate nothing". If you believe otherwise, then I would LOVE to know where I can mingle with folks who don't see things as one extreme vs another, because that's literally all I see here.
- wallace_f 8y ago
  Good points. So what's wrong with seperation of powers? As you said, when too much power is concentrated, people will suffet. The commerce clause was obviously never intended to allow the federal government the powers it has today. At least in the case where state A is pointing a gun to your head and sending you to jail for growing medicinal marijuana for only personal use, when your state allows medicinal marijuana anyways, at least you can move with your feet to state B. As it is now this is not possible, because SCOTUS says that this falls under regulating commerce between states, somehow[1]. The only thing which the federal government should be allowed to do here is regulate the pollution externalities and commerce which literally crosses state boundaries. 1 - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzales_v._Raich https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzales_v._Raich
  - craftyguy 8y ago
    Yea, the commerce clause is ridiculously overpowered. Radio Lab/More Perfect did a great episode (1) a while back on this very topic that's worth listening to. 1) https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/one-nation-under-money/ https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/one-nation-under-money/
greglindahl 8y ago
The point of requiring "green power" is to fight climate change. It is appropriate for governments to do something about that.
- mikeash 8y ago
  Not just climate change, but all sorts of nasty pollution. Burning more coal is going to kill people in the near term too.
  - parvenu74 8y ago
    That's public health, not energy policy. To the extent that green power is a public health policy question (let's not heat up the earth) then it should be addressed as such. The maxim is that your freedom to swing your fist ends where your neighbor's nose begins so if coal-burners are affecting public health then going after them on those grounds is appropriate (and I support that). But the article isn't about public health but energy policy.
    - mikeash 8y ago
      It’s about energy policy that affects public health. I don’t care what department is supposed to handle it, I just want my air not to be poisoned.

kevan 8y ago

It's pretty clear at this point that coal isn't economically viable compared to natural gas and even some renewable sources, and it won't get any better. Artificially propping up demand might delay it by 5-10 years. But you can only fight the inevitable for so long. Then the crash off of coal will be more severe and harder to manage.

cletus 8y ago
You can prop up an industry for longer than you think. Just look at corn.
- XorNot 8y ago
  The thing is humans aren't actually going to stop eating corn - like, our taste in foodstuffs hasn't shifted that much. Whereas the trend into the future is to basically drive coal use down to nothing - it's dirty and harder to deploy then modern alternatives, and even if you kept the mines open the advent of gas turbines means that coal-seam gas would be the fossil fuel you'd be targeting.
  - vermontdevil 8y ago
    Corn is mostly produced for cow feed and gas. It’ll collapse at some point but it’ll be a while due to these two industries.

iaw 8y ago

Just to be clear, at the end of the day it will be rate payers who subsidize coal power producers if this goes through. Ignoring any of the environmental problems, I'd rather just be taxed if we're going to be giving coal workers welfare.

gigatexal 8y ago
I’m all for that vs telling companies what to do. Just make the coal worker after a certain point a protected class and support them while they transition either into retirement or other careers.
- imglorp 8y ago
  Yup, paying for job retraining benefits everyone more than fossil subsidies OR welfare. https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/05/06/477033781/from-coal-to-code-a-new-path-for-laid-off-miners-in-kentucky https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/05/06/47...
  - iaw 8y ago
    I think there's a large group of people that don't want to be retrained, fossil subsidies create a number of problems and screw with electricity market incentives in a way that could have horrendous repercussions. Welfare for this class wouldn't help me directly but a subsidy for the industry would likely hurt us all in a diffuse fashion over the long-term.
greglindahl 8y ago
Given the tiny number of jobs involved, we could give all of the coal workers lifetime pay and a free Tesla and come out WAY ahead.

ghouse 8y ago

I thought the GOP was in favor of free-market and balanced budget. In this case, the administration already attempted the free-market approach (asking FERC to review whether the market rules properly compensated the unique attributes of coal and nuclear). That failed. So now it's big-government central-planning.

robotkdick 8y ago

This is just headline grabbing to make the poor people who worked at defunct coal mines believe Trump has their back when, in fact, the administration knows nothing will come after the headlines because coal is on its way out due not to the environment but cost.

ballenf 8y ago

It's hard to take the purported national security justification seriously given that it requires actively buying from coal plants instead of just requiring a minimum # days' worth of backup energy kept on-site. A regulation more along those lines would, indeed, seem like a smart move (if it's not already done).

ghouse 8y ago
If there were only one power plant responsible for the grid, I'd agree with a regulation requiring a minimum number of days of fuel on-site. However, there are many thousands of power plants on each of the three US grids (Eastern, Western, Texas (ERCOT). And many different points of failure. [1] How much more should consumers pay for a regulation to keep fuel onsite to mitigate a risk that has, effectively, never happened? [2] [1] http://fortune.com/2018/01/04/bomb-cyclone-grayson-power-outages/ http://fortune.com/2018/01/04/bomb-cyclone-grayson-power-out... [2] https://www.dallasnews.com/news/texas/2011/02/06/freeze-knocked-out-coal-plants-and-natural-gas-supplies-leading-to-blackouts https://www.dallasnews.com/news/texas/2011/02/06/freeze-knoc...