Economic Fallout of Trump's Incompetence

[Moksha]

Was this the Biomass plant in nearby Anisville, Georgia where they first attempted to extract moonshine from the hog droppings? Much better local oversight may have prevented this problem and produced a tastier moonshine.

At least they could have recommended filtering out the brown sludge before consumption and possibly adding a mint leaf to each mason jar.

[DrW]

I doubt it had anything to do with communism. Not all incompetence and poor civic planning is necessarily attributable to communism. Nor is it impossible to design a biomass plant without botching it up. There are a lot of communities, farmers and businesses that utilize biomass energy very profitably and happily. Do you want me to find some good examples of that and post the links to them? Would you bother to look at them if I did?

Gunnar is absolutely right. There are plenty of examples of renewable energy power plants that can produce power at reasonable rates. It is important to keep in mind that the cost of electricity is comprised of three main components; generation, transmission and distribution.

Generation costs passed on directly to the public include power plant cost amortization and fuel, if any. In the case of renewable energy, these can be mitigated to some extent by government subsidies such as those that apply to solar and wind energy. In some jurisdictions, renewable energy credits are available for for use of biomass fuels.

Transmission costs can be substantial, especially when there are long distances between large generation facilities (such as the now decommissioned coal fired pollution plant at Four Corners) and the load (such as Phoenix).

Distribution costs vary by population density (distance between paying customers) and can increase if undergrounding of local power lines is required. Local land use and permitting regulations can also contribute to distribution costs.

As to civic planning, electrical utilities in the US, both public and private, are under the jurisdiction of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). In compliance with FERC, the States do have flexibility in how they control local utilities. As the grid develops, generation, transmission, and distribution are increasingly handled as separate businesses by separate entities.

Back to generation and helping ajax. As wind and solar generation increases, especially in places like California, the intermittent nature of the power they produce (only when the wind blows and the sun shines) has led to significant problems in the control and stability on the power grid. Companies such as Tesla have done their best to introduce batteries that can help smooth out the power flow by storing energy during the day and putting in back on the grid at night, for example. But there is a limit to how much intermittent renewable energy can be efficiently used given current technology. Biomass plants are attractive as renewable energy sources in this generation mix because they provide 24/7 (baseload) power and help stabilize the grid.

Over time many biomass plants that use harvested wood as a renewable fuel have proven economically non-viable. They were overbuilt when subsidies were available and have, to a large extent, not been economically viable in many areas as the price of solar has come down, and as the renewable fuel has become more expensive to harvest and prepare. A 100 MW wood biomass plant Gainesville Florida, for example, costing hundreds of millions of dollars, operated for only a few years before it became economically nonviable and was mothballed. Rate payers are still burdened with the costs of that plant and will be for years to come. There are successful biomass plants. These are generally smaller and operate largely on agricultural biomass or timber slash.

The good news for biomass is that newer plants, which will slowly replace incinerators, can play an important role in providing distributive power while reducing greenhouse gas emissions and the amount of material going to landfill. They can cleanly convert the biomass in municipal solid waste to energy. This material would otherwise go to landfill where it would anaerobically degrade to produce methane, a greenhouse gas that is about 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide. With other emerging technologies, plastics in the municipal waste streams can be converted directly to clean diesel fuel.

Finally, in the view of many, myself included, the true cost of non-renewable fuels such as coal, petroleum and natural gas needs to include the environmental (societal) cost of the carbon footprint of the generating technology. This cost is not yet well reflected in the US power market. A viable carbon credits trading system in the US would help a great deal.

[ajax18]

Ajax,

Had Trump remained president, how many more years would it take to get your bill back down to 250?

Never. This was a county/state issue. This was a case of urban leftist county/city government controlling public utilities.

[Chap]

Ajax,

Had Trump remained president, how many more years would it take to get your bill back down to 250?

Never. This was a county/state issue. This was a case of urban leftist county/city government controlling public utilities.

Oh good. So at least you can't complain that Biden's election will hit your utilities bill ... or can you, though?

Have a try!

[Gadianton]

Never. This was a county/state issue.

I wondered how Ajax would answer that, considering this statement he'd made:

I think we often fail to involve ourselves in local politics due to national political distractions, which is foolish because the local politics have the most expensive negative effects.

Wow, who would have thought? 4 years of unhinged Trump worship and goal post moving and the realization comes that local politics probably have greater impact than national.

Is it only coincidence that the OKers 3%ers etc. have been making similar points? As I understand it, the new strategy is to get heavily involved in local politics.

I can't say it's a bad strategy. It's probably more likely to lead to the civil war Ajax is hoping for. If town council meetings are filled with para-military people, that will draw out a reaction from normal people, but now you get the enemies face-to-face. I can only imagine going to a town council meeting and while getting back to my car, a bunch of big guys surround me to have a "friendly conversation" with a fellow white guy.

I do wonder if Ajax really believes that white supremacists and paramilitary hold the answers to a rocking economy. I, for one, kind of doubt they know enough. Look at Ajax, he's super educated about the human eye, but knows nothing about economics and probably didn't even read Dr. W's awesome post about green energy.

[Some Schmo]

I don't think we should take seriously the economic opinion of anyone who doesn't know the difference between socialism and communism.

Of course, a confession that you're a Trump fan makes ignoring your opinion even easier.

[Gunnar]

I doubt it had anything to do with communism. Not all incompetence and poor civic planning is necessarily attributable to communism. Nor is it impossible to design a biomass plant without botching it up. There are a lot of communities, farmers and businesses that utilize biomass energy very profitably and happily. Do you want me to find some good examples of that and post the links to them? Would you bother to look at them if I did?

Gunnar is absolutely right. There are plenty of examples of renewable energy power plants that can produce power at reasonable rates. It is important to keep in mind that the cost of electricity is comprised of three main components; generation, transmission and distribution.

Generation costs passed on directly to the public include power plant cost amortization and fuel, if any. In the case of renewable energy, these can be mitigated to some extent by government subsidies such as those that apply to solar and wind energy. In some jurisdictions, renewable energy credits are available for for use of biomass fuels.

Transmission costs can be substantial, especially when there are long distances between large generation facilities (such as the now decommissioned coal fired pollution plant at Four Corners) and the load (such as Phoenix).

Distribution costs vary by population density (distance between paying customers) and can increase if undergrounding of local power lines is required. Local land use and permitting regulations can also contribute to distribution costs.

As to civic planning, electrical utilities in the US, both public and private, are under the jurisdiction of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). In compliance with FERC, the States do have flexibility in how they control local utilities. As the grid develops, generation, transmission, and distribution are increasingly handled as separate businesses by separate entities.

Back to generation and helping ajax. As wind and solar generation increases, especially in places like California, the intermittent nature of the power they produce (only when the wind blows and the sun shines) has led to significant problems in the control and stability on the power grid. Companies such as Tesla have done their best to introduce batteries that can help smooth out the power flow by storing energy during the day and putting in back on the grid at night, for example. But there is a limit to how much intermittent renewable energy can be efficiently used given current technology. Biomass plants are attractive as renewable energy sources in this generation mix because they provide 24/7 (baseload) power and help stabilize the grid.

Over time many biomass plants that use harvested wood as a renewable fuel have proven economically non-viable. They were overbuilt when subsidies were available and have, to a large extent, not been economically viable in many areas as the price of solar has come down, and as the renewable fuel has become more expensive to harvest and prepare. A 100 MW wood biomass plant Gainesville Florida, for example, costing hundreds of millions of dollars, operated for only a few years before it became economically nonviable and was mothballed. Rate payers are still burdened with the costs of that plant and will be for years to come. There are successful biomass plants. These are generally smaller and operate largely on agricultural biomass or timber slash.

The good news for biomass is that newer plants, which will slowly replace incinerators, can play an important role in providing distributive power while reducing greenhouse gas emissions and the amount of material going to landfill. They can cleanly convert the biomass in municipal solid waste to energy. This material would otherwise go to landfill where it would anaerobically degrade to produce methane, a greenhouse gas that is about 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide. With other emerging technologies, plastics in the municipal waste streams can be converted directly to clean diesel fuel.

Finally, in the view of many, myself included, the true cost of non-renewable fuels such as coal, petroleum and natural gas needs to include the environmental (societal) cost of the carbon footprint of the generating technology. This cost is not yet well reflected in the US power market. A viable carbon credits trading system in the US would help a great deal.

Thanks for confirming and amplifying that. If only we could somehow get people like ajax to honestly look at the evidence and carefully consider it. Why are they so hell bent on rejecting both the necessity and benefits of transitioning to a clean and sustainable green economy? Are they heavily invested in fossil fuel corporation stocks, or is it that they are just so proudly ignorant that they can't bear the possibility that they could ever be mistaken about any of their core beliefs?

[Meadowchik]

China will continue to boom. One advantage America has is that English has become the universal language. Of course, those foreign investments that need negotiation can be conducted by China in English. Chinese is a difficult tonal language with 4000 written characters.

And yet there are 100,000+ native English speaking teachers providing English language instruction to Chinese children online. I'm one of them , just taught three today.

The language of choice can change quickly though.

I have really enjoyed "being in" the homes of hundreds of Chinese families and I like to imagine that my impact in improving English skills also comes with more cultural awareness in China, helping make Americans more relatable and human and creating positive images in their minds, beyond the messages of TV and formal messaging, that they will carry with them into adulthood.

[Gunnar]

China will continue to boom. One advantage America has is that English has become the universal language. Of course, those foreign investments that need negotiation can be conducted by China in English. Chinese is a difficult tonal language with 4000 written characters.

And yet there are 100,000+ native English speaking teachers providing English language instruction to Chinese children online. I'm one of them , just taught three today.

The language of choice can change quickly though.

I have really enjoyed "being in" the homes of hundreds of Chinese families and I like to imagine that my impact in improving English skills also comes with more cultural awareness in China, helping make Americans more relatable and human and creating positive images in their minds, beyond the messages of TV and formal messaging, that they will carry with them into adulthood.

I wish you all the success possible in that noble endeavor!

[Moksha]

And yet there are 100,000+ native English-speaking teachers providing English language instruction to Chinese children online. I'm one of them, just taught three today.

What Chinese City do you teach in?