[HN Gopher] Energy Jobs Have Increased in Nearly Every County in...
___________________________________________________________________
Energy Jobs Have Increased in Nearly Every County in America
Author : geox
Score : 108 points
Date : 2023-08-16 11:24 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.energy.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.energy.gov)
| Nifty3929 wrote:
| Creating jobs is easy: Spend a lot of money and/or make it more
| effortful to produce things. In either case, workers will be
| doing more of one thing and less of another.
|
| In this case, more workers are spending more time in "Energy,"
| but this comes at the cost of all the other things those workers
| might be doing instead. This may or may not be a net-win, but
| unless we account for the reduced production in other areas, we
| will delude ourselves about the benefits of these energy jobs.
|
| We will be motivated to keep "creating jobs" simply by shifting
| workers from one task to another, and then another, regardless of
| whether those new tasks are actually more valuable to society
| than the ones they had been doing. We will put in place rules
| that make production more effortful, because this creates jobs in
| that field, despite the fact that we will have less overall
| stuff.
| hcurtiss wrote:
| Precisely. Enter Bastiat.
| whats_a_quasar wrote:
| I don't think that's how labor markets function in the U.S. at
| the moment, and I think it's an odd critique to make of green
| energy projects in particular.
|
| Not all labor creates the same amount of wealth, and there
| isn't a fixed demand for skilled labor. Lots of energy
| construction projects increases the demand for skilled labor,
| which pulls people out of unskilled labor or service jobs.
| Greater labor demand in general means everyone wins - companies
| have projects that they're getting built, workers have
| negotiating power and wage growth, and wealth is being created
| in the form of energy infrastructure.
| Nifty3929 wrote:
| I did not intend to critique energy jobs or projects in
| particular - I meant to highlight that shuffling people from
| one task to another is not (necessarily) productive overall,
| but it's easy to delude ourselves. We see the increased
| productivity concentrated in one area/industry, but don't see
| the decreased productivity diffused throughout the rest of
| the economy.
|
| This may still be a net win, but you have to consider both
| sides.
|
| As far as moving people from less-skilled to more-skilled
| jobs - the real question is which one is _more valuable_ for
| society. There might be plenty of low-skill jobs that are
| valuable, and high-skill ones that aren 't. Also, we have to
| be careful about what we consider "skill." Would you say
| waiting tables is low-skill? A waiter may beg to differ...
| What are these "low-skill" jobs that people are giving up in
| order to move into which "high-skill" jobs in energy? Or is
| it just about whether someone has to wear a blouse or button-
| up shirt and slacks and go to an office?
|
| The important thing is that people should move from lower-
| _value_ jobs to higher- _value_ ones. But people do not get a
| direct signal of value, only of pay. So we can pay people
| more to do a job, and they will do it. But that does not mean
| it is more valuable overall.
| justrealist wrote:
| Coupling energy production success to job creation is a mistake,
| and the DOE is taking political wins at the cost of long-term
| energy abundance. Labor inherently puts a floor on the price of
| energy, no matter how cheap or clean the technology is!
|
| "Cheap, clean energy" IS the consumer benefit, not the
| bureaucracy and make-work.
|
| We should aim for a world where near-infinite energy production
| is produced by one guy in DC with a button that says "PRODUCE
| MORE".
| Bostonian wrote:
| Exactly -- producing the same amount of energy with more people
| is a _bad_ thing.
| Zigurd wrote:
| That is not strictly correct, especially in comparison with
| fossil fuel energy where production is highly concentrated.
| Automating things in a refinery is a lot easier than building
| robot steeplejacks to maintain 10,000 windmills.
|
| Secondly, renewables capex, which is rapidly growing, creates
| lots of jobs, and will do so until production levels satisfy
| demand.
| burkaman wrote:
| We're producing more energy, not the same amount: https://www
| .eia.gov/totalenergy/data/browser/#/?f=A&start=19...
| bequanna wrote:
| You're splitting hairs.
|
| The real metric would be man hours per GWh generated or
| similar. That metric is moving in the wrong direction as we
| move to distributed, intermittent generation.
|
| Make work is not progress, it's a tax.
| burkaman wrote:
| I do think that would be an interesting metric, but it
| sounds pretty difficult to calculate and I haven't found
| any related research. I disagree that distributed
| generation is the wrong direction, I think it's extremely
| valuable and worth extra labor if it's more resistant to
| supply chain issues and less carbon intensive than
| whatever it's replacing.
| midasuni wrote:
| Not really because you're completely ignoring the
| externalities with that metric.
|
| But if you did include the entire supply chain, how many
| many man hours went into securing oil supply with the
| invasion of Iraq? Not just the armed forces, but the man
| hours of production for the materiel.
| gertlex wrote:
| You're misinterpreting the comment, almost certainly. The
| claim is more specifically: "Per given amount of energy
| generation, renewables are requiring employing more people,
| likely causing higher energy costs than other methods
| might"
|
| I'm just observing here. Obviously, there's tradeoffs to
| consider. I don't personally have a stance that this is a
| problem or that there's currently a better way to make our
| energy production green.
| jopsen wrote:
| > Per given amount of energy generation, renewables are
| requiring employing more people,
|
| I don't really see that claimed backed by sources.
|
| But short-term, yes probably, it'll take a lot of work
| install renewable energy sources everywhere. But once
| installed, maintenance will probably require fewer human
| hours. And certainly fewer human hours spent extracting
| raw materials (oil, gas, coal).
| [deleted]
| 23B1 wrote:
| "Bidenomics is working, and the clean energy transformation is
| creating good jobs in every pocket of America"
|
| This is propaganda, not news.
| comte7092 wrote:
| It's literally a press release from the Biden administration,
| not a news outlet. I'm not sure what you are mad about.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| It's a press release from the government based on a recent
| analysis, I don't think it was trying to be news...
| datavirtue wrote:
| It is definitely propaganda.
| kitanata wrote:
| [flagged]
| gwbas1c wrote:
| > These findings illustrate how Bidenomics is working, and
| President Biden's Investing in America agenda is ensuring all
| communities have access to affordable, reliable, clean
| electricity, helping deliver on the President's ambitious clean
| energy and climate goals
|
| Gosh, I wish press releases like this weren't blatantly playing
| politics.
|
| When we keep politics out of press releases like this, it helps
| bring people onboard who otherwise may get stuck because the
| person in an elected office isn't the person they voted for.
| jfengel wrote:
| People don't often come onboard for the people they voted
| against. The people who issued that press release are well
| aware that they're not going to convince anybody who opposes
| the incumbent.
|
| It's about the opposite: reassuring his constituency that they
| _are_ getting something. They need something that sits in their
| mind when they ask the question "What has this guy done for me
| lately?"
|
| It would be great if they could do it in a less blunt fashion;
| this is rather on-the-nose. But even a better press release
| isn't going to suddenly convince the President's opponents that
| they were wrong about him all along. The best he can hope for
| is to nudge them towards having higher priorities on election
| day than voting.
|
| It would also be great if I didn't have to talk about politics
| in this abstract fashion. But in the end a politician cannot
| accomplish the goals that they believe to be important if they
| don't win. I'd love it if the voters simply looked at their own
| priorities and chose the candidate who fit them, but rhetoric
| has been understood to be more important than policy since
| before Aristotle.
| bhewes wrote:
| I am part of a two new energy companies in OKC Larkspur Minerals
| and Operating -https://www.larkspurminerals.com/. We take over
| old fields and increase production (marginal wells) we also work
| with renewable energy either through helping companies acquire
| land and or operating. Given our size the deals sizes are about
| the same though from a cash flowing prospective Oil and Gas is
| still king.
|
| A fun stat is Oklahoma renewable electric production is at 47% in
| 2022 up from 10% in 2011. Now 90% of that is wind power, but we
| are expanding into utility scale solar. And the country folk are
| self installing solar panels with cost $.50-$.75 per watt.
| gabereiser wrote:
| A day ago, there were people in Montana up in arms over the
| supreme court in Montana siding with climate activists. "Leftist-
| liberal agenda being shoved down our throats" I remember reading.
| "We need an above-the-line energy policy, we're going the wrong
| direction, we need to reverse course". Yet, the energy sector is
| growing. Solar / Renewables, growing. Demand for it, growing. The
| US's ability to generate it, growing. As are many other nations
| around the world who are realizing their energy needs are beamed
| to them every day, if only they would capture it.
|
| I'm sensationalizing a non-trivial task at the macro level but
| this is good news. The more we move away from burning things for
| energy, the better. Those same people, 10 years from now, when
| they can breathe without Benadryl, will probably take the credit
| for it. "See what having a robust homeland energy policy does?"
| :/
| thrwayaistartup wrote:
| Montana has a massive amount of coal reserves, several
| productive oil fields, and a lot of refining capacity. If you
| close the oil refineries and leave coal in the ground, a lot of
| communities in Montana are going to become ghost towns. The
| lives of the children of people in those towns is going to suck
| -- poverty, drugs, and an early death if you can't get out.
|
| The fact that those jobs are offset by growth in solar and
| energy jobs doesn't help without a centralized wealth transfer,
| which ain't gonna happen.
|
| The problem with US political-economics right now is that the
| future of the country depends on making a series of "society
| wins, some regions win, some regions lose (win-win-lose)"
| decisions. Because the societal win is net, it _could_ be made
| into a very attractive win-win-win situation. But everyone
| knows from the last half century of globalization that taking
| win-win-lose and turning it into win-win-win is a false promise
| that won 't pan out.
| babypuncher wrote:
| The thing is, if these people are going to act completely
| unreasonable, and completely unwilling to learn new trades,
| they aren't going to get a lot of sympathy from the rest of
| us when they go around screaming nonsense and filling their
| kids heads with outright lies. As others have pointed out,
| most of the coal jobs are already gone, these communities are
| already fucked, and protesting clean energy will do nothing
| to un-fuck them.
|
| I fully support jobs programs, training programs, welfare
| programs, and a whole host of other "liberal" things that
| would help these communities transition away from being
| dependent on fossil fuels, but they just get super pissy and
| throw all of that back in our faces.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| > Montana has a massive amount of coal reserves, several
| productive oil fields, and a lot of refining capacity.
|
| And also "Montana has so much renewable energy potential,
| it's incredible" (1)
|
| > If you close the oil refineries and leave coal in the
| ground, a lot of communities in Montana are going to become
| ghost towns.
|
| Unless they find something else to do for money. See point
| above.
|
| 1) https://flatheadbeacon.com/2023/06/17/expert-cites-
| montanas-...
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Agree with a lot of your points (most especially "a bullshit
| promise that won't pan out"), but recent legislation does
| attempt to mitigate the losses the communities you mention
| will face as coal is rapidly phased out. Folks in the
| industries we're transitioning from should not be left out in
| the economic cold.
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/energyinnovation/2022/08/24/inf.
| .. (Inflation Reduction Act Benefits: Billions In Just
| Transition Funding For Coal Communities)
|
| https://www.ilo.org/global/topics/green-
| jobs/WCMS_824102/lan...
| coding123 wrote:
| This is hand-waving a real concern away. It's why people on
| the right are so mad right now.
|
| Did we hand-wave the homelessness issue away in CA? Seems
| like there's an awful lot of hand-waving we did in the past
| 15 years growing the tech sector that left a shit-ton of
| people behind. I know a bunch of people are going to hand-
| wave this comment away too. The downvotes generated on
| hacker news will not translate at the voting booth.
| PM_me_your_math wrote:
| This is a curious take considering there isn't a person
| on earth who can force another person to learn, use, and
| sharpen the technical skills required to work in tech
| sectors. Are you saying that the success of one group
| through innovation shouldn't occur because another group
| refuses or is incapable of learning the skills required
| for the aforementioned?
| [deleted]
| sanp wrote:
| It's the folks on the right who prevent any action more
| than hand-waving.
|
| I think we have to realize that for folks on the right it
| is a matter of Identity and not Policy. At this point
| their opinion or concerns should be just ignored because
| - 1) Addressing them will not get their votes (as it is a
| matter of Identity for them. A positive Policy for them
| will not impact their decision who to vote for) 2)
| Addressing their concerns just delays the inevitable (the
| inevitable could be either a significant move to
| renewables or climate disaster)
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| It's a real concern, but it is the best that is going to
| be provided. 2 million voters over the age of 55 die
| every year, 4 million voters turn 18. Conservatives can
| vote all they want, the electorate turnover and outcome
| is a combination of inertia (inflation reduction act has
| stoked an enormous amount of renewables manufacturing
| capacity coming online) and demographic destiny. Fossil
| fuels will die due to economics, it is just a matter of
| time horizon.
|
| I want to stress that I _strongly_ support a just
| transition (policy should express compassion and empathy
| at scale), and if people can 't be found other jobs,
| retiring them out early to bridge the gap to other social
| safety nets (medicare, social security, etc), but there
| is no path to success for conservative ideology on the
| issue of leaving fossil fuels behind (either through
| votes or economics).
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37052550 (citations)
| rayiner wrote:
| Demographic destiny is the Lucy pulling the football away
| from liberals' Charlie Brown. In the first few elections
| after Joe Biden took office in the 1970s, Democrats won
| the Congressional popular vote by 6-17 percentage points.
| Their margin was only 3 percentage points in 2020, and
| they lost by 3 percentage points last year. Liberalism is
| weaker than it has been in half a century.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Additional citations:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37152682 ("The
| renewable energy revolution is happening faster than you
| think.")
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37152803 ("The US
| climate law is fueling a factory frenzy. Here's the
| latest tally.")
| danans wrote:
| > but there is no path to success for conservative
| ideology on this issue (either through votes or
| economics).
|
| This is perhaps why there has been a big motivation for
| conservative politicians to use (or look the other way
| from) anti-democratic means to maintain power.
|
| Even more than the claimed small-government ideology,
| there is such an incredibly strong allegiance with the
| fossil fuel extraction industries [1] that artificially
| propping those industries is worth the subversion of
| democracy. There are models of this elsewhere in the
| world, after all.
|
| 1. Liberals once had that too, but lost the fossil fuel
| geography after the 60s. Manchin is the last of his kind.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| "Maybe you do not care much about the future of the
| Republican Party. You should. Conservatives will always
| be with us. If conservatives become convinced that they
| can not win democratically, they will not abandon
| conservatism. The will reject democracy." -- David Frum
|
| Liberals ("neolibs") fucked up bad by taking the working
| class for granted and letting globalization erode them
| [1] [2] [3], very similar to what is happening with
| conservative fossil fuel electorate today. Maybe things
| have gotten bad enough for that cohort to be catered to
| again [4], maybe things need to get worse first.
|
| [1] https://kof.ethz.ch/en/news-and-events/kof-
| bulletin/kof-bull...
|
| [2] https://www.npr.org/2017/07/05/535626109/the-end-of-
| loyalty-...
|
| [3] https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-
| way/2015/12/09/459087477...
|
| [4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCyZHB7NdPE
| bandyaboot wrote:
| > Liberals ("neolibs") fucked up bad by taking the
| working class for granted and letting globalization erode
| them
|
| I can't help but take note of the dichotomy that exists
| in current US politics. The implication seems to be that
| Liberals took on a policy stance that was electorally
| unfavorable and could jeopardize their ability to win
| elections. And yet:
|
| "Maybe you do not care much about the future of the
| Democratic Party. You should. Liberals will always be
| with us. If liberals become convinced that they can not
| win democratically, they will not abandon liberalism. The
| will reject democracy." -- nobody
| danans wrote:
| I get what Frum is saying, but he is getting quite a bit
| of mileage by overly conflating "conservative" and
| "Republican". I think the people he is referring to are
| the Conservative Nationalists, who have struck a tacit
| deal with the fossil fuel extraction industries (someone
| let me know if there is a pro-renewables Conservative
| Nationalist of any significance out there).
|
| From a small-c conservative point of view, renewables
| make imminent sense because of the low cost and the fact
| that they literally conserve resources. This fits very
| much with the conservative tendency to save and not spend
| frivolously.
|
| Observing this contradiction really demonstrates to me
| how much big-C Conservatism in the US is really more
| about institutionally prolonging and cementing the long
| term viability of fossil fuels. Everything else seems in
| service to that goal.
| yamazakiwi wrote:
| There are tons of working class liberals. I'm tired of
| people implying working class people are all
| conservatives. These people are always framing arguments
| equating the working class to everyone with staunch
| conservative political views.
| danans wrote:
| > There are tons of working class liberals
|
| You are correct, but with the rise of nationalism as an
| appealing ideology, there are fewer _white working class
| liberals_ (AKA blue collar) than there were in the past.
| These people were decisive in the 2016 election, and were
| a big reason that swing states had close elections in
| 2020.
|
| Many of them have abandoned universalist progressive
| economic ideas because of the loss of economic security
| they experienced with globalization.
|
| Also, unlike the capitalist and professional classes, the
| nationalists are often OK with strong safety nets, as
| long as these benefits are limited to their tribe. They
| are really neither conservative or liberal. There are
| other political dimensions involved.
| yamazakiwi wrote:
| > there are fewer white working class liberals (AKA blue
| collar) than there were in the past.
|
| This could be because of increased migration into the US
| and a billion other reasons that have nothing to do with
| nationalism.
|
| >Also, unlike the capitalist and professional classes,
| the nationalists are often OK with strong safety nets, as
| long as these benefits are limited to their tribe. They
| are really neither conservative or liberal. There are
| other political dimensions involved.
|
| Agreed
| danans wrote:
| > This could be because of increased migration into the
| US and a billion other reasons that have nothing to do
| with nationalism.
|
| As voting numbers go, migration only comes into play if
| you interpret "fewer white working class liberals"
| proportionally, but I meant it in an absolute sense: that
| blue collar white Americans have shifted Conservative
| independently.
|
| There is pretty good evidence of the nexus of race and
| occupational class in recent voting patterns [1][2]. This
| coupled with the fact that this population overwhelmingly
| supported economically liberal candidates in the past
| indicates a major shift, balanced partly in the other
| direction by the shift of the white professional class
| toward liberal voting tendencies.
|
| If the argument is that migration into the US (which is
| mostly non-white [3]) is encouraging the white working
| class less liberal, then that is pretty well describing
| nationalism.
|
| 1.
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-28/how-
| occup...
|
| 2. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2018/08/09/an-
| examinati...
|
| 3. https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2020/08/20/facts-
| on-u-s...
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Conservatism has always been opposed to democracy from
| the moment "conservative" and "liberal" as political
| labels were created.
|
| At most, they might abandon pretending to support it as
| cover while working to chip away at the edges when that
| pretense stops working for them, but that's not a loss
| for democracy.
| gottorf wrote:
| > Conservatism has always been opposed to democracy
|
| Conservatism distilled to its essence can probably be
| summarized as Chesterton's fence: to not make rash moves
| changing the status quo without fully understanding both
| the reason the status quo is the way it is, and the nth-
| degree aftereffects of the change.
|
| So I grant you, in the beginning of democracy, almost by
| definition conservatism was against it, when the status
| quo was a feudal monarchy or whatever; but there's been a
| few hundred intervening years, and I don't think it's
| fair to make the argument that "conservatism" is still,
| and will always be, opposed to "democracy".
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Conservatism distilled to its essence can probably be
| summarized as Chesterton's fence: to not make rash moves
| changing the status quo without fully understanding both
| the reason the status quo is the way it is, and the nth-
| degree aftereffects of the change.
|
| That's not the _political ideology_ called conservatism,
| though its how "conservatism" is used in other contexts
| (and it would be a fair use in a political context when
| discussing _praxis_ [how you acheive the goals of your
| ideology] rather than _ideology_ [the ends at which your
| praxis is directed], though "incrementalism" is more
| common there to avoid collision with the ideological
| label.)
|
| Conservative ideology is often advocating for change, and
| often (when the status quo is farther from the goals of
| conservative ideology) more rapid and radical breaks from
| the established status quo than opposing ideologies,
| whereas the incrementalist praxis you describe can be
| found in ideologies that are very far from conservatism.
| gottorf wrote:
| > Conservative ideology is often advocating for change
|
| > the incrementalist praxis you describe can be found in
| ideologies that are very far from conservatism
|
| If your argument is that conservative politics in
| practice aren't very conservative (in the incrementalist
| fashion, as you describe), then I'm not sure if any
| political ideology is really self-consistent in that way.
| As an example, some majority-progressive (perhaps
| "radicalist", as an opposite of "incrementalist"?)
| municipalities around the country behave in a
| frustratingly incrementalist manner when it comes to land
| use changes, such that high rents and increasing
| homelessness result due to the supply of housing not
| being able to keep up with demand.
|
| This country being dominated by two parties -- which is a
| mathematical inevitability given a first-past-the-post
| voting system -- we necessarily end up with one big-tent
| "conservative" party and one big-tent "progressive"
| party, for many senses of those words. And because those
| tents are so big, there are people with many conflicting
| ideas under them. So it stands to reason that the
| conservative party does some non-conservative things, or
| things in a non-conservative manner, and vice versa for
| the progressive party.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > f your argument is that conservative politics in
| practice aren't very conservative (in the incrementalist
| fashion, as you describe), then I'm not sure if any
| political ideology is really self-consistent in that way.
|
| No, it has nothing to do with self-consistency.
| "Conservative" as an ideological label refers to
| something other than than incrementalism, though in
| contexts other than ideology, it can refer to that. It is
| simply words having different meanings in different
| contexts.
|
| Conservative ideology and incrementalist praxis have
| nothing to do with each other, though they can be
| mistaken for each other when the status quo is near the
| goals of ideological conservatism. (In the US, that
| apparent overlap with incrementalist praxis is currently
| more common with neoliberal ideology today than
| conservative ideology--it can be hard to tell an
| incrementalist who doesn't seek neoliberal ends from a
| neoliberal of any praxis, because the status quo is
| mostly neoliberal.)
| danans wrote:
| > I don't think it's fair to make the argument that
| "conservatism" is still, and will always be, opposed to
| "democracy".
|
| I think they are talking about Conservatism in the US
| specifically, not in general. In the US, Conservatism has
| been quite active in limiting the voting power of several
| demographics [1][2], a distinctly anti democratic pattern
| of behavior. It's a unique situation reflecting our own
| troubled racial history and the large ideological gulf
| between the older and younger generations.
|
| I wouldn't call that anti-democratic conduct small-c
| conservative at all, but it's very big-C Conservative in
| the US.
|
| 1. https://apnews.com/article/alabama-redistricting-
| voting-righ...
|
| 2.
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/04/20/cleta-
| mitch...
| gottorf wrote:
| I wish I had the time to delve a bit deeper into those
| case of voting restrictions, because they're both more
| interesting than the surface level reported by the media
| (which is approximately that "GOP only wants landowning
| white males to vote"); but I have a busy week, so I'll
| have to settle for a few short counter-points, even
| though I appreciate your reasoned discourse and would
| like to continue in more depth. I really do!
|
| First, on the Allen v. Milligan case, it's illustrative
| to imagine instead what would be the appropriate number
| of majority-black districts? The state is 68.9% white and
| 26.8% black[0] and has seven congressional districts.
| 26.8% of seven is 1.876, so one (which is what it is
| currently) is too few and two is actually too many. If
| all districts reflected the state's demographics as a
| whole equally, none would be majority-black. Besides, I
| think it imprudent to assume that people vote on racial
| lines; as the majority opinion notes, "The Court's
| opinion does not diminish or disregard the concern that
| [section 2 of the Voting Rights Act] may impermissibly
| elevate race in the allocation of political power within
| the States", and that "racial gerrymandering, even for
| remedial purposes, may balkanize us into competing racial
| factions; it threatens to carry us further from the goal
| of a political system in which race no longer matters".
| Both the majority and the dissents are worth reading, as
| usual.
|
| On the second point of campus voting, I think there is
| reasonable room to argue on what the voting age should
| be. Prior to the 26th Amendment in 1971, the voting age
| was 21; which meant that for most of the country's
| history, young first-time voters already had many years
| of work experience under their belts and were further on
| their way to "adulthood". Nowadays, someone at the first-
| time voting age of 18 is less likely than ever to have
| worked[1].
|
| Besides, if limiting suffrage is anti-democratic, then is
| expanding suffrage necessarily pro-democratic? There have
| been attempts at lowering the voting age to 16[2]; would
| it be considered anti-democratic to oppose such an
| action? And even states that are perennially unfriendly
| to big-C Conservatism based on voting record[3], like New
| York and New Jersey, were among states that made voting
| more difficult[4] recently.
|
| All this to say: we should continue to have rational
| debates on the best way to ensure the ongoing health of
| the nation (that is, politics), and we would all be
| served better if one side was not depicted as acting
| against ("anti democratic pattern of behavior") that
| health, at least not without critical examination.
|
| [0]: https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/AL
|
| [1]: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11300012
|
| [2]: https://meng.house.gov/media-center/press-
| releases/meng-rein...
|
| [3]: https://centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/r
| anking-t...
|
| [4]: https://www.reuters.com/graphics/USA-
| ELECTION/VOTING-RESTRIC...
| danans wrote:
| > The state is 68.9% white and 26.8% black[0] and has
| seven congressional districts. 26.8% of seven is 1.876,
| so one (which is what it is currently) is too few and two
| is actually too many
|
| Since we are talking about an imperfect system with any
| solution, disenfranchising black voters by 88% of a seat
| is significantly worse than disenfranchising white voters
| by 12% of a seat. This is especially so considering that
| the Voting Rights Act was enacted to counteract the
| history of black voter suppression in states like
| Alabama. Even in majority white districts, suppression of
| black voting happens through enacting laws that make it
| harder to vote [1].
|
| > Nowadays, someone at the first-time voting age of 18 is
| less likely than ever to have worked.
|
| Plenty of people have a few years of work experience by
| 18. There are also many people 30+ who haven't worked a
| day in their lives (think trust fund kids) that vote. I
| don't think we should disenfranchise them either. Even
| still, that's all irrelevant. 18 year olds have the right
| to vote according to the law.
|
| > Besides, if limiting suffrage is anti-democratic, then
| is expanding suffrage necessarily pro-democratic?
|
| That's not really what we are discussing, and is an
| appeal to the theoretical . The subject is preventing the
| disenfranchisement of people who have the full
| constitutional right to vote today.
|
| 1. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/23/us/politics/voting-
| rights...
| bandyaboot wrote:
| > 2 million voters over the age of 55 die every year, 4
| million voters turn 18.
|
| I think this is a bit of a simplification that makes the
| effect sound much more drastic than it really is. While 2
| million voters over the age of 55 may die every year,
| they are replaced by a similar number of voters who just
| became over 55 and who's politics, on average, are only
| marginally different. Of course this applies to every age
| group as well. Not that I'm assuming that you're meaning
| to suggest that the effect is drastic, but I often see
| the very same line of reasoning in the political media
| and I'm quite certain it _is_ what they 're suggesting---
| because clicks.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| The change is not drastic, but it is inevitable. 2
| million deaths per year, 4 million per two year election
| cycle, 8 million every presidential election cycle. TLDR
| There are tipping points, keep an eye on these metrics to
| understand them and predict when they arrive. Think in
| systems.
|
| For example, Rep. Lauren Boebert won by only 546 votes
| last year in her district. You don't need much electorate
| change for that to not happen again.
|
| https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/16/politics/demographic-
| changes-...
| PM_me_your_math wrote:
| [flagged]
| mrtesthah wrote:
| That's a blatant fabrication. Here's a state-by-state,
| claim-by-claim refutation of your entire narrative.
|
| https://statesuniteddemocracy.org/wp-
| content/uploads/2021/01...
| bandyaboot wrote:
| > I'm not a serious person. Please disregard my opinion
| on everything.
|
| Ok, thanks for the heads up!
| dukeyukey wrote:
| Although as every year that ticks on, the people ageing
| into conservative middle-age are less and less likely to
| have a strong emotional or economic link to coal mining.
| JTbane wrote:
| IMHO coal should be banned as an energy source and efforts
| made to convert existing plants to nuclear.
| outside1234 wrote:
| Coal is going away no matter what. Be it from natural gas or
| wind. It is just not economic anymore.
| arrosenberg wrote:
| Yeah, this is basically it. We need to provide those people
| living coal and oil towns a pension and some type of national
| purpose as their jobs wind down so they aren't impoverished.
| The coal people can do environmental reclamation on the mines
| and the oil people can dig geothermal wells or something. No
| one has to be uprooted during their lifetime and their
| children will be able to make informed choices without the
| pressure of poverty around them.
| cbhl wrote:
| There are also other industries in Montana. Cattle outnumber
| people 2:1. Wheat is also a big export.
|
| I also recall the bigger towns/cities being fairly popular
| places for remote work (even filling local airports over
| capacity), although I'm not sure if that persisted through
| calls to return to offices.
| Retric wrote:
| There's relatively few coal jobs left. Nationwide in 2011 it
| was already down to 91.5 thousand coal miners by 2021 it was
| 39.5 thousand, again _nationwide._
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/215790/coal-mining-
| emplo...
|
| The industry provides more jobs for mechanics etc, but any
| community dependent on coal workers has already been
| devastated.
|
| Oil and gas are very separate as solar or wind isn't
| displacing them anytime soon. In 10+ years EV's might start
| to reduce the need for oil, but it's going to be a very slow
| transition. If 100% of new cars are EV that's still decades
| worth of existing vehicles plus boats and aircraft.
| bluGill wrote:
| While EVs only look like a statistical blip on the oil
| market now, they are taking off fast enough that it will be
| less than 10 years before the impact is obvious. Cars are
| 50% of of oil (transport is 60%, so I'll just round and
| assume the other 10% is trucks trains, ships, airplanes...
| which are not going away as fast), but new cars are already
| starting to move to EVs, and that trend is continuing. It
| will be 20 years before oil isn't a significant factor in
| car transport
| Retric wrote:
| That really depends on what you mean by obvious impact.
|
| Cars manufactured in the last year make up 4% or so of
| total cars on the road and thus ~2% of oil consumption.
| EV's are just over 7% of new car sales right now if we
| assume an extremely optimistic 30% of all sales over the
| next 10 years that's (4% per year * 10 years * 30% of
| sales * 50% of oil) = 6% reduction in oil use in 2033 vs
| no change. That's significant but could easily be offset
| by increasing the total number of cars or other use etc.
|
| I doubt 30% of all new cars sold by 2033 will be EV's as
| it would require well over 30% to be sold in years 9 and
| 10 to offset years 1 and 2 etc. That said, somewhere
| between 15 and 30 years from now I expect the difference
| will be very obvious as the oldest ICE cars get aged out
| of the global fleet to be replaced with more efficient
| cars + hybrids + EV's.
| bluGill wrote:
| Several governments have made 100% EV by 203X a goal.
| Norway is farther along the path than the US. Predicting
| the future is always hard, but it is looking like EVs
| will be more like 80% of sales by 2030 many people are
| already seeing significant fuel savings, which is
| important.
| Retric wrote:
| Norway is already an extreme outlier in terms of both new
| and existing EV's, which is included in that global
| number I mentioned. I expect several countries will break
| that 30%, but oil is a global commodity.
|
| As to 80%, 2030 is only 6.5 years from now. You can
| lookup the rate companies are building factories to
| estimate the maximum possible adoption over the next 3-5
| years and based on that 80% _globally_ in 6.5 years is
| completely off the table. Also, adoption is dependent on
| what people actually buy which will slow thing down from
| the maximum theoretically possible. S curve to 50% which
| then slows down is common because not everyone's needs
| are the same which feeds back into how much manufacturing
| capacity gets added etc.
| thrwayaistartup wrote:
| Even in the parts of the US with 203X goals, many of the
| statutory "EV" definitions include vehicles with large
| gas tanks. E.g., the Toyota RAV4 Plugin Hybrid qualifies
| for EV tax credits in most states with such credits.
| bdcravens wrote:
| I suspect many horseshoers and saddle makers lost their
| income when the automobile came to be.
| babypuncher wrote:
| Not to mention all those freshly unemployed horses.
| sophacles wrote:
| They found jobs in the glue industry.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Actually, in the early 20th century, those horses likely
| went to war.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| Solar and Wind power is available practically everywhere. So
| that is directly contrary to your "this region is winner take
| all", which is really what the old "strike it rich with black
| gold" of fossil fuels was. Solar/Wind is about as win-win-win
| as it gets right now.
|
| Also, there really isn't anything like a "coal reserve"
| anymore. Coal is not a useful material anymore outside of the
| coal fired plants that are still in operation. Coal is so far
| behind other forms of power generation cost (including even
| nuclear) that practically all coal fired plants are being
| actively planned for retirement/replacement. You cannot have
| an "economic plan for coal" that involves anything except
| planning for the jobs to go away.
|
| At a minimum all coal plants will be replaced with natural
| gas turbine. Still fossil fuel but much cleaner in
| particulate and so much more efficient that the carbon
| release is reduced. With Solar/Wind falling under gas turbine
| in LCOE, gas turbine will become like coal in 10 years.
|
| Solar/wind isn't responsible for the devaluation of rural
| communities. That happened with globalization. And economic
| development has historically followed the availability of
| cheap plentiful power, which solar/wind already represent an
| technological advancement in. Solar/wind are the cheapest
| form of power generation, and unlike coal/gas which are
| basically played out in terms of cost improvement, likely
| have another 10-20 years of cost improvement from economies
| of scale and technological improvement. Put it this way: if
| fusion became net-positive and sustained reaction tomorrow,
| it wouldn't matter. At the rate solar/wind are dropping, no
| fusion reactor would beat it economically for another 50
| years.
| tiffanyg wrote:
| Yup, that's about right, I'd say.
|
| It's disgusting, too. Every time "the experiment" is run, we
| find that "the returns" from preventing excessive
| concentration of wealth VASTLY exceed any claimed benefits of
| allowing individuals and individual families to limitlessly
| accrue. VASTLY exceed, not merely economically, but all the
| way "down to" things like human well-being (and lack thereof:
| suffering). I.e., down to the roots of strong societies,
| communities, and ultimately COUNTRIES.
|
| Consequently, those with an insatiable "need to hoard" know
| that they need to convince those with power (which, in the
| US, is The People [to some degree]) to believe in the
| opposite of the evidence. Unfortunately, of course, this is
| all too easy. While some degree of "representational
| democracy" and "mass media" and "universal public education"*
| increases the challenge, the class warfare continues. Some
| among the "upper class", in particular, engage in it very
| actively and intentionally, quite secure in the knowledge
| that terms like "data", and "evidence", and, even moreso,
| "statistics" / "economics", are meaningless / of little
| direct concern to most people. All you really need is
| "marketing".
|
| So, really, all you do is - keep telling people that (OUR -
| i.e., The People's) "government doesn't work", keep telling
| them it's "corrupt", etc. (fostering conditions for degrees
| of self-fulfilling prophecy). Remove civics classes from
| schools. Tell them that the government just exists to
| perpetuate itself and to grow unchecked ... try to get people
| to forget, as much as possible, how self-governing is
| supposed to look ... what it grew out of, how we basically
| self-organized, quite effectively, through decades and then
| centuries worth of work (and quite radical ideas ...
| including at least two or three periods of significant
| upending of feudalistic components of the economy, often
| involving efforts of "enlightened" "class traitors"**). Ask
| them if, given all of this - that "we all know" that
| "government doesn't work", "people in government are corrupt
| self-dealers", "government can't be trusted" ... they'd like
| to keep some more of "THEIR" money each month, which,
| obviously, THEY are more QUALIFIED to spend. And, of course,
| as politics becomes more debased and less serious - driven by
| actual facts and what works vs. appeals to feelings and
| rhetoric [marketing] - slap a pretty face on it (Reagan).
|
| Then, just rinse and repeat.
|
| Pretty soon, so many people have a solid internal wall
| preventing any serious consideration of appropriate taxation
| to pay for services far more valuable than an extra night out
| at a restaurant every once in a while, this modified regime
| is quite entrenched and resistant to movement back towards
| more progressive ideas. All the while, you can keep marketing
| more and more extreme ideas ... like, oh I don't know, "maybe
| we need to reevaluate that whole 'Civil Rights Act' deal...".
|
| The ideals and optimism etc. that propelled people to make
| changes good for themselves (in a broad sense, not narrow in
| time and space like greed) and society exist on the fringes -
| utterly extinguished in the center. Not given any serious
| consideration any longer.
|
| You, yourself, provide an example: "But everyone knows from
| the last half century of globalization that taking win-win-
| lose and turning it into win-win-win is a false promise that
| won't pan out." And, you provide it in the right context, I'd
| say: "The problem with _US political-economics right now_ ".
| It's an important point - it doesn't have to be like this.
| The "disruptors" of systems who have marketed against ideas
| like "The New Deal" have worked for decades to get us to the
| point we're at now. I'd say, as usual, it will take enough
| people getting upset enough to create the conditions in which
| we can have a lurch back in the other direction.
|
| The story of the 50+ years has involved a trade between
| "left" and "right". The left-of-center ideas have dominated
| on the social side of things, while the right-of-center ideas
| have dominated on the economic side. Seems like conditions
| are ripe for something of a reversal - the 10+ year ascent of
| "the culture war(s)" (as a more intentional and even
| engineered effort on the right [in part driven by being "out
| of actual ideas" {that are practical}] on the economic policy
| side for probably 2 decades or more) are evidence and fertile
| ground for reversal ... combined with heightened economic
| insecurity ONCE AGAIN. But, we'll have to wait to find out
| just how pissed off people really are ... and, if they can
| find their way back to the best lever US citizens get for
| pushing the system the way it needs to be pushed - the
| "voting booth 'lever'".***
|
| * Thomas Jefferson was quite the "disruptor", pushing for
| universal education as early as he did (he was a complex
| person - my knowledge is fairly limited, but my general
| impression is that he would have fit in rather well with the
| subpopulation of "baby boomers" who experimented with radical
| "hippie" ideas in the 60s. Plenty in this generation, after
| this brief "Rumspringa", turned around, moved to suburbia,
| became part of the system they experimented with fighting,
| voted for a "pretty face" and "pretty words" wrapped around
| ideas they generally found repulsive only a decade or two
| earlier [Reagan], etc. That should not be taken to diminish
| Jefferson in any way - not my intention. And, he did much
| that was positive, but also, plenty that wasn't. My sense is
| that he's somewhat more difficult to judge / analyze than
| someone like Washington, who was very principled, "virtuous"
| [in a sort of "honesty internally" &/ of core character],
| consistent, etc. Who, interestingly, had a life more akin to
| the self-made immigrants who came through Ellis Island, say,
| raising his station up through life from a really low rung
| among the gentry class, all the way through leader of a
| nation he helped found.)
|
| ** People who go into history books as "Great", and certainly
| tend to be recognized for "virtue", "humanity", and "equity"
| and such - who REALLY embraced the idea "All men are created
| equal..." (where "men" is understood variously, of course,
| but, in an arc / from principles that only concludes in a
| meaning of "All people"). I.e., Washington et al., Lincoln et
| al., FDR et al. ... while others like "the Mercers"**** lurk
| in the shadows and work to dismantle the deservedly popular
| and virtuous work that brought such benefit to individuals
| AND the nation as a whole (aside from the grievances of the
| wealth and power hoarders).
|
| *** What an anachronism, now, eh? ... Anyway, the change in
| voting patterns among other factors suggest political
| pressure is really starting to ramp up. ... Lastly, this
| comment is absolutely absurd in length - apologies and
| apologies for likely mistakes, can't really look it over
| right now, time has grown tight.
|
| **** Also around in the time of Washington - the ancestry
| isn't simple, various Mercers weren't uniform in Loyalist
| sympathies, and, AFAIK, the current extreme right-wing Robert
| Mercer's direct ancestors didn't arrive in the colonial era,
| but, this family is comparatively visible right now and can
| be viewed within that sort of model (association of a give
| family with a particular member and their views, e.g., George
| Washington)
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| I hate to be blunt on this topic, but it's necessary to make
| my point. Montana needs to adapt to the 21st century. Their
| mining towns are barely 100 years old, and have little
| history. As coal jobs gradually fade away, the community can
| either adapt to renewables and tech, or die out. We simply
| cannot sustain the burning of more coal for our children's
| future. Yes, please think of the children on this, and maybe
| only this instance.
| thrwayaistartup wrote:
| Yes, that's the problem with US political-economics right
| now. You've (failed to?) identify the "political" part of
| "political-economics".
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| I don't see a null decision as political, but I think you
| get the point. It's OK for the tows to die, as the
| alternative is worse for literally everyone.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Yea, you're getting at a very unpopular reality that, if
| spoken would sink anyone's political career, so politicians
| will never say it: Many of these little towns probably just
| shouldn't exist. Nobody wants to admit that a community has
| failed. Go for a stroll through the Rust Belt or any other
| economically devastated area. _People still live there,
| despite the misery!_ You drive through, and it 's just old
| houses and the occasional Walmart vampirically sucking out
| what little wealth remains. There's no real industry
| anywhere. You wonder what do all these people living here
| do for a living?
|
| Instead of trying to prop up obsolete mining communities
| with hopeless economic support, it would be better to 1.
| focus on retraining/re-skilling and 2. send fully-
| subsidized moving vans to help people physically get away
| from the misery.
| developerDan wrote:
| > You wonder what do all these people living here do for
| a living?
|
| Most of those people either a) commute a long distance to
| scrape by and lose a significant chunk of their earnings
| on gas because they own a 30 year old hoopty of a truck
| or b) live off of welfare. That's how a lot of these
| small communities continue to exist. People can't afford
| to move out and obviously don't want to commit suicide
| (nor should they).
|
| Having come from a small town, I don't think these people
| will move even if it's paid for. Many rural folk have
| these warped views of more populace towns and cities
| because of the warped political rhetoric and constant
| bombardment of negative news coverage.
|
| It's an extremely difficult problem that I don't
| personally believe has a solution because you have to
| have willing participation (some will, but most won't).
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| > People can't afford to move out
|
| Why not? There are good-paying jobs in financially
| functional towns and cities reasonably close by. The
| people who grow up in those towns can afford to live
| there.
|
| Sure, they're not going to be able to upsize without a
| mortgage by selling the 1400 sqft 100-year-old house on a
| lot in a decaying ghost town. But most people don't start
| out with an already-paid-for home.
| ticviking wrote:
| Because very few companies offer relocation. Living on
| welfare in a paid for trailer on land your ancestors
| lived on is much more appealing than moving without
| relocation for worse lifestyle in a rental in low wage
| work that will result in a lower effective income in a
| higher cost of living area.
|
| People are often dumb, but they're not insane and over
| years they do respond to incentives.
| nn3 wrote:
| Usually it happens anyways, just delayed. Old people
| usually don't want to move, but the younger people are
| more flexible and move away as soon as they can if they
| don't see any future.
|
| Then these towns get older and older until eventually
| they won't be viable anymore (or find something else to
| still attract young people).
|
| So the trends are happening, they are just delayed by a
| couple of decades. As the average life expectation grows
| the cycles get longer however.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _Nobody wants to admit that a community has failed. Go
| for a stroll through the Rust Belt or any other
| economically devastated area. People still live there,
| despite the misery!_
|
| What you call misery, others call home, and have an
| attachment to the land.
|
| Go for a stroll through San Francisco and see people
| living in tents and defecating on the sidewalk. Maybe
| everyone should move to California to commute hours to
| work (because you can't afford to live anywhere near your
| job). That sounds awesome!
| ashayh wrote:
| | and have an attachment to the land.
|
| This is understandable, but does not always make sense.
| After all, these towns were created by European
| immigrants who left their homeland of hundreds of years,
| their language, customs, foods, climate etc for a better
| opportunity. These towns had sizable black populations
| who left southern towns for the same reasons.
|
| Before Europeans, north america was settled by many
| different tribes who had migrated from eurasia . Not to
| mention different groups of humans also migrated from
| Africa all over the world, because they saw good reason
| to do so.
|
| At some point you have to cut your losses, or seek a
| better life. Not saying it is easy, but this option
| should be pointed out to anyone in untenable situations.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| > What you call misery, others call home, and have an
| attachment to the land.
|
| Mostly, people aren't moving to better communities
| because they can't.
|
| In a good year, a typical relocation requires stacks of
| available cash and jobs waiting at the other end for
| every working member of the household. And those jobs
| need to add up to the living expenses at the destination.
|
| If you're a household that needs to move to survive, the
| odds are quite low you have the resources at hand to make
| that happen.
| jfengel wrote:
| I'm a big fan of programs which help pay for both those
| relocations and the educations to help the transition.
|
| I'm not a fan of holding the economy and the environment
| hostage because they have a traditional "attachment" to
| something that makes the world a worse place.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| No argument from me. I just wanted to clarify that while
| moving is an impossibility, all other reasons for staying
| are moot.
| mikestew wrote:
| _What you call misery, others call home, and have an
| attachment to the land._
|
| Okay, so now what? Not say the quiet part out loud about
| how the area has economically failed? What you typed is a
| retort, but I don't hear a lot of solution, unless the
| suggestion is that a solution is not needed. I guess what
| I am saying is that I don't understand what point your
| driving toward with your comment.
| la64710 wrote:
| The world population also had an attachment to its land
| but were uprooted and transported and mingled and spread
| all over the world and has resulted in significant
| economic development. Get on with the program , it is the
| new reality.
| droopyEyelids wrote:
| The small rust belt and Appalachian towns we're talking
| about are not much different than the streets in San
| Francisco in terms of their social ills.
| coryrc wrote:
| > You wonder what do all these people living here do for
| a living?
|
| I don't, because I know over half the federal budget is
| spent on welfare: social security, medicare, medicaid.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| Nearly all of these towns are slowly dying. Young people
| leave and few come back. Nationwide its a lot of people
| but many of these towns are literally a few dozen people
| or less who will never leave because they live in a home
| for almost nothing or they have a family home they have
| inherited.
|
| It's the same thing that has happened in lots of rural
| areas of Texas.
| [deleted]
| fasthands9 wrote:
| >As coal jobs gradually fade away, the community can either
| adapt to renewables and tech, or die out.
|
| This is very easy to say if you don't live there. There is
| no reason to think that a town that exists because it has a
| coal deposit is going to be a logical place for any
| business to put a clean energy plant of some sort.
|
| If you are going to be for phasing out coal very quickly
| then you have to be willing to bite the bullet and accept
| that certain regions of the country are just going to be
| completely effed over.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| > accept that certain regions of the country are just
| going to be completely effed over.
|
| Pieces of countryside do not suffer. People are
| potentially more mobile than that.
| fasthands9 wrote:
| Sure. It's fine to tell people to move. I have moved a
| lot of times in my life so I'm not personally offended.
|
| But most people do not move and do not want to move and I
| think people on here underestimate the political
| difficulty of telling people they will have to sell their
| house for close to nothing and move to life an adequate
| life.
| galangalalgol wrote:
| People in those towns have family connections going back
| centuries in some cases. They wouldn't even take a
| buyout, because they know everyone and it would be like
| losing family. If you haven't exper it, it doesn't seem
| like a valuable thing to worry about losing, but it is
| the world they know, and we shouldn't be surprised if
| many of them fight to keep it, potentially in a literal
| fashion. I don't know what the answer is, but buyouts and
| financed moves will be seen as authoritarian, while
| ending subsidies and just letting places fail might be
| seen as a faceless market force, even if itbis worse for
| those involved
| bobthepanda wrote:
| America has weathered these events before mostly by
| shrugging.
|
| See: the deindustrialization of New England in the 1920s,
| the Dust Bowl and its migrations, the deindustrialization
| of the Rust Belt
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| > People in those towns have family connections going
| back centuries in some cases.
|
| You are correct, in some cases they go back 2-4
| centuries. From when their ancestors settled in the
| colonies there. Settlers. Colony. 2-4 centuries, short
| term by European standards. It is hypocritical to expect
| it to be eternal now. There was no guarantee that it
| would last past when they milked out all the non-
| renewable resources. As noted, the US tends to be fairly
| institutionally indifferent to e.g. a Dust Bowl.
|
| I hope that they better than that this time, I really do.
| But not at the expense of keeping coal mines and coal-
| mining-towns with no other viable way open. It never was
| a good job anyway (see "black lung").
| ericmay wrote:
| I wonder about this because it seems like we were totally
| ok with moving manufacturing jobs overseas for example,
| or when a shipyard closes up shop in a town we accept it,
| but when it comes _specifically_ to coal jobs it's like
| all of a sudden it's all about won't someone think of the
| poor families?!
|
| I would generally agree that if as national policy we are
| going to do something like shut down an industry we
| should try and help people including maybe just buying
| them out (reskilling/learn2code is extremely difficult),
| but it's kind of like what Elon said once which was good
| which was when we lower the price customers don't want to
| pay us the higher price and when we raise the price they
| want the lower price they initially agreed to (it wasn't
| that exact thing but you get my point) and when it comes
| to subsidizing industries like we do for oil and gas for
| example I think the same mentality applies.
| bluGill wrote:
| We are not okay with manufacturing moving overseas. I
| don't know where you got that idea, it is clearly false.
| Ross Perot was in 1996 one of the most successful third
| party candidates ever, and he ran on the "great sucking
| sound" of NAFTA moving manufacturing jobs to Mexico.
|
| The one difference is manufacturing hasn't been lost in
| the US - by most measures we make more stuff in the US
| than ever. There are less jobs though because of
| automation, but those jobs have been replaced by
| engineering. Coal mining by contrast is a death industry
| and won't come back. What people in the coal industry
| need is someone to setup a factory in their town. A
| factory making some weird widget in a small town tends to
| make a rural town.
| [deleted]
| panzagl wrote:
| People were not ok with manufacturing moving overseas,
| the owners of those factories were. Closing a coal mine
| affects the owner of the mine directly. This has nothing
| to do with the workers- the owners would be just as happy
| to turn MT coal miners into opioid welfare recipients as
| they were NC textile mill workers as long as the owners
| continued to make money.
| ako wrote:
| Consumers were also ok with manufacturing moving
| overseas, as they were all buying these cheaper products,
| making it impossible for local manufacturing to survive.
| fragmede wrote:
| If only we gathered some money together from all of the
| places, especially the places that are booming and were
| the opposite of effed over, and then used that money on
| the regions of the country that would be effed over, to
| un eff over people, possibly by moving them to non-effed
| over locations! I don't know what that would be called,
| but boy that would be something!
| ticviking wrote:
| And any time you decide to eff over anyone, you can and
| should expect resistance.
| antisthenes wrote:
| > If you are going to be for phasing out coal very
| quickly then you have to be willing to bite the bullet
| and accept that certain regions of the country are just
| going to be completely effed over.
|
| What do you think happened to Appalachia? It sucked for a
| while, and it's still not a bustling tech hub and never
| will be, but people are adapting and in a few generations
| it will be a good (if less populated) area.
| asynchronous wrote:
| I don't think Montana's stance on coal jobs is ruining your
| future children's world in any directly measurable way -
| but please, keep speculating on other state's internal
| politics.
| oblio wrote:
| Wouldn't Montana have disproportionate influence on US
| politics, due to the way the US Senate works? As well as
| presidential elections.
| bluGill wrote:
| Yes, but it isn't that extreme. They only have 2 senators
| out of 100.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| Two senators, each of which represent about 550,000
| people, compared to (on the other end of the scale)
| California's two senators, who each represent about
| 20,000,000 people. That's a 36x imbalance, which is
| pretty disproportionate.
|
| Every person from a state with lower population than the
| median is overrepresented in the Senate, every state with
| higher than median is underrepresented.
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| It is a good thing that the Senate represents the States
| then, and not the people. There wouldn't be much point in
| having two houses of legislature if they both represented
| the same entities.
| Zigurd wrote:
| Future archeologists will wonder at the evidence they see
| in tree rings and ice cores: "These morons burned coal
| when they had renewable energy sources?"
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| So this is the exact opposite view of the Montana supreme
| court. The GP post. The children won the lawsuit.. Coal
| is absolutely and directly ruining their future. This is
| no longer an argument.
| the-printer wrote:
| Appealing to the decision of Montana's Supreme Court does
| little to refute whether coal production in _their state_
| produces an imminent danger to _your children_. If you
| are a Montanan then excuse me.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| I don't understand this refute at all. Coal cannot stay
| confined to Montana's borders in any real sense. The coal
| is mined to export, and it is then burned in coal plants,
| which are very bad.
| the-printer wrote:
| asynchronous's comment was about whether coal jobs in
| Montana yield any _measurable risks_ to your children,
| wherever you are. Referring to Montana 's judicial
| decisions as if they are edicts that span beyond its
| borders is a weak counterargument.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| This is the opposite of a weak counterargument! Referring
| to Montana's judicial decisions as if they are edicts
| that span beyond its borders is called _stare decisis_ or
| legal precedent. Montana 's supreme court decision can
| absolutely guide decisions beyond Montana's border.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precedent#Principle
| the-printer wrote:
| This implies that every state constitution has provisions
| similar to the ones in Montana's state constitution that
| were used to uphold the decision and have already given
| it the distinction of precedence. The ruling on its own
| is not legally binding on other states, they can refer to
| it at their own discretion.
|
| This isn't a question of the decision's influence in the
| future or its likelihood. It's about the decision's
| effect today. Either way, as far as I could find, the
| text of the ruling does nothing to convey concern for the
| measurable effects that Montana's coal industry could
| have on you or your children elsewhere. That's what we're
| talking about.
|
| By law, your self interests were not referred to at all.
| The "good news" is that your country is governed by self
| interests, and I'm inclined to believe that The Powers
| That Be (r) are catering to yours this time around.
|
| And people wonder how Jim Crow became a household name...
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Ah yes, CO2 famously stops at state borders, it's very
| nice like that.
| the-printer wrote:
| This isn't about the facetious point that you're trying
| to make. It's about whether one state's specific judicial
| decision at all concerns what takes place beyond its
| borders.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _Coal is absolutely and directly ruining their future.
| This is no longer an argument._
|
| The courts are not infallible or all-knowing.
| throwawaysleep wrote:
| Frankly, screw them. They have had decades of warning and
| done nothing about it but whine.
| la64710 wrote:
| From HTML to CSS to JS to React to God knows what ... we have
| to learn new technologies all the time. Folks should be
| retrained on new technologies and transferred to new jobs for
| a nice transition to happen. Why we make it so complicated?
| theptip wrote:
| These jobs are going sooner or later. It's cheaper to build
| new solar than to operate existing coal plants in many places
| in the US.
|
| If you are serious about the welfare of folks currently
| working in the coal industry, IMO you need to look at
| retraining programs (say, Green New Deal style) to replace
| fossil jobs with building wind, solar, battery, etc.
| components.
|
| Pragmatically I'm fine with buying off the coal communities
| with subsidies to transition to green tech. We should not
| just leave them hanging.
|
| The people advocating for a green energy economy understand
| this and are generally in favor of supporting those that
| worked in the fossil industry. However the lobbyist dollars
| opposing a green transition come from the big companies that
| stand to lose huge revenue streams, and they don't seem to be
| that interested in the long-term welfare of those in the
| industry.
| Aunche wrote:
| Everyone is happy when the government throws free money at
| them. That's why even the most climate denying and self
| proclaimed "fiscally conservative" politicians will vote for
| subsidizing new solar jobs in their free state.
|
| What people get up and arms about are policies that destroy
| jobs or make things more expensive. This why all climate-change
| related legislation is about throwing free money at the problem
| rather than pricing in the externality in bad environmental
| practices. Even in the farthest left of politicians only make
| vague suggestions of a carbon tax because they know that they'd
| immediately get kicked out of office if they allowed gasoline
| prices to rise to what they are in Europe, let taxing all
| sources of greenhouse gases.
| datavirtue wrote:
| I see people up in arms about massive solar farm
| installations in Ohio. I'm not sure what the issues are as no
| one has ever quantified them other than to say "I moved here
| because of the fields" or "They are gobbling up good farm
| land for solar panels." You see signs everywhere: "Say NO to
| Solar!" As an Appalachian I recognize this as a miss. These
| people could have easily legislated (and still can!) a cut of
| the energy $$ to themselves. Instead they are trying to burn
| it all down and will be unsuccessful at it. Where is JD Vance
| or Mike DeWine on that one? Probably too busy ducking energy
| policy corruption charges.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| They say "Look at the fields of solar panels, they're so
| ugly!"
|
| I imagine these people have never seen a coal mine.
| Aunche wrote:
| That's not really about an opposition to green energy
| though. It's your standard NIMBY excuses about ruining the
| view and whatnot.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| "destroy jobs"
|
| > Jobs up 95%
|
| "more expensive"
|
| > free money.
| Aunche wrote:
| You're acting as if I made a contraction, but I didn't.
| Montana is getting sued because they aren't destroying
| jobs, and neither is any other state. The government is
| granting free money to people who buy solar panels, EVs,
| etc which is why jobs are being created.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| What are you trying to say?
| Bostonian wrote:
| Courts rather than legislatures making climate policy is indeed
| "an agenda being shoved down our throats". Legislators who face
| elections are more likely to consider tradeoffs.
| duxup wrote:
| Courts act based on ... something. You can agree with the
| reasoning or not but it's not simply an arbitrary policy
| based on nothing. In the Montana situation it is based on the
| rights of younger people who will take the brunt of choices
| made today. Courts make decisions all the time about
| balancing different people's rights.
| kibwen wrote:
| The courts in this case are interpreting the constitution of
| the state of Montana, which was written and ratified by the
| legislature. Quoted below:
|
| Constitution of Montana -- Article IX -- ENVIRONMENT AND
| NATURAL RESOURCES
|
| Section 1. Protection and improvement.
|
| (1) The state and each person shall maintain and improve a
| clean and healthful environment in Montana for present and
| future generations.
|
| (2) The legislature shall provide for the administration and
| enforcement of this duty.
|
| (3) The legislature shall provide adequate remedies for the
| protection of the environmental life support system from
| degradation and provide adequate remedies to prevent
| unreasonable depletion and degradation of natural resources.
| lolinder wrote:
| It is widely accepted that one of the court's jobs is to
| determine whether the legislature's laws are in line with
| state and federal constitutions. This mechanism exists to
| make sure that the majority cannot infringe upon the rights
| of a minority simply because they control the legislature.
|
| The ruling in this case is weirdly hard to find, probably
| because it's not a supreme court case yet, but the reports
| say that all the judge did was strike down one provision of a
| law that the legislature passed, according to a pretty
| reasonable interpretation of this provision in the state
| constitution [0].
|
| [0] https://leg.mt.gov/bills/mca/title_0000/article_0090/part
| _00...
| sophacles wrote:
| Yes, but I think you're missing the point. The Montana
| constitution was adopted in 1972 in a constitutional
| convention. The people that were elected to that convention
| were not the legislature (because the previous constitution
| forbade someone from holding 2 elected offices at one
| time). The people elected were largely not even
| politicians, just regular people.
|
| Therefore it shouldn't matter at all - the parent post
| comes from a position of "the people must be ruled over"
| and the Montana constitution has a "will of the people"
| vibe.
| lolinder wrote:
| I'm not sure what in your comment actually contradicts
| what I just said. OP argued that the court was out of
| line, I responded that the court was doing its job in
| interpreting the Constitution that the people of Montana
| put in place. What the grandparent poster may or may not
| have implied about people being ruled over seems
| immaterial to the question of whether the court was
| making policy or interpreting the Constitution.
|
| The way these systems are set up is that if the will of
| the people is united enough then they can modify the
| Constitution. As it is, the people of Montana clearly
| indicated their intention to protect the environment, and
| state laws prohibiting experts in the executive branch
| from even _considering_ a specific class of environmental
| impact are pretty obviously out of line with the intent
| of the Constitution.
| babypuncher wrote:
| This is the judicial branch upholding a law put in place by
| the legislative branch. That is exactly how our government is
| supposed to work.
| nomel wrote:
| > A day ago, there were people
|
| > ... I remember reading
|
| Any references?
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| I like green energy as much as the next guy but I think it's
| hard to know if it's growing organically or growing because the
| government is spending trillions of dollars on it.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| It was growing even under Trump's admin, who was NOT spending
| trillions on it. China made renewables cheaper than coal.
| nomel wrote:
| One aspect is that storage is getting cheaper than peaker
| plants [1][2], in the "more profit with storage" sense.
|
| [1] https://www.ge.com/power/transform/article.transform.arti
| cle...
|
| [2] https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-
| insights....
| [deleted]
| PM_me_your_math wrote:
| We were promised cheaper energy. Nothing is cheaper about
| renewables, and the costs grow ~3% per year. To say nothing of
| the raw materials demand, requirement of fossil fuels to
| develop and use 'renewables' and the cost to replace such
| equipment. For example, battery replacement for EV are outside
| of affordability for the mass market. And of course, there is
| the inescapable long term problem of 250MM electric vehicles
| requiring charge when we're already telling people that they
| can't charge their EV due to grid constraints. The inconvenient
| truth is this; there isn't enough raw material on earth to
| electrify all transportation, upgrade the entire national grid
| (every line, every transformer, every substation) to meet the
| demand that an total EV conversion demands, not for 30 years
| and definitely not by 2030. Saying otherwise is simple wishful
| thinking. My apologies in advance for offending the perpetual
| victims in the church of climatology.
| irrational wrote:
| Breathe without Benadryl? Isn't Benadryl used for allergies?
| Allergies come mainly from plants and pollen. Hopefully those
| won't be going away as we adopt solar more.
| slacka wrote:
| I'm diagnosed as having pollution induced Asthma and
| allergies to wood smoke. While I need steroids or an N95 mask
| when the air quality is very poor, Benadryl indeed does help
| with the symptoms.
|
| What value does your comment add by nick picking his comment?
| The premise of his argument is correct. Fossil fuels kill far
| more people than renewables and nuclear.
|
| https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/fossil-fuels/which-
| powe...
| datavirtue wrote:
| It reduces inflammation in the respiratory track. Relax.
| RandallBrown wrote:
| Since we're being nitpicky. It's tract not track.
|
| Point still stands though.
| [deleted]
| sophacles wrote:
| > Asthma and allergic diseases cases have risen in recent
| decades. Plant pollen is considered as the main aeroallergen
| causing allergic reactions. According to available data,
| urban residents experience more respiratory allergies than
| rural residents mainly due to the interaction between
| chemical air pollutants and pollen grains.
|
| From: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5941124/
|
| There's a lot of research linking the two - particulate
| matter in the air from burning coal is another allergen
| related to this.
| hexhexhexagon wrote:
| "the more we move away from burning things for energy, the
| better" is not self evident. We've been burning things for
| energy since the invention of fire 1 or 2 million years ago. It
| is a major major factor for how we have built this global
| civilization that we all benefit from. That said, we moved away
| from burning fire, not because we ran out of wood, but because
| we found something more efficient. Currently, hydrocarbons are
| the single best method of generating and delivering cheap,
| reliable energy. Only nuclear comes close, but for some stupid
| reason it is demonized. Solar and wind serve a purpose, but
| they're nowhere near ready to replace hydrocarbons. We should
| only transition away from hydrocarbons at the point that by
| doing so, humans flourish more, and not less. This means either
| we develop a newer, better technology (nuclear nuclear
| nuclear), or we begin to run out of fossil fuels, which won't
| be for a very long time.
| twoodfin wrote:
| A reminder as always that the ideal number of jobs (i.e. labor
| cost) needed to produce adequate energy to meet consumption
| demand is 0.
|
| Yeah, yeah, this is startup cost in many cases. But jobs are not
| (or shouldn't be) the goal of an energy policy.
| CyberDildonics wrote:
| > But jobs are not (or shouldn't be) the goal of an energy
| policy.
|
| No one is saying that.
|
| There is a transition to wind and solar, this is an indication
| of that.
|
| "Solar jobs increased in the largest number of counties of any
| electric power generation technology, growing in 74% of U.S.
| counties."
| asynchronous wrote:
| Can't wait to have ten billion windmills breaking down every
| year that we need millions of windmill techs for, rather than
| just a handful of nuclear reactors that require extensive
| maintenance every 30 years.
| stetrain wrote:
| If the solar panels and windmills and their technicians are
| cheaper to build and operate (safely) than the nuclear
| reactors, externalities included, then it seems like the
| market is making the right decision.
| jrockway wrote:
| Yeah, maybe it's expensive to pay people to drive around
| and climb windmills, but it's nothing compared to waiting
| out the half-life of nuclear contamination of a major
| city.
| midasuni wrote:
| Except it's not expensive.
| Zigurd wrote:
| Unsolvable maintenance problems, like the leaky Vermont
| Yankee plant, can't be solved by adding more workers. Which
| is by your lights better?
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Famously, fossil fuels require zero maintenance, being a
| magic energy source
| midasuni wrote:
| Reality is wind today is far cheaper to both build,
| maintain and decommission than nuclear
|
| The problem with wind is variable supply - especially in
| regional areas.
| jimmychoozyx wrote:
| So... you're saying "People don't like spending money."
|
| Oh, you don't say? Gee, what a worthwhile comment.
|
| Back to reality--
|
| Energy is such a critical industry. And given the size of the
| USA, for example, the maintenance of energy infrastructure is
| never ending.
|
| So, this argument the idea of "zero" is quite meaningless in
| the context of reality.
| bullfightonmars wrote:
| Why should energy, unlike any other service or industry,
| require no labor to provide
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| As a CEO of any service or industry, why should I aspire to a
| higher expenditure on wages?
| gottorf wrote:
| I may have misunderstood, but I think GP's point is that the
| ideal number of jobs for any productive endeavor is zero,
| i.e. "fully automated luxury gay space communism". If
| technology advances to the point where it's the equivalent of
| waving a magic wand to get energy, food, and resources,
| that's the ideal state.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| Even in other scenarios e.g. ""semi-automated exploitative
| capitalism", as CEO, if I can replace expensive human
| workers with cheaper automated systems, I have reduced
| costs and the board and shareholders will like it.
|
| I think that grandparent's point is that the ideal
| "limiting case" of this trend is zero human workers. Ideals
| are not necessarily attainable, but they point the
| direction of travel. Optimising for "more jobs, more
| payroll" is not what does or should happen.
|
| _edit_ other commenters have pointed out that "clean power
| makes jobs!" is a _political_ not economic or business
| reply to "what about the coal jobs?". And if it's true (as
| seems likely), then it's a stronger statement: " _despite_
| efficiency, this is a jobs growth area ".
|
| If the clean energy sector could be cheaply 100% automated,
| it would be done for business reasons, leaving the
| politicians to deal with the fallout of unemployed voters.
| But then, exactly the same is true of coal energy. Or
| anything else, really. Aren't there a lot fewer jobs
| assembling cars now than there used to be? Why is the "rust
| belt" called that?
| Analemma_ wrote:
| Because people are really, really expensive to employ. The
| fewer people it takes to generate 1 kW of energy, the cheaper
| that energy can be sold on the market, and to a first-order
| approximation, economic growth and increase in standard of
| living are mostly because energy got cheaper (and these
| things stop happening when energy stops getting cheaper).
| Note that for most other goods, it's uncontroversial that the
| reason people can afford it now, thus bettering their
| standard of living, is that it takes fewer people to make
| them than it used to (because of automation).
| lukas099 wrote:
| Yeah but if one of the biggest political obstacles is "what
| about the jobs" then it makes sense to talk about the
| renewables jobs.
| whats_a_quasar wrote:
| I know several people building startups around green energy
| labor. The impression I get is that the labor demand isn't a
| policy thing, that solar installers in particular are desperate
| for more labor and turning down projects that they can't staff.
|
| So I think this is a good thing! It takes labor to build
| infrastructure, it's not make-work. And a strong demand for
| skilled labor creates a lot of positive externalities.
| pkdpic wrote:
| > Data is reported for five energy sectors: Electric Power
| Generation; Transmission, Distribution, and Storage; Fuels;
| Energy Efficiency; and Motor Vehicles and Component Parts
|
| No real mention of what these jobs actually are? I'm guessing the
| software development needs in this sector are comparatively
| pretty minimal...
| thrwayaistartup wrote:
| There are a ton of software development jobs in those sectors!
| Especially if you include all the "software" jobs that are less
| like the sort of programming at a typical software shop and
| more like "Math/CS/Eng PhDs writing MATLAB code".
|
| I think we will see that transition throughout the economy,
| actually: software will continue to be very important, but the
| marginal value add of someone writing software will depend on
| their having deep domain expertise.
| throwawayai2 wrote:
| I'm interested in moving into this sector. Do you have any
| resources/companies/etc to share?
| 7thaccount wrote:
| Sure.
|
| National Labs (NREL, Argonne, Sandia...etc)
|
| EPRI is a big one that sits between industry and academia
| and hires plenty of both to act as an R&D hub for industry.
|
| The large RTO/ISOs (CAISO, ERCOT, SPP, MISO, PJM, ISO-NE,
| NYISO) run large regions of the grid and work to maintain
| the reliable operation of the grid, optimize the use of
| hundreds of generators every 5 minutes in automatic
| competitive auctions, and plan certain upgrades like
| transmission.
|
| Consulting firms (too many to count) like EPE typically run
| simulations for anyone who needs it done
|
| Software Vendors (GE, Siemens, Hitachi, Energy
| Exemplar...etc)
|
| Utilities that are members of the RTO/ISOs (or independent
| as in the South east)
|
| Renewables developers (Nextera, EDF, ENEL...etc) that try
| to get renewables built and then participate in the RTO/ISO
| markets.
|
| This is just a section of the power industry as well. Good
| paying jobs, but a fair amount of red tape too depending on
| where you go. From a software perspective there's a lot of
| IT Enterprise work, a lot of programming that engineers do
| typically involves calling the APIs of commercial software
| and trying to analyze the resulting data. R&D work
| typically involves building prototypes. Enterprise software
| is typically Java, SQL, C#, JavaScript, or C++ depending on
| what it is. The engineer stuff is mostly in Python. R&D
| work is typically Python or Matlab.
|
| Can you be more specific as to your background and skills?
| throwawayai2 wrote:
| Thanks this is a good place for me to start digging into.
| I have BS/MS in CS/HCI, but I've been working as a
| product designer for nearly a decade now. I'm planning on
| moving back towards the engineering side of things though
| and energy is one industry I'm interested in.
| 7thaccount wrote:
| Plenty of places will take a comp sci degree. Just start
| anywhere and get some experience and then figure out
| where you want to go.
| passwordoops wrote:
| There's a load of software needed, but it's really not sexy, or
| it requires relatively esoteric languages like MATLAB. I know
| of at least one ubiquitous system, PSCAD for simulations, that
| still relies on Fortran
| datavirtue wrote:
| And? What are you trying to say? Banking software IS sexy?
| bdcravens wrote:
| Each of those sectors has a variety of support roles:
| accounting, HR, software, janitorial, etc, in addition to
| primary operations.
| kragen wrote:
| i wonder why they include 'motor vehicles and component parts'
| jobs as 'energy jobs' but not, for example, carpentry jobs or
| cooking jobs
|
| a dude selling car parts isn't producing or reselling energy, and
| i'm pretty sure a cook with a gas burner applies more energy in
| their work
|
| if we cast the net wide enough to include auto parts stores then
| 100% of jobs are energy jobs
|
| maybe they're trying to choose only the categories of jobs where
| employment is going up instead of down
| dangrossman wrote:
| Probably because it aligns with this administration's push to
| create clean energy jobs, in large part, by (quite
| successfully) pushing for EV and EV battery manufacturing in
| the US.
| kragen wrote:
| does that mean a guy who sells replacement shock absorbers
| for diesel trucks has an 'energy job' tho
| hexhexhexagon wrote:
| [flagged]
| hexhexhexagon wrote:
| feels similar to the logic behind what goes into the CPI and
| what doesn't
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-08-16 23:02 UTC)