Shortly after the elections I tweeted the following:
Below, David kicks off his article about bipartisan politics:
With
the possible exception of California’s
recent bill, it might be the most significant state energy legislation
passed in the US in decades.
Interestingly enough, the link he provides in that quote
goes to an article by Brad Plummer which had the following quote about
California's bill:
Few
countries have ever achieved cuts this sharp while enjoying robust economic
growth. (Two exceptions were France and
Sweden in the 1980s and ’90s, when they scaled up nuclear power).
Below are some examples of David doing his usual antinuclear
energy double-speak:
The
bill is somewhat misleadingly being
headlined by most journalists as a bailout for nuclear plants.
But
while the bailout is in there ...
Lots
of them are pushing for bailouts ...
So
that’s what Exelon wanted: a bailout
for its nuclear plants...
...many
enviros and consumer advocates remain deeply opposed to the bailout.
Government assistance for nuclear zero carbon energy is called
a bailout but for wind and solar
it's called a subsidy?
Whatever
your feelings on the nuclear part of
the deal — and many enviros and consumer advocates remain deeply opposed to the
bailout — it is an extremely significant win for clean energy.
Above, David once again subtly works to isolate nuclear from
the clean energy fold. Nuclear is considered a clean energy source by everyone
but antinuclear organizations and antinuclear energy misinformation (pick a word) like David.
Now,
in many wholesale power markets around the country, big, old, inflexible
baseload power plants (coal and nuclear) are losing out to wind, efficiency, and most of all, smaller, more
nimble natural gas power plants
The above comment is wrong on several counts:
- The next time you see David making small talk while getting drunk at a party, ask him how wind, which has an energy production profile that looks like the ragged edge of a saw blade, can replace a baseload power source that has an "inflexible" flat line for a profile? And while you're at it, ask him to demonstrate how he would insert a square peg into a round hole. Obviously, since the output from baseload plants does not vary, baseload power stations are not being displaced by wind, which varies, ah, constantly. What little wind can be found in Illinois, is displacing gas. Gas is displacing nuclear.
- If efficiency is displacing nuclear, why isn't it also displacing wind?
- If big is bad, would a wind farm that stretches for dozens of miles be more bad?
This
is freaking gencos, and utility holding companies like Exelon, right out. They
do not like it one bit. Lots of them are pushing for bailouts (see: Ohio).
Some are talking about trying to
re-regulate power markets. Anything to save those plants.
The dripping hypocrisy makes me want to smile. Wind does not
freak out with any hint that their subsidy may finally not be renewed, and rooftop solar PV owners don't freak out when they realize that their net
metering was a actually a temporary subsidy, and like all subsidies, has to
eventually end?
They’ve
[two nuclear power stations combined]
been losing money hand over fist — $800 million in the past seven years
My proposal for a Climate Hawk Logo/Badge |
...
it worried some climate hawks, who
didn’t want to lose over two and a half gigawatts of low-carbon energy
generation, which would be replaced in large part with natural gas plants that
raise Illinois carbon emissions.
Above is one of the more accurate statements made by David
but it still merits some comment. He used the term "climate hawk"
because he is the one who coined the term several years ago. Being just as or more
concerned about climate change than David, I find the label characteristically divisive
and disingenuous (and I know I'm not alone). What's more, this is the first
time I've seen him suggest that some "climate hawks" are pronuclear
energy. Being antinuclear has always been a de facto part of the definition. Has
David just admitted that these purported hawks have already split into two
warring camps?
The
long-term fix, everyone seems to agree, is some kind of market reform, to properly value carbon. The short-term
fix is giving the nuclear plants a bunch of money to stay open.
Really? A half-cent per kWh increase in rates to keep our
major source of low carbon energy isn't a means of valuing carbon? Net metering
and the wind Production Tax Credit subsidy are not " giving the nuclear plants wind and solar a bunch of money to stay open?" Sometimes,
David can bring the confirmation bias like no other.
It’s
a bold target, but various problems with the way the RPS is designed have led
to disappointing results. I covered
those deficiencies (and the way to fix them) in some detail here,
way back in 2012, and won’t rehash them.
David was a philosophy major when he was hired by Grist to
blog for them. Over the years he has morphed into a self-proclaimed expert on
energy policy, which is remarkable in that he has absolutely no educational background
in engineering or economics. What David desperately needs is peer review (a
comment field) to help bring him down to earth.
A
variety of grassroots, environmental, social justice, faith, and business
groups have spent years pushing a
bill that would make various
fixes to the RPS...
Riiiight ... grassroots,
environmental, social justice, faith, and business groups are going to re-engineer
our low carbon electrical grid.
Perhaps
most importantly to clean energy fans, net
metering will remain in place ... Rather than scrap net metering, the bill protects it ... and most
significantly, instructs the Illinois Commerce Commission to convene a multi-stakeholder
process to study what comes after net
metering— how better to capture the time- and location-dependent value
of distributed energy.
Translation: Net metering is a subsidy. Subsidies are
temporary. We bought off the few people who invested in rooftop solar who were never told that net metering would eventually have to end and pushed the
inevitable end of the subsidy off into the future for some other poor
politician to deal with.
So
there won’t be any changes in rates that penalize rooftop solar customers.
Because VOX isn't interested in promoting public discussion of their content under that content in comment fields, feel free to click on this link to see other articles where I peer review some of David's articles.
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