Reply to Day of the Eagle, about green energy, in a new thread, to avoid going off topic

[Tiny]

Originally Posted by DayOfTheEagle

And some of these policies, like killing anything Green Energy related, are unbelievably foolish. There is a TON of money to be made in this field. A ton. We are going to let other countries make it all. (and I am ignoring future Environmental impacts of this, which is another topic entirely)

I'm kind of with you and kind of not. I strongly disagree with Trump's suspension of offshore wind projects, to the extent they wouldn't be financed with taxpayer money. It's just as stupid as Biden's suspension of issuance of permits for new LNG projects.

The most egregious example WAS the Empire Wind project, offshore New York. Equinor had already spent $2.5 billion on the project and it was 1/3rd complete. The Trump administration lifted the suspension in a compromise with governor Kathy Hochul that will allow expansion of natural gas pipeline capacity to New York. This is good news all around for the residents of and businesses in New York.

I'm not a fan of the Inflation Reduction Act. It was loaded with pork for green energy, and, like tariffs, distorts the market, and makes it less efficient. Government is picking the winners, and our federal government isn't particularly good at doing that.

As long as we have resilient supply, with natural gas and nuclear providing a decent % of capacity, we'd be better off importing solar cells and batteries from China instead of trying to reproduce their supply chains. There's no way we'll ever come close to matching their cost structure and prices. Americans will pay through their noses for electricity if government mandates zero net carbon and relies on U.S. manufacturing to provide the renewable capacity. Californians might put up with it, but I can guaran-damn-tee you that Texans won't.

If you think CO2 emissions are a problem, a REASONABLE carbon tax that won't hurt our exports is the way to go. Then let markets pick which technologies and businesses win, instead of government.

[Precious_b]

China finally listened to us when it came to green energy and such.
I guess it was the Embassy showing the real air quality numbers to the chinese citizens that shamed Beijing to finally jump on the band wagon.

If it wasn't for the stupid instant ego gratification of playing with the market at the cost of the voters, the maggies would see that tariffs are holding back real development here.

Most any bill has pork in it. But as with others that the demmies put through, if the party of No would have took a more active hand in creating it, we surely would have seen a better bill if they just reached across the aisle.

[DayOfTheEagle]

Sorry for the delay, Tiny. There is a lot of good, thoughtful stuff in your post. I will agree with you most on two points. First is that I have no doubt that you are correct about the pork in the IRA. This is what our government has become, and it compromises almost every action that they take. And second is some form of a Carbon tax. Putting CO2 into the air has costs that are never properly accounted for with our current system. This could be one way to recognize that. Always better to provide incentive to change than to mandate it.

(unrelated: very cool way to stay on topic!)

[VitaMan]

What is the deal with all these "avoid going off topic" threads by the same OP ?

Does he already have a lot of points....or what ?

[Jacky S]

Originally Posted by VitaMan

What is the deal with all these "avoid going off topic" threads by the same OP ?

Does he already have a lot of points....or what ?

It seems the Administrator doesn’t want anything in a Thread that does not directly related to the original post.

I have several warnings by posing things that I thought were on point.

But I don’t make the rules.

[VitaMan]

These threads appear to be a continuation of the original thread.

If so they should be merged and a review done of whether they go off topic.