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In other words, you've not talked to many (any?) Trump supporters, and are just speculating about what evilly evil things they might evilly support for their ow

by Syonyk 4y ago

In other words, you've not talked to many (any?) Trump supporters, and are just speculating about what evilly evil things they might evilly support for their own evil ends. Or something of the sort. The conservative end of the spectrum is generally more concerned with things like "a stable power grid with enough power at all times" than carbon emissions, though I know quite a few pretty hard conservatives with solar, hybrids, EVs, etc. And a good case can be made for all that stuff without bothering with carbon emissions at all. And then you see things like California, within a week or so, deciding to ban ICE car sales in some fairly near future, and having to send out power announcements about "Please don't charge your EV during these hours." It doesn't take a genius to do the math that, hey, more EVs charging while coal power plants are turned down, that might be a problem. I think it's a solvable one, but "shouting down anyone who points it down as a fossil fuel shill" (as happens in some circles of the internet - not here, but I've certainly been accused it for some nuanced arguments about power systems) doesn't help solve it. If coal with carbon capture has a future in the power grid... so be it.

jonstewart 4y ago
> If coal with carbon capture has a future in the power grid... so be it. It doesn’t. Coal’s sinking like a lead balloon because it’s too expensive. It is far cheaper to build ridiculous overcapacity of wind and solar, with moderate storage, than to pursue other energy sources, like nuclear or coal. Live by the market, die by the market.
- Syonyk 4y ago
  For now, certainly. We'll see what it looks like long term. Of course, we've let China dominate the production of wind and solar equipment... which won't come back to bite us as a trade war continues heating up. Of course, nobody is willing to have conversations about just using radically less energy. Can't have that...
comte7092 4y ago
The California grid issues were due to momentarily high demands on the grid, not an issue with creating capacity in general. The grid is not infinitely flexible. Coal plants, mind you, aren’t a good solution to the issue of active spikes demand, they take significant time to ramp up and down and have minimum loads they have to put out, it’s prohibitively expensive to turn them of and on. EVs can, and likely will play a key role in demand management, that’s a good thing.
bobkazamakis 4y ago
[flagged]

by Syonyk 4y ago

jonstewart 4y ago

> If coal with carbon capture has a future in the power grid... so be it. It doesn’t. Coal’s sinking like a lead balloon because it’s too expensive. It is far cheaper to build ridiculous overcapacity of wind and solar, with moderate storage, than to pursue other energy sources, like nuclear or coal. Live by the market, die by the market.

Syonyk 4y ago
For now, certainly. We'll see what it looks like long term. Of course, we've let China dominate the production of wind and solar equipment... which won't come back to bite us as a trade war continues heating up. Of course, nobody is willing to have conversations about just using radically less energy. Can't have that...

comte7092 4y ago

The California grid issues were due to momentarily high demands on the grid, not an issue with creating capacity in general. The grid is not infinitely flexible. Coal plants, mind you, aren’t a good solution to the issue of active spikes demand, they take significant time to ramp up and down and have minimum loads they have to put out, it’s prohibitively expensive to turn them of and on. EVs can, and likely will play a key role in demand management, that’s a good thing.

bobkazamakis 4y ago

[flagged]