Please be patient and understanding when interacting with others, and avoid getting frustrated or upset if someone does not respond to your posts or if a discussion does not go as you expected. Remember that everyone is entitled to express their own perspectives. Furthermore, even when you don't entirely agree, try to benefit in some way from it.
- Manlobbi
Stocks A to Z / Stocks K / Kansas City Southern (KSU)
No. of Recommendations: 12
I just received my eleectric bill for my modest two bedroom apartment fom ConEd, the local utility in NYC. Itg was $206 for the month (broken down to $134 for the utility to bring me the electricity and $72 for the electricity I used -530 kwh). There are an awful lot of details in the links below, but what they boil down to is that the US chief executive has cut financing to a large number of renewable electrical engergy projects designed (and funded) during the previous president's administration. Instead, the current administration is pluging new fossil fuel plants (and scrapping the work done so far, at taxpayer expensed, on the wind and solar projects).
It's not just the stupidity of throwing away partially built energy projects (aalong with the jobs of those who were building them), not only the increase in global warming, but along with polution regulation cuts at the EPA, it also brings back memories from my youth of marble statues in the parks "melting" from acid rain and the daily spitting out black soot from the daaily exposure to air polution.
The following posts come from sources as diverse as Fox News, Bloomberg, the federal goveernment, etc. and form an interesting matrix of information.
Jeff
https://apnews.com/article/trump-offshore-wind-ren...https://climatechange.ri.gov/ri-executive-climate-...https://www.fox61.com/article/news/local/new-londo...https://ctexaminer.com/2025/08/30/dangers-of-pulli...https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-08-27...https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/16/climate/china-us-wi...https://www.markey.senate.gov/news/press-releases/....
https://citizensclimatelobby.org/blog/policy/how-c...https://www.energy.gov/eere/job-creation-and-econo...https://stateline.org/2025/02/11/blue-states-hope-...https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=54...https://www.wsj.com/business/energy-oil/exxon-rosn...
No. of Recommendations: 3
Yeah sorta like directing shutting down fossil fuel power generation plants just because they could. And, why should taxpayers fund any of it when a commercial market exists? If something is not commercially viable...it...just...won't...survive...anyway.
If a party is pro whatever, fund basic research for your favorite science and maybe some preliminary developmental engineering for the transition. In today's world (well in any previous time as well) a technology is not going anywhere unless it can stand alone competitively.
I don't think it takes much of a brain to figure out how to do cheaper, green and practicable energy. Natural sources plus nuclear.
And just because...it's not wrong to say big commercial wind farms and solar panel fields are ugly and environmentally damaging because they are, just in different ways than fossil fuels. Clean energy requires mines, lots of new mines for the metals and minerals required.
Democrats refuse to deal with energy transition reality and obstruct just about anything that involves the words "large project" because they are beholden to environmentalists. Republicans are funded by/beholden to legacy energy.
Of any piece of modern infrastructure that should not be politicized I think it is electrical generation and the power grid but yet, here we are. We desperately need wide spread policy political consensus, but legislators are more interested in winning the next election to keep their jobs...which takes donations.
No. of Recommendations: 3
Democrats refuse to deal with energy transition reality and obstruct just about anything that involves the words "large project" because they are beholden to environmentalists.
Uh, NOPE. Want to guess again? Or do you give up now?
No. of Recommendations: 1
OK - this is beginning to go into the weeds as soon as political parties are anthropomorphized. I think it's fair to say that politicians of both parties are influenced by donations (perish the thought I would call lobbying blatant bribery). On the basis that both major parties act corruptly because of this, there is no reason to mention either in the decision-making process.
That said, there is enough scientific evidence that the world is heating up as well as the ways mankind contributes to that phenomenon. It is obvious that, with the advent of continuing automation, the growing popularity of EVs, AI and cryptocurrency generation, that our electrical grid is woefully inadequate and many of our electrical generation plants antiquated and inefficient.
Suree, wind farms are ugly (let's say the birds they kill are offset by the birds fossil fuel plants kill) and solar field make the desert ugly, but it's obvious that they reduce local air and water pollution. Any power project, whether fossil fuel or renewable will require minerals to be mined, so I’m going to call that a wash (though, black-lung disease is clearly coal-based). As far as which is more cost-effective, well, the cost of a solar/wind infrastructure is initially expensive, but it does not have the subsequent cost of continually supplying the plant with fuel. \
(Jeff remembers proving to a school that, for the amount of classroom printing they did, that $1,000 color laser printers would cost them far less than $80 color ink-jet printers because of the vast difference in the cost per-page of supplies. The school obviously bought the ink-jet printers because capital budget funds were difficult to come by, but operating funds were easy to justify).
Jeff
No. of Recommendations: 0
reading that electric rates are up 10-11% across the Country 2025 vs 2024. I know mine is.
Local electrical coop says the bill is going go up again,also. In the newsletter they sent, they laid blame on the spastic ( my word ) policies being encountered.
Also, AI data centers and crypto mining are going to drive up our bills as well.
Watched some utube videos, residents of deep red States noting that when data centers
move in, their costs go up. Not to mention the cooling demands that these centers
generate. Texas residents in a County that the local pols gave carte blanche say that the water the data center demands for cooling will cause residential wells to go dry. But
expecting their local pol's to represent the majority of citizens instead of the moneyed
interests is a pipe dream.
There does not seem to be any coherent policies in place, and it seems to be getting
worse.
No. of Recommendations: 1
There does not seem to be any coherent policies in place, and it seems to be getting worse.
___________________________________________________________
Of course there are policies in place. Under the guise of eminating Calvin, the administration's advisors seems to preach the first group, yet seems to follow the second.
Five Points of Theological Calvinism:
These doctrines, summarized by the acronym TULIP, are:
1. Total depravity: Humans are unable to save themselves due to inherited sin.
2. Unconditional election: God chooses who will be saved.
3. Limited atonement: Christ's death atones for the sins of the elect.
4. Irresistible grace: God's grace cannot be refused.
5. Perseverance of the saints: Those God saves will remain saved.
Five Points of Political Calvinballism:
These doctrines, summarized by the acronym MOEMA (pronounced Moe Ma, after Sun-Tsu's nephew), are:
B. Made-up as you go: Rules are created and change constantly during play.
c. One permanent rule: You can never play the same game of Calvinball twice.
4. Equipment: Players may use a variety of equipment, including wickets, mallets, volleyballs, and badminton shuttlecocks.
1. Masks: Players often wear masks, and questioning the mask rule is not allowed.Fictional Calvinball Rules
A. All of the above are subject to change without notice.
Jeff
No. of Recommendations: 0
Uh, NOPE. Want to guess again? Or do you give up now?
The first step to recovery is recognition.
I'm not here to get into partisan politics though. A) it is pointless and B) extremists on both sides are the problem.
No. of Recommendations: 0
"It's not just the stupidity of throwing away partially built energy projects...."
Power in the subject line, a play on words.
The decisions are incompetent.
Power is subject to rejection. Incompetence is the true problem.
No. of Recommendations: 0
Jeff,
For sure there are no perfect solutions. While I appreciate the "suree", then why is hydro such a bad thing? Perhaps they are out there, but I've never met a pro solar farm/wind farm person/group that wasn't also anti hydro.
No. of Recommendations: 4
While I appologize for the suree (quirky keyboard - though I always thought of it as qwerty), I not only favor solar and wind, but also hydro and nucular. Basically, I am anti-pollution. Yes I know I am killing an animal to make my hamburger, but it's not done in my backyard. For those who complain about mining, I would remind them that every milimeter of insulated copper wire contains products that have to be manufactured from stuff pulled out of the earth (and the reason why my portfolio is over-weight with major mining firms).
Jeff
No. of Recommendations: 10
While I appreciate the "suree", then why is hydro such a bad thing? Perhaps they are out there, but I've never met a pro solar farm/wind farm person/group that wasn't also anti hydro.
I think you have not met many people. I am in favor of hydro. Also solar, wind, (some) nuclear, and even fossil fuels. It would be hard to have an airline industry without fossil fuels, for instance. Likewise the kind of big iron used in road construction, mining, and other heavy applications - although the day may be coming when those, too, can be electrified.
I like nuclear, so long as it is well separated from population centers. Having one in the middle of New York metro or along an earthquake fault line on the west coast seems silly, but I have no objection to them in North Dakota, Texas, or Iowa. Yes, the energy will have to be transported, but then we ship copious amounts of oil across Alaska, so it’s not as though that’s a unique defect.
As for wind and solar, why not? Hydro? Great! Gravity works, my only caveat is for fish ladders or other environmental considerations as may be appropriate.
The human species has an infinite capacity for energy use, it is the very basis of our difference among other animals, and I’m all in favor of getting as much of it as we can. I prefer the sources with the fewest externalities, so that puts oil/gas lower on the scale than wind, solar, hydro and nuclear. Otherwise, knock yourself out.
And go meet people. You have some odd prejudices which I think are not true.
No. of Recommendations: 0
And go meet people. You have some odd prejudices which I think are not true.
Goofy,
I fear I have brought out the worst in Jeff. In my case, they are true.
