4 ms·

>like especially if they do what they have been doing recently (run their own generator, build their own power planes) a lot of this cost is implicit and as suc

>like especially if they do what they have been doing recently (run their own generator, build their own power planes) a lot of this cost is implicit and as such very dodgeable. E.g. higher cost for gas power planes for other due to major increase of demand, higher medical cost due to more air pollution, higher fuel prices, etc. etc. (not even speaking about anything climate change). And it's not just data centers, it's all sorts of industry. My local gravel and concrete plants run their "big stuff" off generators because the cost of the utility drop for their amperage doesn't make sense. And nobody will connect the dots between these choices and the requirements we've saddled utilities with. They're spinning up generator not because it's cheaper per watt, but because they're not operating on the 40yr timeline you need to be in order for the red tape you have to go through to put in permanent infrastructure to pencil out. I'm an abutter for a utility project and I've gone to the meetings for and it's an absolute massive boondoggle. My energy bill is going to reflect god knows how many hundreds of billable hours it takes for these hired lawyers and engineers to prove to the system that they're not gonna fuck over any endangered frogs by widening the cut to meet some industry standard that changed over the past N year and dumping culverts and fill in some places where streams criss cross it. Literally nobody involved cares. The abutters don't care. The town wants it to go forward because it's all trivial and it's not like it won't be their ass if they block an upgrade to industry standards and something happens. The system is just going through the motions. The city engineer grills them about petty bullshit because it's literally his job. They know he will and they have the answers but he makes a show out of the subjective things. Ditto for the conservation commissioner. It's like the Israel missiles meme. One side is my tax dollars and the other side is my energy bill. We're all doing this because some slimy politicians wanted to pander to some shortsighted big picture ignoring environmentalists 50yr ago and beurocacy has perpetuated and grown itself since. No public interest is served by this. And the cherry on top is that at the margin, we get shit like generators that don't need to exist because the cost of the alternative is driven up to the point the fuel inefficient (and also dirty) solution makes sense.

alphawhisky 8mo ago
I promise you, the City Engineer is aware of the bullshit. You catch a whiff, but they live in the stink. It's been clear for a while that there's conflicting interests and the only real way to fix it is to change incentives. However, if you're insinuating that the Clean Water Act is made by "slimy politicians and big picture ignoring environmentalists" then you're wrong. That's about the best common sense environmental reform in the last 100 years aside from removing lead from gas.
- cucumber3732842 8mo ago
  >However, if you're insinuating that the Clean Water Act is made by "slimy politicians and big picture ignoring environmentalists" then you're wrong. That's about the best common sense environmental reform in the last 100 years aside from removing lead from gas. I'm more than insinuating it. The cause may be noble but the state and local implementations have been perverted by all the minutia and business interests and NIMBYism. I would go so far as to say that (state and local implementation of requirements within) the clean water act is a non-negligible contributor to the decline of manufacturing and agriculture in the northeast and upper midwest. We basically took "thou shalt not dump for that is bad for our surface and ground water" and over 50yr turned it into a blank check for all manner of leeches to make a buck and all manner of NIMBYs to make things unnecessarily expensive. Petty 1.5-acre "I want my lightly forested former field to be a field again" and "business is going great I want my gavel parking lot paved" being stalled by five figure costs and even with those costs incurred it doesn't guarantee compliance. That's a far cry from the "yeah we just dump this stuff in a settling pond, IDK where it goes after that but man that river over there sure is a weird color" type 1960s industry behavior that it was meant to really curb. And the big industrial offenders still get to do what they want, not as bad as before of course, but still bad. Some Megacorp's runoff might turn the fish neon green or their 1k unit condo development might turn the river brown with silt but of course they'll be right there with their lawyers and experts who'll tell you why it's fine even when it's not to anyone with a brain and two eyeballs. The layman can't pay off people like that be on their side and neither can the regulators. (I assume this frequent fact pattern what you refer to by "living in the stink") I think it ought to be revamped at the state and local level into something that's substantially more "results based" rather than the proactive red tape "make the bureaucrats feel like their ass is covered if someone ever complains about what they approved" based system we have now. (And just to be clear for any readers who aren't familiar, the clean water act basically doesn't do much to affect the average person or business at a federal level. The local implementations and all the key definitions, industry standards, etc, are where the rubber really meets the road) Edit: Basically I'm saying that in the past 50yr the interests the CWA was supposed to stymie learned how to pay their way around it, the parties who make a buck doing that have gotten themselves all but written into the compliance process to the detriment of the interests the CWA was supposed to not seriously burden. It needs to be replaced or revised to solve those two big problems.
mistrial9 8mo ago
> gonna fuck over any endangered frogs Extinction is forever -- your frustration, and that committee process, does not compare directly to species extinction.
- GuinansEyebrows 8mo ago
  you care, and i care, and i think even the person you're replying to cares; that's great, but the people involved in the business of making these decisions treat them as a matter of procedure. as long as the boxes are checked, most public sector employees are not going to stick their neck out. it's steady work that pays all right and has great benefits (and even pensions sometimes). a lot of people in the public sector aren't willing to step out of line for "frogs" even when they should or want to.
  - cucumber3732842 8mo ago
    The system optimized for these people. So you get some guy approving some megacorps project because "well it says here that they've tested the stuff and the liquid mercury is below the <cites EPA mumbo jumbo" and giving farmer Johnson the runaround on some land clearing because farmer Johnson's project isn't worth spending $30k on civil engineering to have someone use "the right words" to say "I'm not gonna muddy up the river" and while the guy in the office knows what farmer Johnson means, he can't approve the project without sticking his neck out and so he doesn't. It must be nice to live in a desert state where every 3rd parcel isn't "within regulatory range" of "wetlands" (most people don't know how expansive that word is).
    - GuinansEyebrows 8mo ago
      trust me, this happens even in dense, deep blue places like Seattle and LA.
      - cucumber3732842 8mo ago
        I never said it didn't. Something something the more numerous the laws...

alphawhisky 8mo ago

I promise you, the City Engineer is aware of the bullshit. You catch a whiff, but they live in the stink. It's been clear for a while that there's conflicting interests and the only real way to fix it is to change incentives. However, if you're insinuating that the Clean Water Act is made by "slimy politicians and big picture ignoring environmentalists" then you're wrong. That's about the best common sense environmental reform in the last 100 years aside from removing lead from gas.

cucumber3732842 8mo ago
>However, if you're insinuating that the Clean Water Act is made by "slimy politicians and big picture ignoring environmentalists" then you're wrong. That's about the best common sense environmental reform in the last 100 years aside from removing lead from gas. I'm more than insinuating it. The cause may be noble but the state and local implementations have been perverted by all the minutia and business interests and NIMBYism. I would go so far as to say that (state and local implementation of requirements within) the clean water act is a non-negligible contributor to the decline of manufacturing and agriculture in the northeast and upper midwest. We basically took "thou shalt not dump for that is bad for our surface and ground water" and over 50yr turned it into a blank check for all manner of leeches to make a buck and all manner of NIMBYs to make things unnecessarily expensive. Petty 1.5-acre "I want my lightly forested former field to be a field again" and "business is going great I want my gavel parking lot paved" being stalled by five figure costs and even with those costs incurred it doesn't guarantee compliance. That's a far cry from the "yeah we just dump this stuff in a settling pond, IDK where it goes after that but man that river over there sure is a weird color" type 1960s industry behavior that it was meant to really curb. And the big industrial offenders still get to do what they want, not as bad as before of course, but still bad. Some Megacorp's runoff might turn the fish neon green or their 1k unit condo development might turn the river brown with silt but of course they'll be right there with their lawyers and experts who'll tell you why it's fine even when it's not to anyone with a brain and two eyeballs. The layman can't pay off people like that be on their side and neither can the regulators. (I assume this frequent fact pattern what you refer to by "living in the stink") I think it ought to be revamped at the state and local level into something that's substantially more "results based" rather than the proactive red tape "make the bureaucrats feel like their ass is covered if someone ever complains about what they approved" based system we have now. (And just to be clear for any readers who aren't familiar, the clean water act basically doesn't do much to affect the average person or business at a federal level. The local implementations and all the key definitions, industry standards, etc, are where the rubber really meets the road) Edit: Basically I'm saying that in the past 50yr the interests the CWA was supposed to stymie learned how to pay their way around it, the parties who make a buck doing that have gotten themselves all but written into the compliance process to the detriment of the interests the CWA was supposed to not seriously burden. It needs to be replaced or revised to solve those two big problems.

mistrial9 8mo ago

> gonna fuck over any endangered frogs Extinction is forever -- your frustration, and that committee process, does not compare directly to species extinction.

GuinansEyebrows 8mo ago
you care, and i care, and i think even the person you're replying to cares; that's great, but the people involved in the business of making these decisions treat them as a matter of procedure. as long as the boxes are checked, most public sector employees are not going to stick their neck out. it's steady work that pays all right and has great benefits (and even pensions sometimes). a lot of people in the public sector aren't willing to step out of line for "frogs" even when they should or want to.
- cucumber3732842 8mo ago
  The system optimized for these people. So you get some guy approving some megacorps project because "well it says here that they've tested the stuff and the liquid mercury is below the <cites EPA mumbo jumbo" and giving farmer Johnson the runaround on some land clearing because farmer Johnson's project isn't worth spending $30k on civil engineering to have someone use "the right words" to say "I'm not gonna muddy up the river" and while the guy in the office knows what farmer Johnson means, he can't approve the project without sticking his neck out and so he doesn't. It must be nice to live in a desert state where every 3rd parcel isn't "within regulatory range" of "wetlands" (most people don't know how expansive that word is).
  - GuinansEyebrows 8mo ago
    trust me, this happens even in dense, deep blue places like Seattle and LA.
    - cucumber3732842 8mo ago
      I never said it didn't. Something something the more numerous the laws...