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January 30, 2025 08:17 AM UTC

Thursday Open Thread

  • 23 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

“Before I refuse to take your questions, I have an opening statement.”

–Ronald Reagan

Comments

23 thoughts on “Thursday Open Thread

    1. Daily Kos article reminded us

      The two highest-ranking men tasked with investigating what appears to be the worst commercial jet crash in the U.S. in more than 15 years are unqualified former Fox News hosts who are completely in over their heads.

      Sean Duffy:

      "Obviously, it is not standard to have aircraft collide. I want to be clear on that," Duffy said at the news conference,

      Pete Hegseth:

      Hegseth did not appear at Duffy’s news conference. Instead, he filmed a video message about the crash, saying the helicopter was piloted by a “fairly experienced crew” who had been conducting a “required annual night evaluation” with night-vision goggles, and that the military is “actively investigating” what went wrong.

      “It’s a tragedy. A horrible loss of life,” Hegseth said.

       

      1. Meanwhile, the titular head of government said DEI could have been to blame.

        And I'm sure Duffy's statement above was one line out of many, but to say aircrafts colliding is "not standard" takes passive-voice language to new heights!

  1. First concentration camp Guantanamo Bay 30,000 humans

    “Biden crime family & ballot fraud co-conspirators (elected officials, bureaucrats, social media censorship mongers, fake stream media reporters, etc) are being arrested & detained for ballot fraud right now & over coming days, & will be living in barges off GITMO to face military tribunals for sedition,”

      Ginni Thomas Nov 5th 2020 –
    (prior to the election)

    Do you believe Trump’s “they say 20 million some say no it’s more like 25 million really!” illegal migrants exist? What do you think they will do when they run out of easy raids?

  2. Not at all saying having an actual FAA director would've prevented yesterday's crash, but Il Presidente musk apparently pushed the old one into resignation:

    The Federal Aviation Administration currently has no Senate-confirmed leader after top administrator Michael Whitaker was forced out under pressure from Elon Musk, who had demanded his resignation in September for proposing fines of more than $600,000 for SpaceX over safety concerns, reported The Daily Beast.

    I want to say I expect an investigation to provide comprehensive information as to what went wrong yesterday, but I'm not sure enough anymore.

    1. Your basic premise is that Wind requires backup, therefore the full-system needs to be analyzed. And your observation is that this is both more expensive in money and CO2 generation than expected.

      You acknowledge that it is very difficult to model the backups/full-system, and of course it will depend on the kind of backup. Here are several backup candidates, some of which fulfill your position, and some of which don't:

      • Coal power
      • Gas power
      • Nuclear power
      • Solar voltaic energy
      • Battery backup
      • Demand shifting (raise the price to decrease energy demand when wind can't supply it)
      1. Also, the most bang for the buck in renewables ( for buildings) is conservation, efficiency and passive solar design. Make building envelopes that don't leak energy, and half the battle is won.

        Rocky Mountain Institute has some energy myth-busting articles here – assuming that you're interested in actual scientific data, rather than Putin- and fossil fuel industry-serving propaganda. They're not purists – they recognize that fossil fuels have a role in the transition to "a clean, prosperous, and carbon-free future for all

        1. I agree totally. We have a large underappreciated victory in how much the first world has reduced their energy needs. And yes, there's a lot more that can be done. The easiest way in the world to not emit CO2 is to reduce our energy consumption.

          And I totally agree with the N2N approach to first reduce CO2 and then eliminate it.

      2. In the U.S. the vast majority of the time unscheduled peaker power is handled by SCGT (gas). And a far distant second is coal (which is much worse). Nuclear is pretty much always base load so it's already at 100%. Solar is actually a reliable intermittent source in that they have a good estimation of what it's going to provide every day. As such it's scheduled in. Same for pumped hydro. As for batteries, horribly expensive (blog post I have written going up M/T). And demand shifting – there are very few commercial customers willing to do it. In one of the RSOs, can't remember which, when they asked the response they got was so small they didn't implement it.

        1. "Price-Signaling". Demand Shifting is already happening – at least at my house.

          For me, off-peak electricity is 7.5cents per KWh, and on-peak is at 21cents. As electric vehicles take over, something lke 100 billion (I just made that up), batteries will come on-line for load-balancing the system.

          Yes, smart electric management systems need to be developed and implemented. Also, we'll see micro, mini & macro distribution systems for resiliency, fire mitigation, safety.

      1. Yep. I have asked a contact I have at NREL – no response. And I have an upcoming interview with a professor at C.U.

        In addition, as you can see from the interview I posted, I interviewed Will Toor who's the Executive Director of the Colorado Energy Office. He's the one who provided 2 studies purpoting to show that Wind + backup is less CO2.

        And I post each of them to the subreddits energy and windturbine. I have gotten constructive critism on both of those, including one time I had a mistake in my math (which I immediatly acknowledged and corrected in the post).

        And same offer to everyone here – if you see a mistake in the assumptions or math, please let me know.

        1. Mistakes in the assumptions:😆🙄

          You do not account  for social costs of LNG extraction. You do not account for the extra damage that methane,  released in the generation of natural gas fuel, does to biological life including humans, nor as a potent greenhouse gas. 

          Instead, you insist on promoting nuclear power, as though it has zero social cost and the waste just magically disappears. You live in a fantasy world of propaganda spread by Nazis and the extraction industries. I would put up more links to sources, but why bother? 

          You never read anything that contradicts your own prior bias

           

           

  3. "basic premise is that wind requires backup…………"

    I was one of the original 30,000 subscribers to what was then called Xcel Energy's Windsource program.

    Wind should be listed as a backup power source for wind. The wind is always blowing somewhere in eastern Colorado; if not at one grouping of wind farms, then at another. It's the downsloping winds coming off the mountains.

    1. Actually no. There are several 2 – 3 day periods where the wind across Colorado is minimal. Not 0 but pretty close to it. PSCO is the region that was the old Public Service Company – so most of Colorado.

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