[HN Gopher] California Scrambles to Find Electricity to Offset P...
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California Scrambles to Find Electricity to Offset Plant Closures
Author : JumpCrisscross
Score : 147 points
Date : 2021-10-16 14:27 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wsj.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wsj.com)
| speedybird wrote:
| _" During the Medieval Warm Period, there were at least two
| century-long megadroughts with only 60-70% of modern
| precipitation levels. Paleoclimatologists believe that higher
| temperatures due to global warming may cause California to enter
| another dry period, with significantly lower precipitation and
| snowpack levels than observed over the last 150 years.[7]"_
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_in_California#P...
|
| It seems at this rate, California won't realize it needs
| desalination plants until it's too late. Desalination plants need
| a whole lot of power, so California _should_ be preparing for
| that by building up their energy production capacity.
| m0zg wrote:
| Excellent news. The more people see the lunacy of these "green"
| policies in CA, the less chance there is they will metastasize
| into the rest of the US, and the more chance there is that
| nuclear (the only really "green" option when it comes to base
| load) would see a revival. The technology is already there to
| build dramatically cheaper and safer reactors. The political will
| is being built up by taking a wrecking ball to CA's energy
| sector, and those who did it don't even realize what they're
| doing - their planning horizon does not extend beyond the next
| election.
| gibsonf1 wrote:
| Reality simply does not care about ideology. The fact that
| California management is increasingly making it difficult for
| both people and businesses to live in the state will mean that
| the tide of people and businesses leaving the state will simply
| increase. And this tide is not a factor in how things are being
| managed, so I'm not sure what would trigger reasonable management
| in the state again. As much as I love California and the city of
| San Francisco, the direction of management at all levels is
| towards doubling down on policies that make living and working in
| this state increasingly hard, and forces reasonable people and
| businesses to simply vote with their feet. Wrecking reliable
| power would be the final straw for many.
| literallyaduck wrote:
| Voting rights should have a cool down period. If you trash the
| red or blue stay you live in with your voting policies which
| are toxic and then when the time to pay the tab comes, you flee
| to your next victim state and vote for the same unsustainable
| politicians you had in the place you just left you are a cancer
| to democracy.
| whalesalad wrote:
| I still don't understand why CA is phasing out nuclear power.
| [deleted]
| ink404 wrote:
| Incentive for other 'green' sources of electricity to come to
| market
| bufferoverflow wrote:
| There's nothing greener than an already built nuclear
| reactor.
| brandonmenc wrote:
| > already built
|
| Therefore, ineligible for pocketing green subsidies to
| build new stuff.
| SilasX wrote:
| Yikes, that's a perverse incentive they should fix.
| minhazm wrote:
| I think the concern with nuclear energy is around the
| possibility of a nuclear meltdown. The media portrayal of
| nuclear energy is that it's very dangerous, even if that's
| not really true.
| anonporridge wrote:
| What radicalized me on nuclear power was seeing the
| decommissioned San Onofre nuclear plants replaced with natural
| gas plants.
| koheripbal wrote:
| Because lobby groups for environmentalism/green energy are
| stuck in the Cold War mentality that anything nuclear is
| bringing forth the apocalypse.
| gedy wrote:
| Nuclear is (one of) the new invisible demons flying around to
| be afraid of.
| TrispusAttucks wrote:
| It's an old demon. Ironically it's one of the few things
| that could have prevented our current climate crisis. A
| great tragedy of human hubris.
| dehrmann wrote:
| It's more throwing the baby out with the bathwater than
| hubris.
| TrispusAttucks wrote:
| hu*bris (noun)
|
| excessive pride or self-confidence
|
| --
|
| I'd say it fits but yours [1] is a better known
| characterization.
|
| I was using it in the tradition of [2] Greek Tragedy
| Hubris.
|
| "The overbearing pride which leads humans to follow paths
| or projects which lead to certain self-destruction."
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_throw_the_baby_
| out_wit...
|
| [2] http://theatreofancientgreece.blogspot.com/2014/11/hu
| bris-or...?
| vnchr wrote:
| It powers evil Bitcoin mining
| andbberger wrote:
| it's not though. fear of flying is common enough but people
| accept that's not backed up the statistics. nuclear energy
| is in the same camp.
|
| it is objectively the safest method for power generation
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| Same as Germany: politics.
| ravenstine wrote:
| CA politicians are largely integrated into a global financial
| system that extracts wealth from the middle class by
| facilitating crises. If crises didn't happen, they don't have
| an excuse to intervene and tax the population by-proxy. It's no
| coincidence that when Newsom's governance became threatened
| that they brought out Obama, Biden, Warren, Sanders, and Pelosi
| to defend him. They need control of California to use it as a
| proving ground and maintain the influence the state has. It's
| not about green energy, Democrats or Republicans, but
| globalized wealth extraction.
|
| Plus you factor in our remarkably low average IQ in contrast to
| the vast majority of states and it's hardly a surprise. Our
| education is abysmal and we feed junk to our poor. How anyone
| can call CA a success astounds me. It's a political and
| economical success, but it's hardly a success in what states
| are actually intended for, which is to serve its citizens.
| sul_tasto wrote:
| "Never let a crisis go to waste." I too see this pattern over
| and over again.
| zz865 wrote:
| Honestly I think this is good and inevitable part of living with
| renewable energy. Renewable really is different - there are times
| of the day and days of the year when electricity is scarce and
| expensive, other windy sunny days when its virtually free.
|
| People will either pay more or save money by changing their
| lifestyle to match the weather and seasons. Variable pricing and
| demand management means people don't wash their clothes or charge
| their cars on cold nights, they charge during the day or when its
| windy. Maybe people have to pay more to use AC on the hottest
| days and people will choose to go to the beach/mall/office
| instead.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| Who are you to make that choice for people? Heat waves and
| blackouts kill lots of people. Your position seems religious,
| and impractical. You're treating energy use like sin. It is in
| my opinion an awful way to view the world.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| I tend to agree, I can't see how we can get to a zero carbon
| world without some discomfort. Politicians who tell you we can
| achieve it without changing our lifestyle are lying.
| deschutes wrote:
| It's easy to argue for ascetism for other people.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| It's easy to stick you're head in the sand and ignore the
| problem.
| rc2634 wrote:
| Do you actually think this will make a difference wrt to
| climate change when most of the carbon pollution in the new
| few decades will be coming from fast developing countries and
| China?
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| Carbon emissions are a problem caused by the rich, trying
| to cast the blame onto China is a red herring.
|
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-16941-y?fbclid=I
| w...
| rc2634 wrote:
| I wasn't blaming anyone. I was just stating a fact.
| Americans consuming less energy is not going to prevent
| countries like China and India from consuming more energy
| coming from dirty sources such as coal. Americans
| consuming less material on the other hand can decrease
| carbon output in China but that will mostly like just be
| replaced by material consumption from the fast-developing
| nations.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| Carbon emissions from India are 1.9 tons per capita, for
| China it is 7.38 per capita and America is 15.52 tons per
| capita. China would be lower still if it wasn't a factory
| for American consumer goods.
| _-david-_ wrote:
| Or we could just use nuclear and not have discomfort.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| Nuclear won't help you fly across the Atlantic.
| JorgeGT wrote:
| Sure it will. Split water, make hydrogen, burn it in gas
| turbines:
| https://www.cleansky.eu/sites/default/files/inline-
| files/202...
| rsj_hn wrote:
| "Zero carbon" is not a serious or viable goal, and the only
| politicians I'm aware of who are promising this are ones with
| big green constituencies that need to be mollified. Yes, they
| are lying, because their voters want what is impossible. If
| that's your voter base, then the politicians who get elected
| will be the ones who lie to you.
|
| FYI, China is going to open 120 new coal plants this year,
| adding 100 million tons of coal capacity. It is already
| emitting more carbon than the Western world, and it's just
| getting going. There is no green movement there to placate,
| so they adopted efficency goals of reducing carbon emissions
| per unit of GDP. Primarily, they want to clean up the air,
| which means long term moving away from burning coal to
| generate power as well as cars that burn gasoline. But they
| are not willing to do this at the expense of economic growth
| - nor should they. They will reduce usage of coal once
| sufficient capacity for alternatives is in place, and not
| before. Nor will they stop doing things like flying planes or
| making plastics when there are no alternatives.
|
| What is a viable goal is reducing the amount of carbon per
| dollar of GDP as more efficient processes are adopted, but
| it's not going to go to _zero_. As the reasonable costs of
| climate change (according to the latest IPCC report) have
| been estimated from 0.2% to 2% of global income, it makes
| little sense to cut GDP by 3% in order to save a reduction in
| 2%. So apart from those green constitutencies who are
| convinced the sky will turn red and the clouds will start
| burning, the rest of the world is not going to reduce carbon
| emissions at _any cost_. That 's a non-starter.
|
| That carbon/GDP ratio can however, fall quite a bit, for
| example with large scale adoption of nuclear power, so it's a
| bit puzzling why the same same absolutist groups also oppose
| nuclear power. I really wish they would join us pro-nuclear
| types. Similarly there seems to be a lot of opposition to
| things like hydrogen fuel, when that's the most likely
| replacement for planes and heavy trucks, due to its energy
| density. So really if we want more efficient use of energy,
| we should be investing in developing better energy sources
| rather than trying to convince the world to "change
| lifestyles". Who knows, maybe in 100 years fossil fuels will
| be looked at in the same way as burning wood for steam is
| today, but it's not going to happen by changing lifestyles,
| it will happen with technological breakthroughs.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| California has had rolling blackouts now for a few years, and
| it gets hot enough that the height of summer is absolutely
| risky for the infirm and elderly. I don't imagine making the
| problem worse is going to help those who depend on medical
| devices either.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/10/us/california-power-outag...
| zz865 wrote:
| That's the core of the problem though right, sacrifice
| something today to help reduce the greenhouse problem in the
| future.
| finiteseries wrote:
| No, that is specifically the core worldview of a century
| old strain of environmental activism that has been
| repeatedly dunked on by reality & technological progress at
| nearly every single turn.
|
| "Sacrifice _someone_ today to help reduce the
| overpopulation /famine/nuclear war/greenhouse problem in
| the future, or else doom!"
| tomjen3 wrote:
| More likely they will blame whomever is in office and it will
| be yet another wedge issue.
| andbberger wrote:
| we need more energy, not less! if you want to be an ascetic
| because you have an irrational fear of nuclear energy go right
| ahead. but we need to be bringing TWs online to run those
| carbon skimmers and nuclear is the only real route to do so
| crisdux wrote:
| We do not need to sacrifice our prosperity in order to
| decarbonize our electricity grid. What you are suggesting will
| result in more inequality, more avoidable deaths and slower
| progress. What you are advocating for is counter productive and
| will inspire a backlash that will make your goals harder to
| achieve. We need to be pragmatic.
| hguant wrote:
| >Honestly I think this is good and inevitable part of living
| with renewable energy.
|
| "It's good that the little people suffer, it will make them pay
| attention and live a more virtuous life."
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _People will either pay more or save money by changing their
| lifestyle_
|
| Or this will massively backfire and we'll roll back to dirty
| power.
|
| I don't understand the antinuclear orthodoxy. Just when I
| thought the Baby Boomer/GenX cultural dividend couldn't throw
| another turd in the punch bowl, we get dated ideology around
| nuclear power threatening to throw back decarbonisation by at
| least a generation.
| Gimpei wrote:
| What does this have to do with boomers? Who do you think
| built that plant?
| souplesse wrote:
| I think the origins of the anti-nuclear movement are
| generally associated with the flower-power/Summer of
| Love/anti-war/early environmental movements of the late
| 60s/early 70s, which are generally associated with the baby
| boomer generation.
|
| Diablo Canyon began construction in 1968. The oldest baby
| boomer would have been 22. Seems reasonable to conclude
| that the decision to build the plant predates them.
|
| EDIT: Confused by the downvote--does someone disagree on
| the timeline?
| TrispusAttucks wrote:
| Anti-nuclear movement (1960-1980)
|
| "The initial objective of the movement was nuclear
| disarmament, though since the late 1960s opposition has
| included the use of nuclear power. Many anti-nuclear
| groups oppose both nuclear power and nuclear weapons. The
| formation of green parties in the 1970s and 1980s was
| often a direct result of anti-nuclear politics."
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-nuclear_movement
| souplesse wrote:
| > since the late 1960s opposition has included the use of
| nuclear power
|
| Confused--isn't that what I said?
| TrispusAttucks wrote:
| Yes.
|
| I am agreeing with you.
|
| I just wanted to provide some factual reference to
| support your point further. I did not down vote you nor
| do I know why you're being down voted.
| souplesse wrote:
| Roger. I considered that but just wanted to clarify,
| thanks.
| prewett wrote:
| I don't know what "antinuclear othodoxy" is but it seems
| reasonable to oppose a technology that creates waste products
| that cause mutations in the genetic code for thousands of
| years, and for which we have two cases where reactors have
| made land uninhabitable. Even worse, companies have a
| tendency to under-invest in maintenance and over-estimate
| resilience. When the consequences are uninhabitable land for
| decades, centuries, or possibly millenia, this is a dangerous
| technology to use.
| NikolaeVarius wrote:
| > PG&E announced that it plans to close the two Diablo Canyon
| reactors in 2024 and 2025, stating that because California's
| energy regulations give renewables priority over nuclear, the
| plant would likely only run half-time, making it uneconomical.
|
| > In 2020, experts at the California Independent System Operator
| (CAISO) warned that when the plant closes the state will reach a
| "critical inflection point", which will create a significant
| challenge to ensure reliability of the grid without resorting to
| more fossil fuel usage, and could jeopardize California's
| greenhouse gas reduction targets.
|
| Good stuff, shooting yourself in the foot because ideology versus
| reality
| varelse wrote:
| Solar has become dramatically cheaper in the past decade but
| the policymakers don't seem capable of realizing it's still not
| enough for America's energy needs on its own, doubly so
| drought-ridden California.
| petschge wrote:
| How are droughts creating problems for solar?
| varelse wrote:
| They aren't, they're creating weird issues with the power
| grid due to lack of investment there for which Californians
| are now on the hook to address through higher utility
| bills.
|
| https://www.pge.com/en_US/about-pge/company-
| information/regu...
| anm89 wrote:
| This could almost be a good thing. If they shut this plant down
| and immediately start experiencing grid reliability issues it
| could get some press coverage and be a wakeup call
| dhritzkiv wrote:
| Negative press coverage doesn't seem to phase PG&E
| rytcio wrote:
| or the california government
| vinay427 wrote:
| This entire recall election for the governor seemed to
| stem from press coverage that sparked a limited movement.
| Considering the result seemed too close for comfort
| throughout much of the campaign process, I wouldn't
| exactly consider the government immune to negative press.
| ren_engineer wrote:
| nuclear isn't profitable for lobbyist because of the
| regulations around it, can't outsource production of panels to
| China and reap massive profit margins from subsidies. Same
| thing for wind turbines. I know executives with power companies
| who built out massive wind farms only because of the subsidies,
| those wind mills have about a 20 year life time and can't be
| recycled or reused
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| If only reality would listen to reason.
| CalChris wrote:
| Reason working its will on reality is the definition of
| progress.
| KorematsuFredt wrote:
| Facts don't matter only feelings do - One of the California
| politicians.
|
| When people say X must be treated and utility and politicians
| must control it, I show them PG&E as a glorious example of
| California's corruption and overall incompetence.
| iscrewyou wrote:
| This has been in the works since 2016.
|
| https://www.sfgate.com/business/article/End-of-an-atomic-era...
| abecedarius wrote:
| > because California's energy regulations give renewables
| priority over nuclear
|
| Hack to solve this: classify nuclear as renewable?
| SllX wrote:
| Or just repeal a bad law instead of trying to fill the law
| books with hacks.
| abecedarius wrote:
| It's effectively renewable because (1) there's essentially
| no pollution and (2) with no prospect of new plants, mining
| of fuel is not going to add up to much impact.
|
| I agree with your viewpoint in general.
| SllX wrote:
| Nah I don't think you can take linguistic shortcuts on
| this. As much as I'm a proponent of nuclear power, I'm a
| bigger proponent of repealing bad laws rather than
| accommodating them with poorly thought out extensions and
| calling nuclear something it's not doesn't sit well with
| me when it stands fine on its own merits.
|
| I think we're agreeing directionally at least.
| abecedarius wrote:
| Yeah, that's fair. Admittedly I posted that comment
| because it amused me.
| koheripbal wrote:
| ... because activism trumps intelligence.
| JaimeThompson wrote:
| Much the same is happening in Texas but in the opposite
| direction. [1]
|
| ""I'm very disappointed," Nichols said, taking issue with a
| provision in the new law that lets gas companies easily skirt
| weatherization requirements as long as they don't declare
| themselves to be "critical infrastructure" with the state."
|
| [1]
| https://www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/...
| iab wrote:
| Yes, this the motto on our state flag I believe
| brink wrote:
| > ideology versus reality
|
| It works until it doesn't. I don't think it's common knowledge
| today that ideology is a luxury, and doesn't put gas in the
| tank of a functioning society, now that we've generally taken a
| functioning society for granted.
| PicassoCTs wrote:
| Disasters created by ideology are the normal pathway to
| vaccinate the general population against memetic viruses.
| Were education may fail, a winter with rolling black-outs,
| may not.
| almost_usual wrote:
| Sometimes you need a forcing function.
| colechristensen wrote:
| There's probably a theory in there that any technological or
| social system is doomed to have periodic major preventable
| failures as a function of human life span and attention. If
| people aren't reminded of failure they will inevitably
| neglect the system until it happens.
|
| There's a follow up whereby it might be optimal to design
| systems explicitly to allow somewhat frequent non
| catastrophic failures to keep people on their toes. Attempts
| at "perfect" safety seeming to only build up to less frequent
| but bigger disasters.
| hanniabu wrote:
| The tradeoff is one failure for another
| TrispusAttucks wrote:
| The theory you may be looking for is [1] Chesterton's Fence
|
| [1]
| https://thereaderwiki.com/en/Wikipedia:Chesterton%27s_fence
| michael1999 wrote:
| Cliodynamics is this, but for the miseries of industrial
| war.
| selimnairb wrote:
| Yeah, this seems really stupid. I can see an argument for
| prioritizing renewables for new capacity (and can also see the
| argument for not), buy if the nuclear plants are already built,
| why de-prioritize dispatching their power now?
| 7thaccount wrote:
| Probably because they're not. It's just the offer cost of
| nuke in the market is substantially higher than the
| juggernaut of solar, so the "invisible hand" is pushing it's
| capacity factor (how often it runs) down considerably to
| where it can't make enough money to stay in business.
|
| Of course this isn't 100% due to free markets as the
| subsidies of renewables allow them to offer in extremely
| cheaply, but it exacerbates the problem. Even without the
| subsidies, this would happen with current designs. Now of
| course there is "resiliency" value to having a nuke plant
| (example: when the sun doesn't shine) that is a value by
| itself, but it isn't being priced and paid for.
| andbberger wrote:
| the electricity market equivalent of HOAs are not the
| invisible hand
| [deleted]
| hguant wrote:
| I mean, the quote and the article disagree with what you're
| saying - it's not the "invisible hand of the market", it's
| a policy choice by California to prioritize buying from
| renewables over "dirty" power. Oil and coal can eat that
| because they have lower operating costs and fill a
| different need than nuclear does. Implying that this is due
| to the superiority of "the juggernaut of solar" seems
| incorrect to me.
|
| I get there's this utopian vision of solar, and the gains
| in the industry have been impressive, but those gains are
| backed by some really deep market subsidies and policy
| choices - which, to be fair, were needed to get the
| technology off the ground. However, it's not there yet, and
| it didn't get there under its own power. What we're seeing
| here is a repercussion of those policy choices, not the a
| market stabilization in favour of a superior player.
| short12 wrote:
| Are not all forms of generation heavily subsidized? I
| feel if you could generate electricity by killing kittens
| and baby seals you would instantly get a subsides
| TrispusAttucks wrote:
| It's sad really.
|
| There is an alternative reality where anti nuclear
| activist [1] never succeeded and we continued to make
| great progress on reactors. Ultimately, reducing fossil
| fuel use and corresponding GHG levels.
|
| One of the very things the environmental groups fought
| against was one of the things that could have saved us.
|
| "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-nuclear_movement
| rsj_hn wrote:
| Yes, this country should be covered in nuclear plants
| that provide the majority of our electricity. Energy
| should be too cheap to meter. Whatever problems we as a
| society may have, it will take energy to address those
| problems, and the core of our energy production has to be
| stable and reliable.
| hguant wrote:
| I had a conversation with a co-worker who used to work
| for Toshiba heavy industries on their nuclear stuff - he
| made the interesting point that there's only so much
| accessible uranium on the planet, to the point where we'd
| use up all of it in ~75 years if we were running the
| entire planet on nuclear. The only way around this is to
| use breeder reactors, which is a huge no-no from an
| international relations perspective because those are the
| same types of reactors used to make nuclear grade fissile
| materials.
| DennisP wrote:
| Conventional reactors also produce plutonium; in fact,
| there's a suspicion that one reason Chernobyl was so
| poorly designed (e.g. lacking a containment dome) was
| that they were extracting warhead fuel from it. About a
| third of the energy in US reactors is actually from
| fissioning plutonium, but they do that inefficiently so
| plutonium and other transuranics make up most of the
| long-term radioactivity in high-level nuclear waste.
|
| On the other hand, breeder reactors don't necessarily
| make weapons-grade material. The Integral Fast Reactor in
| the US produced a mix of four plutonium isotopes, which
| was totally unsuitable for weapons, and harder to enrich
| to weapons-grade than natural uranium.
|
| Using breeders multiplies the energy from uranium ore by
| a factor of a hundred. With such low fuel consumption, it
| also makes seawater extraction pretty easy, which extends
| our fuel supply to many millions of years.
| collegeburner wrote:
| I believe Russia runs the only 2 breeder reactors known
| to be operational? So if they can get away with it, seems
| like major nuclear powers could agree to produce fissile
| material for energy purposes, keeping public record of
| how much is made and selling some limited quantity to
| poor countries for running small plants. Require public
| audits by an agreed upon body created for such a purpose
| and representing equally each major nuclear power. There
| can be solutions made.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| It's a fair point. The US or Russia having more bomb-
| grade fissile material isn't such a shift in geopolitical
| reality.
| rsj_hn wrote:
| Honestly that seems like a more easily solvable problem
| than what to do with ~30 billion solar panels and the
| corresponding battery capacity that would need to be
| built up if we tried to get the bulk of the world's
| energy from solar. Of course when someone points out that
| there isn't enough raw material to make all those
| batteries and panels, the standard answer is "we'll mine
| more", but strangely that's not supposed to be an option
| with mining uranium -- so I am generally skeptical of the
| "peak uranium" theories. It's not even a matter of
| needing to turn to breeder reactors, although that's
| certainly a possibility, but rather it's just a question
| of mining more, and that always happens as technology
| improves and demand for a metal increases.
|
| But sure, nuclear power is not something that would work
| for every nation on earth. But it would certainly work
| well for North America and the EU, as well as China,
| India, Australia, and Japan, which together account for
| the majority of the world's energy needs.
| credit_guy wrote:
| There are 4 billion tons of uranium dissolved in the
| oceans [1]. That's about 80000 times the worldwide annual
| production.
|
| [1] https://cen.acs.org/materials/Fishing-uranium-ocean-
| spider-s...
| DiabloD3 wrote:
| Your co-worker may be mistaken. ~75 would only make sense
| if he was saying of _known_ deposits. And even then,
| there is about 50 million tons of known deposits, and the
| currently open mines only account for about a tenth of
| that... I 'm not sure we'd need to burn through the
| resulting refined product of 50 million tons of
| pitchblende to run the entire planet for 75 years.
|
| This also ignores the _rest_ of the intended refinement
| chain: thorium and other reactor fuel sources.
| Retric wrote:
| The uranium deposits are a long way from 1:1 with fuel
| grade uranium. Natural ore is generally under 20%
| uranium, and that uranium is 90.3% U238, and 0.7% U235.
| Reactors want ~5% U235 but depleted uranium is still 0.2%
| to 0.3% U235. Which means your produce less than 10% fuel
| grade uranium from every ton of natural uranium. Ex:
| Cigar Lake with ~217 million pounds (99,000 t) of ore at
| 18% uranium is only going to produce ~1,700t of reactor
| grade uranium. As you very roughly get 1GW for 1 year
| from 1t of reactor grade fuel that's only 23GW for 75
| years.
|
| Aka, those 50m t of ore globally work out to around
| 0.5-1m t of fuel though we're extracting the cheapest
| stuff first so expect prices to rise well before you
| extract all of it. There are also options to extract
| vastly more energy from that same ore, but again they all
| make nuclear more expensive.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| > 75 years if we were running the entire planet on
| nuclear
|
| That seems like plenty of time to
|
| a) build renewables
|
| b) figure out fusion
|
| c) discover/make accessible more uranium just like we did
| with oil
| mmastrac wrote:
| This is an interesting point. Is there some data to use
| as a reference for it? Would other forms of nuclear fuel
| replace uranium in larger quantities?
|
| I feel like this has been absent in many pro-nuclear
| arguments (I always assumed we had much more)
| hguant wrote:
| There's "uranium in the planet" - lots! - and "uranium
| accessible to humans" - not so much.
|
| The other fuel used would be plutonium and thorium, I
| believe. My understanding (not a nuclear scientist) is
| that there's a cycle of enrichment and decay that
| produces more fissile materials than it consumes.
|
| Interestingly, from my perusal of wikipedia, it seems
| like you effectively can recycle the uranium isotopes
| indefinitely in such a reactor, as well as generating
| fissile plutonium and thorium.
|
| Again, the problem is that generating fissile plutonium
| is how you make a bomb
| rsj_hn wrote:
| I think China is testing a thorium reactor now.
| https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02459-w
|
| China is leading the way, both in terms of adding coal
| capacity right now to address the power outages while
| also building out nuclear capacity for the future.
|
| The ability to act rationally like this when popular
| movements turn irrational is one advantage of an
| authoritarian system. No doubt many in the west are
| looking somewhat enviously at China.
| 7thaccount wrote:
| That's not how electricity markets work such as the CAISO
| market.
|
| Generators bid in their short run marginal cost for
| energy and the cost to provide certain reserve services
| and the unit commitment and economic dispatch algorithms
| choose which resources to turn on and what level they run
| at based on some cost minimization function.
|
| Before markets, the incumbent utility would run all their
| nukes and coal as base load. Now with regional markets
| you have lots of utilities and private entities
| competing. Once massive amounts of cheap renewables
| (armed with subsidies to boot) entered the supply mix, it
| pushed out the most expensive generation to where instead
| of running ~24/7, they began running far less. Go look at
| any nuke plants capacity factor (percentage of the year
| running) in the US by year (you can Google it). You'll
| see a rather sharp drop. It can only go so low before the
| plant has to be retired as the cost to run it is greater
| than the break even point. CAISO operators obviously
| don't want that, but absent some kind of side payment
| from the state (unpopular with economists), it's the
| inevitable outcome.
|
| I just wanted to make the distinction that the entity
| running the market and making sure the grid doesn't
| blackout usually doesn't make any decisions regarding
| what the rate payers at the retail level pay for. Even if
| they know a plant is required for reliability, it's a
| difficult process to figure out how to accommodate the
| plant outside the market. It could be argued that these
| markets in the US need to figure out how to better
| quantify the risk from losing these nukes and reflect
| that as part of the price (as well as other
| technologies). So far that hasn't occurred. Some areas
| have long-term capacity markets (example: PJM), but
| California does not (I don't think). Even then, the
| capacity markets have had many issues.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > Now with regional markets you have lots of utilities
| and private entities competing. Once massive amounts of
| cheap renewables (armed with subsidies to boot) entered
| the supply mix, it pushed out the most expensive
| generation to where instead of running ~24/7, they began
| running far less.
|
| What this really means is that their cost function is
| broken.
|
| Power plants really have three types of costs.
|
| The first is the construction cost. This is a sunk cost
| for anything that already exists.
|
| The second is fixed operating costs. This is things like
| property tax and security and maintenance, which you
| could save if you shut down the plant permanently, but
| you don't save at all by having it run at e.g. 50%
| capacity.
|
| The third is variable operating costs. The cost of
| generating the incremental MWh, given that the plant is
| operational. For fossil fuel plants this is dominated by
| fuel. For nuclear plants (and renewables) this is
| basically zero.
|
| Only the second and third should be a factor in whether a
| plant that already exists gets shut down. But more
| importantly, only the third should be a factor in where
| you buy power.
|
| If you have a nuclear power plant which you're paying to
| keep operational but not consuming 100% of its output,
| you did the math wrong. (Or your electricity prices are
| regularly zero or negative.)
| 7thaccount wrote:
| Electricity markets have been exhaustively researched for
| ~2 decades (the type we have in the US) and even longer
| for economic power systems in general.
|
| All that to say the way things are done are not perfect,
| but they have had a lot of brilliant people looking into
| them for a long time. There is a lot of economic theory
| out there on the usage of short run marginal costs for
| offers and renewables are insanely cheap in comparison to
| most other technologies.
|
| When you talk about paying for a nuke plant, but not
| consuming 100% of it's output, that's not exactly what
| I'm talking about. I would guess that many nukes simply
| have to run and can't be committed/decommitted like many
| other conventional technologies. They essentially become
| a price taker at that point and whatever they are making
| is likely not enough to cover what they need to stay in
| business. I hope that's more clear.
|
| Also, zero or negative prices are indeed becoming
| increasingly common in certain parts of the US.
|
| Edit: the capacity factors I saw posted publicly for
| nukes in 2020 weren't near as bad as I thought.
| Regardless, there are still a lot of planned retirements
| as I understand it, in the next few years. With Southern
| Company's Vogtle way over budget and behind schedule, I
| can't imagine another nuke being built in the US of that
| kind anytime soon either.
| rsj_hn wrote:
| > Electricity markets have been exhaustively researched
| for ~2 decades (the type we have in the US) and even
| longer for economic power systems in general.
|
| Do you think these cost functions properly price
| disruptions? I'm saying this because the US is an order
| of magnitude less reliable than in Europe, and most of
| these costs are pushed onto consumers. E.g. When the
| power goes out and I have to throw away food or lose a
| day of work, PGE has never compensated me for that. It's
| externalized. Now imagine a scenario where lots of people
| rely on the grid to charge their cars.
|
| I'm really skeptical of the obsessive hyper-optimization
| that's going on. If you have a situation where there is
| an extremely cheap energy provider that is highly
| unreliable, it could drive out of business the more
| expensive, reliable provider, and that needs to be taken
| into account. The zero or negative spot prices that were
| common in Texas as a result of windpower look to be an
| example of that pathology at work.
| sdenton4 wrote:
| "it didn't get there under its own power"
|
| Existing power infrastructure has already paid its
| capital costs, meaning they have a massive incumbent
| advantage. Coal and gas power also haven't historically
| had to pay for their externalities, which is another
| distortion in their favor. This means that without extra
| incentives, you're stuck with coal until the plants need
| to be replaced, which essentially means until something
| truly magical happens or forever, whichever comes first.
|
| So, you can look at the subsidies for solar as offsets
| for the incumbent advantages and externality subsidies
| enjoyed by fossil fuels. Meanwhile, the LCOE of solar has
| improved exponentially with scale and semiconductor
| improvements, which gets close to the 'something
| magical.'
| KorematsuFredt wrote:
| Shutting an existing plant without having an alternative in
| sight is just plain stupid even if it was coal powered power
| plant. Higher energy prices and lack of energy also kills
| people and damages environment. Do you really want people to
| run diesel generators in their backyard when power goes off ?
| Do you really prefer people to buy gas powered gadgets or
| cars because they don't trust electric grid ? In the absence
| of reliably grid electricity, people might opt for
| alternatives that are much more damaging.
|
| My local solar company advertises itself as "alternative to
| unreliable PG&E", it is expensive and not many can afford it
| but I can see why some people might spend their healthcare or
| education budget on buying those expensive solar panels.
| dv_dt wrote:
| Because Diablo canyon is also built on an earthquake fault.
| CameronNemo wrote:
| _Diablo Canyon is designed to withstand an earthquake of
| shaking amplitude ten times larger than that which the
| Shoreline fault is capable of triggering, based on an
| analysis by plant owner Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E)_
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_Canyon_earthquake_vu
| l...
| petschge wrote:
| Plants owners will always say that they analyzed their
| own plant being safe...
| CameronNemo wrote:
| _NRC 's estimate of the risk each year of an earthquake
| intense enough to cause core damage to the reactor at
| Diablo Canyon was 1 in 23,810 according to an NRC study
| published in August 2010._
| heisenbit wrote:
| And that is before they start storing spent fuels on
| site.
| Beldin wrote:
| Indeed. This sort of thing should be called "toilet
| ducking", in recognition of the (Dutch) brand whose ads
| poked fun at this very idea in the 90s. "Therefore, we of
| Toilet Duck recommend ... Toilet Duck!" ("Toilet duck" is
| a transliteration of their name.)
|
| Moreover, it sounds suitably silly to be used for such
| silly nonsense.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Toilet Duck is sold as such in the US.
| adanto6840 wrote:
| Just note that PG&E is the entity who has stated the
| Shoreline fault is only capable of a 6.5 magnitude
| earthquake - while the plant is designed to be capable of
| handling [after post-construction updates] an earthquake
| up to 7.5 magnitude (10X since it's a log scale).
|
| Also note, the linked page states there are four "nearby"
| faults -- it doesn't state the distance to them, but
| included is the San Andreas fault, and I'm relatively
| confident we know it's capable of producing >= 7.5
| magnitude earthquakes.
|
| I don't know, nor claim to know, much of anything about
| how susceptible [or not] this plant is to seismic events
| -- and I'm generally quite pro-nuclear -- but it's worth
| noting that there are other seismic concerns here, and
| potentially some questionable incentives for PG&E who is
| the one attesting to the capabilities of the area & this
| specific plant.
| CameronNemo wrote:
| The first part of what you say is not valid: outside
| groups have estimated the capabilities of the close
| Shoreline fault. The rest of your comment I agree with.
| Although I would point out that if San Andreas quaked at
| (eg) 8, it would not be 8 when it reached Diablo Canyon.
|
| _According to USGS seismologist, Jeanne L. Hardebeck,
| the Shoreline Fault has potential to trigger an
| earthquake of 6.4-6.8 magnitude_
| SkyMarshal wrote:
| Keep in mind that one mistake made in the Fukushima
| design, and which might be happening here, is whether
| these estimates are based only on past historical data or
| not.
|
| If they're based on historical data, on the worst known
| past earthquake/s in the region, then they may be
| effectively black-swan blind. Eg, they may be failing to
| take into account that the worst past events always
| exceeded the prior worst event before it, and therefore
| prior worst events were not, and are not, a reliable
| measure for future ones.
|
| Building earthquake-proof nuclear reactors requires, at
| minimum, taking the worst past earthquake nearby, and
| assuming the next will be worse yet, and building for
| _that_ one (or the one after, etc).
|
| Or better yet, just don't build nuclear plants on top of
| fault lines, regardless of what historical data shows
| about it.
| SkittyDog wrote:
| Your point is clear enough, but both the parent &
| grandparent comments are misuing the terminology.
|
| Earthquake sizes are usually expressed via Richter scale
| or Moment Magnitude Scale values, which both attempt to
| quantify the _total energy released_ by the quake. These
| scales do NOT quantify the force experienced at any
| particular location, which depends heavily on distance
| from the epicenter and local geology. For that kind of
| quantity, you would use a seismic intensity scale (https:
| //en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seismic_intensity_scales).
|
| So it's wrong to say that a quake "...would not be 8 when
| it reaches Diablo Canyon" because the value '8' is an MMS
| or Richter value. Instead, you could say that "...the
| damage potential would be reduced by the distance to
| Diablo Canyon."
| newbamboo wrote:
| Do you trust pg&e after the whole French laundry lobbyist
| thing? https://www.abc10.com/article/news/local/abc10-ori
| ginals/new...
| CameronNemo wrote:
| No, I would definitely support an audit of their claims.
| With my comment, I intended to point out that a
| seismically active location may not be game over for a
| nuclear plant if proper consideration is taken.
| dv_dt wrote:
| The same PG&E also fell behind on maintenance of
| vegetation around power lines, causing wildfires. As well
| as gas pipe infrastructure, causing a neighborhood scale
| explosion.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| On the other hand, distributed, statewide maintenance
| (vegetation, gas pipelines) is very different than
| centralized maintenance (nuclear power plant).
|
| It doesn't speak well to their competence, but "inspect
| and maintain 1,000s of miles of line" is different than
| "inspect and maintain 1,000 items in one place."
| dv_dt wrote:
| If the risks were equivalent, but it's maintain many more
| than 1000 items to at a tolerance 1000 times more
| sensitive with a outcome 1000 times worse than a wildfire
| or gas explosion.
| black_13 wrote:
| Wsj loves to point out dysfunctional gov. But not so much
| dysfunctional dysfunctional business and will stoke off free
| market
| mistrial9 wrote:
| California resident here - worrying to see smart people react to
| rage-bait like "scrambles" and then pile on the pre-formed
| opinions. Power industry has super-smart analysts and then a big
| cadre of private investor analysts, and management, that do
| nothing but research this, since the day you were born. Nothing
| is "surprising" in this field. This is pure manipulation wording,
| and you are falling for it in these comments.
| rrss wrote:
| Read http://www.caiso.com/Documents/Final-Root-Cause-Analysis-
| Mid... and see if you still think these analysts are
| omniscient.
| mjfl wrote:
| I've never experienced any rolling blackouts in any us state,
| and I've lived in 3 others, before living in California.
| [deleted]
| lm28469 wrote:
| It was dumb when Germany did it, it still is when California
| does.
|
| Look into your super smart analysts and private investors,
| check which lobbies and which industries they get paid by,
| they're the same guys that told us petrol was safe during the
| last 120 years
| inglor_cz wrote:
| The EU is undergoing a massive price hike right now and several
| countries want to rethink the common policy as well (in direction
| nuclear).
|
| Unfortunately with the renewables of today, a freak streak of
| windless, cold and dark winter days is very destabilizing. There
| still isn't an economic and ad-lib scalable way how to conserve
| excess energy produced on sunny, windy days for future use.
| Pumped storage only works in certain geography and suitable sites
| are already mostly taken here.
|
| I hope that small reactors, Rolls-Royce like, can be built quick
| enough and for reasonable money. Big nuclear plants tend to be
| stuck in bureaucratic and constructional quagmire for decades.
|
| https://www.rolls-royce.com/innovation/small-modular-reactor...
| bingohbangoh wrote:
| The Ignalina Power Plant in eastern Lithuania was
| decommissioned as a prerequisite to enter the EU. I always
| thought they should reactivate, especially given the reliance
| on Russian gas for power.
|
| I'm aware its a Type II reactor (same as Chernobyl) but it
| should be easier to convert to a modern Type IV, no?
| google234123 wrote:
| California has such a disfunctional gov, don't ever let people
| tell you there's no money. It's just going to overpaid public
| sector workers in education (where you can't be fired after 2
| years and pay is completely based on seniority), health care, and
| the prisons. Police in my area make up to 600k with overtime, and
| probably get a similarly large guaranteed pension. All those
| services have gotten huge increases in money over the last few
| years with 0 to negative improvement.
| thatfrenchguy wrote:
| I mean, NIMBYs have made it impossible to live in Northern
| California unless you make a lot of money. 80k for a teacher
| sounds a lot until you realize that you have to have roommates
| to survive or have inherited a place.
| riazrizvi wrote:
| NIMBY protections have been struck down statewide with the
| passage of a September law banning single family zoning [1].
| I believe pressure to remove Newsom was driven by NIMBYs and
| real estate investors who wanted to prevent this. So
| hopefully we will see the housing crisis here ease somewhat.
|
| [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/housing-market-pandemic-
| home...
| anonporridge wrote:
| Inheritance needs to be abolished or severely curtailed.
|
| It's weakening society by giving the lazy children of
| privilege outsized reward and power while making it nearly
| impossible for motivated, hard working contributors to
| society the ability to rise up.
| syshum wrote:
| Have any actual data support this claim?
|
| Because reality generally disagrees with your assessment.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _NIMBYs have made it impossible to live in Northern
| California unless you make a lot of money_
|
| At which point the tax base starts rotting.
|
| I grew in up the Bay Area. (Among other places.) The clear
| trend in my high school group: make money, buy a house, move
| to a lower-tax state (read: any state), pay what you owe for
| the days you're in California. Which leaves middle class
| folks like my parents, one of whom was until recently a bank
| teller, shouldering the cost for these policies.
| nouveaux wrote:
| I totally get it and agree that there are so many problems in
| California's government. With that said, please show me a state
| that is better run compared to California. I am genuinely
| curious to learn how we can do better.
| rsj_hn wrote:
| US News does a ranking, taking into account infrastructure,
| education, fiscal health, crime, health care, etc.
|
| https://www.usnews.com/news/best-
| states/rankings?int=top_nav...
|
| Their top states are:
|
| Washington
|
| Minnesota
|
| Utah
|
| New Hampshire
|
| Idaho
|
| Nebraska
|
| Virginia
|
| Wisconsin
|
| Massachusetts
|
| Florida
|
| I am not going to die on the hill that this is the best
| ranking system. For example, every benefit has a cost, but
| fiscal health is only one factor whereas health care,
| infrastructure, education are three factors so the rankings
| are biased towards benefits rather than cost-effictive
| benefits, but it's still a decent starting point.
| novok wrote:
| I would like to add that wash is a better run state. They
| build more housing, the roads are in a better state despite
| worse weather, liberal politics, no state income tax and
| property tax is lower when you buy a house new, while in CA
| the rate can get to %1.5 effective, while it's around %1 in
| king county, doing this all while you have no state income
| tax.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| The individual metric that California fails badly on,
| coming 50th is this one:
|
| https://www.usnews.com/news/best-
| states/rankings/opportunity
|
| But I have no idea what it's measuring based on that blurb.
|
| Oh, if you click it breaks it down to "affordability",
| "equality" and "economic opportunity" of which it does
| poorly on the first two.
|
| So basically, California's main weakness is that too many
| rich people live there.
| rsj_hn wrote:
| > So basically, California's main weakness is that too
| many rich people live there.
|
| California is a state where median house price is $760K,
| whereas median household income is $75K.
|
| If you look at that number and say "Well, clearly that's
| because too many rich people live there", then I'm not
| sure what benefit is obtained from looking at any data at
| all.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| That's almost exactly what I think. Sucks for the low
| wage earners who can't relocate but its a fairly
| predictable outcome of lots of well paid immigrants
| (inter and intra-national) arriving. At the urban scale
| this is called gentrification.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| Police offers in many departments can retire after 20 years
| with a life-time annual pension >100% of their current salary.
|
| If you look at how much you'd need to make to be able to save
| to have a pension this large - the average police officer in
| most major departments is getting paid close to an equivalent
| of $400k per year.
|
| Public pensions are out-of-control generous.
|
| I imagine the majority of police officers would gladly take 2x
| the pay and no pension and end up working until they're 65 like
| everyone else. So is it even really benefiting police
| officers?? It's just a massive drain on the public purse.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| the across-the-board, badge-wearing pay raise was specifically
| enacted by US Pres. Bush the Younger. I was irritated to find
| out that a state policeman here with a 2-year community college
| degree, started pay at more money than I had made after years
| of high-skill small companies. It was from Texas, and the rumor
| at the time was that the Bush family admired the military
| security in Saudi Arabia and sought to be more like that.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Do you put your life on the line at your job?
| dane-pgp wrote:
| For the record, being a police officer is the 25th most
| dangerous job in the US, after:
|
| Logging workers, Aircraft pilots and flight engineers,
| Roofers, Construction helpers, Crossing guards, Garbage
| collectors, Farming supervisors, Delivery drivers,
| Ironworkers, Farmers, Cement masons, Agricultural workers,
| Construction supervisors, Highway maintenance workers,
| Grounds maintenance workers, Mining machine operators,
| Supervisors of mechanics, Power lineworkers, Construction
| workers, Construction equipment operators, Maintenance
| workers, Heavy vehicle mechanics, Crane operators,
| Landscaping supervisors
|
| https://advisorsmith.com/data/most-dangerous-jobs/
| arbuge wrote:
| I read this thinking that the 600k figure you mention couldn't
| possibly be right, but apparently it is:
|
| https://blog.transparentcalifornia.com/2020/11/16/oakland-co...
| tryptophan wrote:
| They spend 5000$ per resident per year that they don't have?!
| Mismanagement is putting it lightly...
| rossdavidh wrote:
| ...as long as you notice the "up to" part of that. Still,
| higher than I expected, even at the more common 200-300k.
| devwastaken wrote:
| Do you have a reference to those numbers?
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?q=police
| wjb182 wrote:
| While I agree that the funding model for a lot of services in
| California is broken, I think you're basing your opinion on a
| number of false premises. For example, speaking directly to
| your claims about educator pay:
|
| 1. You can absolutely be fired for cause as a tenured teacher
| in California, and it happens all the time. It's certainly more
| difficult than most other professions, but there is no law or
| policy preventing teachers from being fired.
|
| 2. Teacher pay is not entirely based on seniority. Graduate
| education, certifications such as the National Board of
| Teachers (which is merit based and does require observation) or
| a bilingual certification, coaching a team/leading a club, all
| can contribute significantly to a teacher's salary.
|
| 3.After a 10 years of service, a teacher with a masters degree
| in my area makes $63K/year. Adjusting to a 12 month schedule,
| they'd be paid $75K year. With only a BA that drops to $54K.
| Hard to argue they are overpaid at that rate IMO.
|
| It's extremely easy to see the excessively high rates that some
| regents or college administrators make, and attempt to use that
| anecdata to draw a full conclusion, but in my experience the
| rank and file make on average 25-30% less than they could in
| private industry.
| gnicholas wrote:
| Not sure where in CA you're based, but in Menlo Park there
| are custodians with total comp in the low six figures
| (including benefits but on a 9-month calendar). The teachers
| make more, and counselors/administrators are in the $200k
| range.
|
| As for teacher firing, it is very rare in CA. [1]
|
| > _California has more than 1,000 school districts and
| 300,000 teachers, yet only 667 dismissal cases were filed
| between 2003 and 2012. Only 130 of those actually got to the
| hearing stage, and 82 resulted in dismissals -- fewer than 10
| a year._
|
| 1: https://www.mercurynews.com/2013/01/25/firing-a-tenured-
| teac...
| malchow wrote:
| Great point. You can see CA public employee salaries here.
| [1] The numbers are shocking, not only because they are all
| overpaid (the effect of public employee unions owning
| California's Democrat government, a downward-spiral effect
| predicted by people as varied as right-wing economists and
| Franklin D. Roosevelt [2]), but because in many cases these
| people get $500K - $700K _per year for life_ in retirement.
| A private sector person would need a $10-$20 million post-
| tax trust fund in order to have that.
|
| [1] https://transparentcalifornia.com
|
| [2] https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/02/18/the-
| first-b...
| wjb182 wrote:
| The laws governing teacher firing were changed in 2014 [1],
| and credential revocation has become compulsory in a large
| number of cases. The Commission on Teacher Credentialing
| opened 361 discipline cases last month alone [2].
|
| I'm in metro Sac and got my numbers from this local
| district [3]. Looking at the numbers for Menlo Park City
| [4], the max pay rate is still only $130K, and that would
| require a PhD and over 20 years of service. A teacher with
| a BA never reaches $100K.
|
| 1: https://www.davisvanguard.org/2014/06/governor-signs-
| bill-st... 2: https://www.ctc.ca.gov/docs/default-
| source/educator-discipli... 3: https://www.sanjuan.edu/cms/
| lib/CA01902727/Centricity/domain... 4: https://district.mpc
| sd.org/cms/lib/CA01902565/Centricity/Dom...
| mjfl wrote:
| > 1. You can absolutely be fired for cause as a tenured
| teacher in California, and it happens all the time. It's
| certainly more difficult than most other professions, but
| there is no law or policy preventing teachers from being
| fired.
|
| My best friend from college was a guidance counselor at
| Hollywood high school. Besides from the foundations of the
| building crumbling, he told me that it was normal for
| teachers to get in physical fights with the students and in
| the aftermath you couldn't expel the student or fire the
| teacher. They were both locked into the system.
| KorematsuFredt wrote:
| > You can absolutely be fired for cause as a tenured teacher
| in California, and it happens all the time. It's certainly
| more difficult than most other professions, but there is no
| law or policy preventing teachers from being fired.
|
| Possible ? Yes. Does it happen often ? No.
|
| You can read this LA times article for detailed statistics.
|
| https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-may-03-me-
| teach...
|
| > 3.After a 10 years of service, a teacher with a masters
| degree in my area makes $63K/year. Adjusting to a 12 month
| schedule, they'd be paid $75K year. With only a BA that drops
| to $54K. Hard to argue they are overpaid at that rate IMO.
|
| I agree here. Teachers in public school are not overpaid. It
| is mostly the rest of the public schooling system that is
| bloated and overpaid but not teachers. Teachers in public
| schools end up spending more than 8 hours per day on school
| related activities and have to struggle even to get a day off
| as they need to find a substitute.
|
| The rest of the non teaching staff however is mostly bloated
| and is a jobs program for adults. Some of them directly hurt
| the learning and teaching process and yet have massive power
| over teachers.
|
| > the rank and file make on average 25-30% less than they
| could in private industry.
|
| True. But most of them will be unemployable in private sector
| due to sheer incompetence and actual accountability.
| golemiprague wrote:
| Why a teacher's pay have to depend on their degree? aren't
| they supposed to be paid based on their achievements? Most
| teachers don't need a masters degree to teach the basic stuff
| that they teach, they need to know how to make kids do their
| assignments and succeed in tests.
| WhisperingShiba wrote:
| We need an economic collapse so baaaadly. I love California but
| this shit is out of hand.
| souplesse wrote:
| What do you imagine that would look like? Not trying to be
| flippant, genuinely curious.
| Jensson wrote:
| USA has financed itself by taking investments/loans from
| other countries for decades now, at some point the net
| inflow of money will have to stop and the country will have
| to sustain itself rather than live off funding. Imagine
| what happens to the economy when you can no longer import
| twice as much goods as you export.
| maxerickson wrote:
| Money doesn't drive the economy, it lubricates it.
| Jensson wrote:
| I'm not just talking about money, I am talking about net
| imports of goods and services. You can't print more goods
| and services with the dollars presses.
| cronix wrote:
| Exactly what happened in NYC in the 1970's. The city
| gov't was so far in debt with social program spending
| that the bankers, the ones who purchased the bonds that
| facilitated the debt that allowed the city to spend more
| than it took in, literally didn't show up to the next
| bond sale. NYC plunged into darkness for a long time.
| Complete misery. The rich left, taking their tax dollars
| with them. Crime rose to all time high levels. Buildings
| sat in decay. Debt is ok, unless there is no way to pay
| it back.
|
| > In the early 1970s, the City's borrowing increased
| rapidly and bankers began to question the accuracy of its
| financial records and its ability to repay its debt.
| These concerns were exacerbated in 1974, when the State
| Urban Development Corporation defaulted on some of its
| debt. In 1975, the banks lost confidence in the City's
| numbers and financial managers, and there were no bids
| for New York City notes and bonds. In short order, New
| York City lost all access to the long-term and short-term
| debt markets. During FY 1975, New York City had borrowed
| more that $8 billion in short term debt and had $4.5
| million of notes outstanding at the end of the fiscal
| year. Moreover, New York City was funding $600 million
| (about 5% of its operating budget) through issuance of
| long-term bonds. When the markets closed to the City, it
| was unable to fund its cash flow needs; it was forced to
| halt its capital program; it could not finance the
| portion of its operating budget that had been funded by
| long-term debt; and it could no longer roll its
| accumulated deficit from year to year
|
| https://wagner.nyu.edu/files/faculty/publications/Forsyth
| e_D...
|
| Similarly, the world was doing something similar to the
| US in the 1970's, then Nixon decided to take us off the
| gold standard and go to a fiat currency, which we still
| use today. They were questioning America's ability to
| repay it's bond obligations and whether America had
| enough physical gold in its vaults to cover it's paper
| currency inflation. Instead of being repaid in dollars,
| they started demanding being repaid in gold, which put a
| run on the gold supply, so Nixon took us off. The whole
| system is fake, and ripe for collapse. All major nations
| are financing the US Gov't. One day, they just might
| decide America is too far in debt to repay them, and
| stop. I think that's a matter if when, not if. I mean,
| have you looked at the interest rate on long term bonds?
| snovv_crash wrote:
| Even more telling, look at the futures on long term
| bonds.
| imtringued wrote:
| Yeah sure but this is old news.
|
| >Keynes was able to make his proposal the official
| British proposal at the Bretton Woods Conference but it
| was not accepted.[4] Rather than a supranational
| currency, the conference adopted a system of pegged
| exchange rates ultimately tied to physical gold in a
| system managed by the World Bank and IMF. In practice,
| the system implicitly established the United States
| dollar as a reserve currency convertible to gold at a
| fixed price on demand by other governments. The dollar
| was implicitly established as the reserve by the large
| trade surplus and gold reserves held by the US at the
| time of the conference.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bancor
| fshbbdssbbgdd wrote:
| The 30 year treasury rate is 2%, which is extremely low
| compared to historic rates. A lower rate indicates higher
| demand for the bonds. In other words, we seem to be at
| very low risk of being unable to find someone to buy the
| bonds.
|
| In fact, it's impossible, since the treasury can always
| buy them. Unlike New York City, the US government issues
| the currency as well as bonds denominated in that
| currency.
| tryptophan wrote:
| Interest rates dont mean anything anymore(ie you cant
| draw any conclusions about the risk the market is pricing
| in). The entire credit market is manipulated by the FED.
|
| The fed owns like 20% of all federal debt, bought with
| printed money. Recently they have also been printing so
| much that they eat up >50% of bond auctions.
| imtringued wrote:
| Thank you. Now I am fully convinced that "printed money"
| and "money printing" is a meaningless term that means
| absolutely nothing.
|
| Before that I assumed that there was some logic behind
| the term but it is clear that there isn't.
| Gustomaximus wrote:
| There is some logic. It's heading towards MMT
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Monetary_Theory
|
| Many people misunderstand what MMT actually is, cherry
| pick parts and call that MMT. It's interesting concept, I
| dont think it will work but many do.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| > In fact, it's impossible, since the treasury can always
| buy them.
|
| Minor correction: The US Treasury issues bonds, the
| Federal Reserve Bank is the buyer.
| syshum wrote:
| >>since the treasury can always buy them.
|
| Inflation will have a say in that... Zimbabwe here we
| come.
|
| I cant wait until I need a virtual truck load of dollars
| to buy a loaf of bread because the "treasury can issues
| the currency"
| imtringued wrote:
| >Imagine what happens to the economy when you can no
| longer import twice as much goods as you export.
|
| Jobs would come back. Wealth inequality would stop
| growing. Right wing extremism would die a quick death.
| All of this wouldn't be a big issue if your government
| used the cheap money to build long lasting infrastructure
| that will be of use long after the cheap money is gone.
| Oh, right. Trump did massive income tax cuts and burned a
| hole into the budget and now it's Biden with his
| infrastructure bill who is irresponsible.
| sonthonax wrote:
| No it hasn't. Most US public debt is held domestically
| (while I'm not sure on the specifics, I think it's about
| 80%).
| Jensson wrote:
| > No it hasn't. Most US public debt is held domestically
| (while I'm not sure on the specifics, I think it's about
| 80%).
|
| You aren't contradicting anything I said here. Most debt
| is domestic, but what matters is the external debt and it
| will dry up, and when it does USA will no longer be able
| to import way more than it exports. And imports/exports
| affects everything else in the economy, so altering
| massively as is bound to happen would have huge
| consequences.
| angry_octet wrote:
| All because the market mechanisms don't pay sufficiently for
| consistency of supply, allowing cheap solar to take all the load
| when the sun is shining.
|
| You can run nuclear some of the time but it doesn't make sense to
| pay for it by the minute. Turning it off will make more money for
| the generators because prices will skyrocket. Regulatory failure
| all round.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Does the Wall Street Journal believe in climate change yet?
|
| Not sure I want to hear their opinions on energy matters.
|
| > The editorial board of The Wall Street Journal rejects the
| scientific consensus on climate change. The Journal disputes that
| it poses a major threat to human existence and can be prevented
| through public policy and has published articles disputing that
| global warming is occurring at all. The Journal is regarded as a
| forum for climate change deniers,[94][95] publishing articles by
| individuals that reject the consensus position on climate change
| in its op-ed section.[96][97][98] These columns frequently attack
| climate scientists and accuse them of engaging in fraud. A 2015
| study found The Wall Street Journal was the newspaper that was
| least likely to present negative effects of global warming among
| several newspapers. It was also the most likely to present
| negative economic framing when discussing climate change
| mitigation policies, tending to take the stance that the cost of
| such policies generally outweighs their benefit.[99] The
| Washington Post has characterized The Wall Street Journal's
| editorial pages as "the beating heart of climate-change
| skepticism".[100]
|
| > Climate Feedback, a fact-checking website on media coverage of
| climate science, has assessed that multiple opinion articles
| range between "low" and "very low" in terms of scientific
| credibility.[101][102] The Journal has been accused of refusing
| to publish opinions of scientists which present the mainstream
| view on climate change.[103] According to a 2016 analysis, 14% of
| the guest editorials presented the results of "mainstream climate
| science", while the majority did not. Also, none of 201
| editorials published in the Wall Street Journal since 1997 have
| conceded that the burning of fossil fuels is causing climate
| change.[104]
| annexrichmond wrote:
| 1. This article is not from the Editorial Board
|
| 2. Your Wikipedia copy paste is compiled from sources on some
| else's views on the Editorial Board. The first sentence " The
| editorial board of The Wall Street Journal rejects the
| scientific consensus on climate change" (with no citation)
| makes it sound like it's some statement made from them.
| mmcwilliams wrote:
| Are you suggesting that articles published in the Wall Street
| Journal don't go through the editorial process?
| Arete314159 wrote:
| I'm so torn on this. In a perfect world, where human greed
| doesn't allow corner cutting, upscaling nuclear would be a
| potentially great choice.
|
| However, in the world we actually live in, even so-called
| "efficient" and "group focused" societies like Japan build
| nuclear reactors in a tsunami flood zone to save money.
|
| I feel like in order to make nuclear viable for future plants,
| we'd have to create and implement some sort of one-of-a-kind
| anti-greed, anti-corruption, anti-corner-cutting culture that
| would run smack against the usual government lobbying culture we
| have in the US at least. And we'd have to get buy-in from ALL
| parties. AND we'd have to build based on the probability of
| extreme weather events becoming a common reality.
|
| It's not impossible, but it would require a major societal
| change.
| [deleted]
| KoftaBob wrote:
| Why "scrambles"? Seems like something that should've been planned
| in advance, to coincide with the closing of those plants, no?
|
| Is the issue that they gave too short notice, or waited till the
| last minute to figure out replacement?
| nend wrote:
| It's the wsj, they have a right wing partisan lean, which means
| any discussion of renewable energy or California has to lean
| negative.
|
| Edit: Surprising amount of downvotes here, didn't realize this
| was so controversial, the Wikipedia page talks extensively
| about the wsj's stances (with citations):
|
| "The editorial board of The Wall Street Journal rejects the
| scientific consensus on climate change. The Journal disputes
| that it poses a major threat to human existence and can be
| prevented through public policy and has published articles
| disputing that global warming is occurring at all. The Journal
| is regarded as a forum for climate change deniers"
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wall_Street_Journal
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| You can read about the facts without caring who is writing
| it, what side is WSJ is less relevant than the facts, if you
| can believe the facts and eventually confirm it in other
| places. If you don't like the message, discuss about the
| message, don't attack the messenger.
| nend wrote:
| I would argue the bias of the editorial board is fair game
| when it comes to discussing the word choices and phrasing
| made in the article.
| [deleted]
| keneda7 wrote:
| IMO Wikipedia is a bias source for anything politics related.
| Heck the Wikipedia page for its confounder even mentions
| this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Sanger#:~:text=In%2
| 0a%20....
|
| I have found this site to be much more reliable when looking
| for media bias.
|
| https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/new-york-times/
| nend wrote:
| That website also says the WSJ has a right lean:
|
| "Overall, we rate the Wall Street Journal Right-Center
| biased due to low biased news reporting combined with a
| strong right biased editorial stance."
|
| https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/wall-street-journal/
| keneda7 wrote:
| Ya that is my mistake sorry it was early and somehow I
| misread WSJ as NYT.
| hairofadog wrote:
| I'm confused (sincerely, not concern trolling) about the
| point you're making by linking to media bias fact check for
| NYT (which wasn't being discussed) but not WSJ or
| Wikipedia.
|
| According to the site you find reliable,
|
| NYT: biased center left, factual reporting "high"
|
| WSJ: biased on the right edge of center right, factual
| reporting "mostly factual"
|
| Wikipedia: "least biased", factual reporting "mixed"
| keneda7 wrote:
| Nope you are correct. It was early and I misread it as
| NYT. That is my mistake
| NDizzle wrote:
| Reality = right wing in 2021.
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| of course. the party that denies climate change and
| evolution is the party of reality.
| vixen99 wrote:
| Why continue to use weasel words (i.e., an equivocal word
| used to deprive a statement of its force or to evade a
| direct commitment) like 'climate change'? What does that
| mean? Aside from the truism that the climate is always
| changing (who can possibly disagree?) what specifically
| is denied and which values are accepted? Estimations of
| the warming due to carbon dioxide comprise a wide range
| of values not changed much in 20 years. Met Office UK
| states that the warming parameter (ECS) has a 'likely'
| range of 1.5 - 4.5degC and is extremely unlikely to be
| below 1degC and very unlikely greater than 6degC. The
| wide range accounts for all evidence.
|
| _Stating this is not denying anything_. It 's accepting
| the complexity of the issue rather than indulging in
| emotive cliches.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| The republicans passed a resolution asserting that the
| climate does indeed change.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I don't think most Republicans or the WSJ deny climate
| change these days, just differ on urgency and impact.
|
| This poll shows 67% of Republicans think warming is
| happening and 56% think warming will continue in the
| future if nothing is done to address it.
|
| https://www.rff.org/publications/reports/climateinsights2
| 020...
| xyzzyz wrote:
| Last time I've heard any Republicans party official deny
| evolution was during Bush administration.
| [deleted]
| hairofadog wrote:
| Mike Pence denies it.
| xyzzyz wrote:
| Recently?
| hairofadog wrote:
| No, I guess you're right; all the recent news about Pence
| is about his role in trying to overthrow the election.
| 2009 is the last time I see him on record denying the
| theory of evolution, but I also don't see any indication
| that he has changed his position, and he was in a pretty
| high position of power within the Republican Party as
| recently as 2020.
| Proven wrote:
| in California only destruction of the State seems to have been
| going according to plan
| endisneigh wrote:
| pro tip: don't care too much about titles. The author of
| articles rarely are the one who also titles the piece.
| TigeriusKirk wrote:
| To actually answer your question instead of trying to spin it
| away -
|
| "What changed dramatically...is we have had significantly
| bigger and more West-wide heat waves than ever before," Mr.
| Randolph said. "Those aren't built into our planning
| standards."
| bryan0 wrote:
| Yeah this quote caught my eye too, but how is this possible?
| They're not planning for a hotter and dryer climate in CA? I
| find that hard to believe.
| cedilla wrote:
| Both intensity and frequency of extreme weather events
| increased much faster than anticipated.
|
| This may be a result of climate scientists presenting
| conservative estimates due to the fear of being labelled
| alarmist.
| bryan0 wrote:
| This explanation doesn't make much to me. CA is
| aggressively moving to renewables (well if you ignore
| shutting down nuclear) and we're doing this because the
| state is alarmed about climate change.
| cedilla wrote:
| Well, extreme weather events have become much more common
| sooner than expected. As to why this happened, I only
| speculated.
|
| I don't think that the state is alarmed about climate
| change as it aims to have a carbon neutral grid by 2045,
| which is already quite late even following the
| conservatives estimations.
| rsj_hn wrote:
| No, this is the money quote:
|
| _other states have moved to close coal-fired power plants in
| recent years, reducing the amount of electricity California can
| import when high temperatures boost electricity demand._
|
| In other words, the problem with wind/solar is that they are
| not controllable, and so California was planning on using the
| rest of the grid as a buffer -- all of Western US is on one
| grid. Thus California can still import from coal fired plants
| in Utah when it needs power, say on a hot day when AC use is
| high or a day when the wind isn't blowing too strongly.
|
| Except now it's realizing that as other states adopt the same
| strategy, that the grid can't be relied on so much and the
| state has to do that itself or face blackouts in hot days or
| windless days. So with this new awareness that the rest of the
| grid will not be able to bail them out, they have updated their
| estimate of needed battery capacity in time for the planned
| shutdowns. Alternately, they are scrambling for some sources of
| energy that could be tapped on demand in place of battery
| capacity.
| zz865 wrote:
| Its the same for people with home solar panels. They dont pay
| for most of their electricity so they aren't contributing
| much for the grid or generators, but then they expect to be
| able to use power on a cold dark night and the infrastructure
| to just be there for them.
| rrss wrote:
| > so California was planning on using the rest of the grid as
| a buffer
|
| Was this actually a plan, or just what ended up happening?
|
| My understanding is that CAISO has continued their resource
| adequacy program to ensure that there is guaranteed supply to
| meet the expected demand (plus margin), but the problem is
| that this program was developed before renewables and
| therefore the central metric is peak demand (which happens
| around 5pm), which is insufficient for planning when there is
| a lot of solar & wind generation, because then the most
| critical period is after peak demand (around 7pm).
|
| In other words, I thought that CAISO failed to plan properly,
| not that they planned to lean heavily on imports.
| rsj_hn wrote:
| > Was this actually a plan, or just what ended up
| happening?
|
| It's a good question, and depends on your perspective.
|
| I said "planned to" because that is what the state has
| historically been doing -- relying on the rest of the west
| coast grid for 25-30% of its electricity, especially for
| swing capacity.
|
| https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=46156
|
| "The California Independent System Operator is soliciting
| power producers across the West to sell more megawatts to
| the state in July and August in anticipation of regionwide
| heat waves that will substantially boost electricity
| demand." -- back in 2021.
| (https://www.wsj.com/articles/california-scrambles-to-find-
| el...)
|
| So the grid has always been what's bailed California out
| from it's poor energy policies and what has saved
| California during the summer.
|
| Now one can call this lack of planning, but if something's
| been going on for a few decades, then at some point it has
| to become part of the plan, although maybe not an official
| plan written down anywhere. But when someone discovers that
| the unofficial plan is not going to not work anymore, then
| you need to scramble.
|
| FYI, the whole Enron electricity scandal was all about
| selling energy to California, because California is
| constantly in need of energy. Why they didn't wake up after
| that scandal and start building out more energy sources
| remains a mystery. Instead, they went in the other
| direction to reduce domestic capacity.
|
| But that's not all, because a lot of the private utilities
| are being given mandates to get more green energy sources
| and storage that they are going to have a hard time
| meeting. You can't simply order someone to get battery
| power that lasts through the night when batteries last 4
| hours. This is discussed in the article:
|
| ""We are literally on the cutting edge" of rapidly adding
| renewables, Mr. Wan [PG&E] said. "And along with that,
| there are some things we are learning by trial and error,
| and we are taking some risks in the process.""
|
| In other words, you have the legislature giving mandates
| that the CPUC can't meet, and then the CPUC gives mandates
| to the producers that they can't meet, but everyone is
| shaking each other's hand at what a green future they are
| building.
|
| Meanwhile, the lights in California are kept on by coal and
| gas fired plants in the rest of the country. That system
| obviously doesn't work if the rest of the country tries to
| adopt California's model.
| rrss wrote:
| Thanks for your reply.
|
| There are several different classes of electricity
| imports, and I think it is important to consider them
| separately - there are imports under long term contracts,
| opportunistic imports due to lower prices in the short
| term market, and short term contingency imports (when
| CAISO is freaking out due to unexpectedly high demand or
| low supply, or both). I guess I had incorrectly assumed
| we were discussing contingency imports.
|
| California does import a ton of electricity from outside
| the state. I don't think it is accurate to characterize
| most of this as a bailout - the majority of this imported
| supply is either secured under contract well in advance,
| or used instead of available in-state supply when it is
| cheaper. Neither of these cases are saving California
| from it's poor energy policies, these are part of
| California's energy policies. IMO, your description only
| applies to the third class I mentioned above (emergency
| imports).
|
| These imports include a lot of different sources - a lot
| of coal and gas, but also a lot of wind, solar, and
| hydroelectric (especially from the Pacific Northwest).
|
| I agree that California's shift to renewables has been
| poorly planned and done too fast, but I don't think this
| is simply because California imports a lot of electricity
| in general. The issue is really handling the period after
| peak demand when demand is dropping but supply is
| dropping faster (solar & wind) - right now this is not
| handled well and there was apparently no plan to handle
| it well, and it leads to leaning a lot on unplanned
| imports, as you highlighted.
|
| > FYI, the whole Enron electricity scandal was all about
| selling energy to California, because California is
| constantly in need of energy. Why they didn't wake up
| after that scandal and start building out more energy
| sources remains a mystery. Instead, they went in the
| other direction to reduce domestic capacity.
|
| FWIW, the current resource adequacy program used in
| California was developed in response to this mess in
| 2001.
| cedilla wrote:
| It may be the money quote but you removed the context in an
| almost misleading way:
|
| > The drought has constrained the output of some of the
| region's most significant generating facilities, including
| the Hoover Dam. ... "What changed dramatically...is we have
| had significantly bigger and more West-wide heat waves than
| ever before,"
|
| Maybe a failure of planning, but the plan was not to get
| "bailed out" by the grid as you guess.
| rsj_hn wrote:
| Given that California is in drought all the time, I don't
| see how this changes long term planning.
|
| FYI, there is a fun wikipedia page that lists California
| droughts:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droughts_in_California
|
| The first sentence is:
|
| "Throughout history, California has experienced many
| droughts, such as 1841, 1864, 1924, 1928-1935, 1947-1950,
| 1959-1960, 1976-1977, 1986-1992, 1999-2004, 2006-2010,
| 2011-2017, 2018 and 2020-[1][2] 2021. "
|
| So the idea that OMG, we didn't realize there might be a
| drought - doesn't sound very plausible to me.
| rrss wrote:
| drought in California does not impact the Hoover Dam.
|
| The drought in question is a drought in the entire
| western US (and therefore the Colorado river basin).
| cedilla wrote:
| Uhm, okay, you have convinced me that droughts aren't a
| new phenomenon.
|
| The claim however was that they become more frequent and
| severe. Not every drought is the same. From your link:
|
| > the 2012-15 period was the driest in at least 1200
| years
|
| Also, according to your link, about there was a drought
| in 12 of the last 20 years, with only one or two years in
| between droughts, where they previously usually were
| spaced by around a decade or more.
|
| The data listed there really doesn't seem to contradict
| the article's claim about more frequent droughts in the
| future.
| rsj_hn wrote:
| So is your claim that the 2012-2015 drought was unknown
| to California when it passed the 2018 law -- maybe the
| legislature is filled with slow readers?
|
| Again, I don't see how the possibility of severe droughts
| was some unforseen thing when the law was passed. In fact
| the law was passed in an environment of terrible fear
| about climate change, so you can't really argue that no
| one predicted this when writing the law, can you? Don't
| you think, if you believe the climate is changing, that
| your energy plan should include production of energy not
| dependent on the climate?
|
| > The data listed there really doesn't seem to contradict
| the article's claim about more frequent droughts in the
| future.
|
| FYI, California droughts have in the past lasted _more
| than 200 years_. The idea that you can count years in the
| last century and extrapolate drought risk doesn 't work.
| The state goes through long secular wet and dry periods,
| and this is something _we have known for some time_.
|
| Therefore any energy plan that breaks down if there is a
| prolonged drought is not an energy plan suitable for the
| state of California in any period of time. In fact any
| policy at all that breaks down during a prolonged -- say
| 100 year -- drought is not one suitable for the state of
| California. We have the tree ring data, and we know that
| this used to be called "the Great American Desert". That
| is why we fought water wars and built enormous public
| works, it's why San Francisco considered breaking off
| icebergs and floating them down to the bay in order to
| get water. California as a state has a highly variable
| water supply susceptible to century-long droughts.
|
| Check out this article:
|
| https://www.mercurynews.com/2014/01/25/california-
| drought-pa...
| AwaAwa wrote:
| Unless the plan was to have rolling brownouts/blackouts I
| have no doubt that being bailed out by the grid was
| absolutely part of the contingency plan.
|
| Maybe they didn't expect to need the contingency so soon,
| but that is on their risk analysis of the weather.
| cedilla wrote:
| A deliberate underproduction to get "bailed out" is a
| strong accusation, I think it warrants a better proof
| than analysis of one line of an article. Especially when
| the article points out other reasons why production
| doesn't meet demand.
|
| Unless you talk about actual contingency plans for
| emergencies in which case I don't quite understand what's
| so scandalous about falling back on the grid in
| emergencies. France also falls back on Germany's power
| generation when they have to shut down some of their
| nuclear reactors during heat waves.
| rsj_hn wrote:
| > A deliberate underproduction to get "bailed out" is a
| strong accusation
|
| In 2019, 25% of its electricity was imported[1]. This is
| before California takes even more power offline and
| replaces it with variable power.
|
| [1]https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=46156
| rrss wrote:
| I think that WECC would probably have gone ballistic if
| this was actually California's plan.
|
| Also, yes, being able to import from other places as a
| contingency is not a bad thing, it's one of the major
| benefits of having the Western Interconnect at all.
| AwaAwa wrote:
| Just so that I'm sure I've understood this right. California
| decided to save the environment by shutting down "unclean"
| power within the state, with the idea that other states will
| provide them with their "dirty" generated power?
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Yes
| achenet wrote:
| Not actually solving the problem, just shifting it
| elsewhere. Nice.
| maccolgan wrote:
| Yes, we're talking about California.
| TrispusAttucks wrote:
| Yes!
|
| Scream it from the roof tops. Most think California is
| green. What they did was outsource energy production to
| other states. This allowed them to move "dirty energy" from
| their balance sheet. But moving your coal plant to another
| state does not reduce GHG production. It only moves it
| across state lines.
|
| EDIT: [1] Here some context with a link about the different
| types of GHG measurement methods.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28714396
|
| EDIT: the gist being that if we moved to "B. (Absolute) GHG
| footprint accounting" we wouldn't be creating policy based
| on false accounting and those "loopholes" would be
| obviously misguided.
| jfoutz wrote:
| Excess power from any source. California has imported power
| from hover dam forever, for example.
| toast0 wrote:
| A large amount of California environmentalism is air
| quality, as measured in California; moving to cleaner
| sources within the state and dirtier sources outside the
| state helps tremendously with air quality as measured in
| the state. Of course, it doesn't help air quality near
| those other sources, and global measures aren't helped by
| simply moving coal plants elsewhere.
|
| It's also not great for grid reliability to increase the
| watt miles used (is there a real term for that?).
| cedilla wrote:
| The article doesn't really seem to reflect the headline.
|
| It's seems hasty to order companies to build up plants in just
| three years, but it's not made clear if that order is made too
| late by the state or if it's a reaction to the companies
| neglecting their responsibilities.
|
| A bit further down there's also mentions of less foreseeable
| complications like wildfire damages and less power output of
| hydroelectric plants due to draughts.
|
| Even further down the changes brought on by more frequent heat
| waves are blamed. And that makes sense, those both increase
| demand and negatively impact all forms of power generation,
| including nuclear and solar.
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| The idea behind this push to renewable is to force energy
| providers to find solutions. You don't know how to swim? Let's
| throw you in the water, you will figure out a way.
| option wrote:
| We need more nuclear, not less. Nuclear is the safest power
| source (measured in deaths/gwh), is reliable, high capacity and
| its waste is managed much easier than waste from solar panels and
| batteries.
|
| Being anti-nuclear at time of climate crisis is moral and
| intellectual equivalent of being anti-vax during pandemic.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| /rant: As a relatively newer resident of California, I find
| extraordinary levels of incompetence in pretty much every aspect
| of public-government interactions compared to other states in the
| US. This place has the most dysfunctional municipal (I am in
| Alameda county) and state departments. Just yesterday I wanted to
| file for self-proprietorship DBA record in the state commerce
| registry, was sent to 3 different offices in Oakland, incomplete
| list of form requirements and completely fucked up online forms
| download page CalGold - https://www.calgold.ca.gov/ that lists a
| billion forms but no central guidance as to what is needed.
|
| This is the state that built the Golden Gate bridge in 3 years in
| 1930's but took 8 years to build a little access road recently
| and more than the cost of the bridge adjusting for inflation.
| Worse - it is considered a positive thing to have dysfunctional
| government here. Usually, the response from people in places like
| Berkeley and SF is that "Why do you need to do all this so
| quickly? Relax. Life is more than that. Consider gov jobs as a
| form of UBI. We need to cut down on progress." and crime? "Oh
| come on, it's not that bad. Car theft is fine, just make sure you
| have good insurance and get the catalytic convertor shield so it
| is not easy to use an angle grinder to remove it". Jeez.
|
| Something drastic needs to happen. What a beautiful state
| occupied by overpaid Government employees.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| > This is the state that built the Golden Gate bridge in 3
| yeras in 1930s ...
|
| I believe it's a perceptual (understandable) mistake to think
| it's the same state.
|
| Only the state name has remained invariant.
|
| The 90 years ago state was more engineering feats oriented,
| perhaps wasn't paying attention to social justices in so doing;
| the modern state is inverted perhaps. I'm not sure quite how to
| think of it either.
|
| (I lived there too for about 20 years, am from a far nicer part
| of the USA)
| carapace wrote:
| Not to be flippant but this is the state that elected Arnold
| Schwarzenegger governor. (The funny thing is he turned out to
| be not half-bad at the job.)
| tkojames wrote:
| I wonder if there is correlation between what people think of
| as incompetence and the population of the state. Would be
| interesting to look at. I have no data to support this just a
| guess but I would guess when population increases you get
| things like this. I mean Texas is the second most populous
| state and is literally politically the opposite of California.
| There power grid was 5 mins away from literally crashing
| completely. So it sure is not what"side" the government picks.
| Both have struggled with power distribution.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| Well I think it is perfectly ok to criticize and point out
| issues in Government whether it is Texas or California. I
| really don't care about "sides". What I care about is that
| ROI of tax revenue that the state forcefully takes from me.
| We should expect return on what we pay. Good roads,
| education, good infrastructure, forward looking plans and
| instead of asking for more funding, Governments should look
| inward to improve efficiency. There is a lot of low hanging
| fruit. I am also OK with more taxes as far as Governments are
| functional and serve the public. I really don't want to pay
| for some Gov official that sits on his ass all day getting
| paid $550k in compensation.
|
| Danger is when we stop criticizing governments and keep
| tooting the party lines.
|
| I want drastically more accountability for California
| government. Extreme levels of auditing and shaming,
| completely take off Emperor's clothes.
| tkojames wrote:
| That is what I am trying to get at. I think atleast here in
| the United States the bigger your state gets with
| population the more your going to see issues like you
| describe. Unfortunately I just do not see any government
| looking inward to improve efficiencies at this rate. I
| agree with everything you state and want the same.
|
| Honestly I just think this how all governments operate.
|
| In theory we can vote them out and replace them. Then the
| new people will do the same things most likely.
|
| You can shame them all you want but if they still hold
| office, they will not care.
|
| We should still keep trying though. Maybe we can find the
| right leader's that look out for everybody and do all the
| above. But I am pretty cynical about it.
|
| I like to think Churchill quote about democracy is right.
| We have been struggling with this issue forever. Plato's
| republic and all that.
|
| You are right being able to criticizing governments is
| really important.
|
| I guess we just keep trying. Wish I had better answer.
| nouveaux wrote:
| What state did you come from and how is it more competent?
| Talking about what works would be helpful.
| CalChris wrote:
| https://rechart1.acgov.org/BusinessLicense/SearchEntry.aspx?...
| andbberger wrote:
| it's happened at the city level too. SF built out the
| extraordinary auxiliary fire fighting system back in the day.
| Now they're unwilling to extend it to the sunset so just bought
| a bunch of pipes.
|
| Could never quite put my finger on what happened, but I have to
| imagine Reagan had a lot to do with it
| keewee7 wrote:
| We should permit a _few_ fossil energy plants to provide a high
| baseload generation for the heavy industries.
|
| Nuclear is too unpopular and renewables cannot provide the high
| baseload generation needed for the heavy industries.
| rc2634 wrote:
| No, we should ignore the nuclear naysayers and keep existing
| and build more nuclear plants.
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