I'm sorry, but you seem to not understand the realities of how this industry works.

Even if a utility wants to retire an unprofitable coal unit, they might not be allowed to do so (by the state) if they're still paying it off. Let's also say they want to retire their entire fleet and go to renewables as you suggest. Will they be allowed to raise rates to pay for the millions of dollars necessary to do so? How will the poor afford a new and expensive bill? Also, although I would agree that this is good for the environment and could be vital to survival as a species, are you ok with a less reliable grid? I am, but this isn't an easy sell. I can tell you right now that there isn't enough storage that can be built anytime soon to make a rush transition for the nation. Hawaii is working on this, and they are tiny with abundant sun. But what happens in bad weather when the sun doesn't shine for a week? They need many multiples of their total capacity in storage to avoid rolling blackouts. I'm not saying it is impossible, but there are big hurdles without making this the Federal government's most important issue.

There might be some of what you talk of as well with some groups resisting change (of course there is), but in reality it isn't as simple as all utilities are evil. The reality is that there are huge changes already going on in industry that are happening about as fast as we can go. Renewable integration is happening and very quickly. The fuel-mix in my region has shifted from only a few percent of renewables into the majority of what we have online at times. This huge progress has occurred in less than a decade! This is a huge technological and social problem. Please do keep up your interest and sense of urgency though. Public opinion will be the primary motivator of Washington.

> Even if a utility wants to retire an unprofitable coal unit, they might not be allowed to do so (by the state) if they're still paying it off. Let's also say they want to retire their entire fleet and go to renewables as you suggest. Will they be allowed to raise rates to pay for the millions of dollars necessary to do so?

...

Read what the OP said:

> if we actually had the help of the federal government (via grants, etc)

They are actually becoming increasingly involved in this area by mandating certain energy market changes like reducing barriers for energy storage. It's a process though.

If I misunderstood some of the intent of the post I was responding to, they have my sincerest apology.

"Even if a utility wants to retire an unprofitable coal unit, they might not be allowed to do so (by the state) if they're still paying it off."

'sell' it to a subsidiary and bankrupt it. Or act like a bani and pretend it's too big to fail. There are many ways to ditch an asset if you want to.

"Let's also say they want to retire their entire fleet and go to renewables as you suggest. Will they be allowed to raise rates to pay for the millions of dollars necessary to do so?"

If they can't afford it then they should have looked at the coming markets and ideals of the users.

:Note I read the rest of your comment and agreed with your sentiment. To an extent. But you cannot argue in good faith that the companies that have been making bank without caring a single whit about the environmental cost are somehow the good guys when they have to start considering it.

We have seen recently that bp knew in the 80's of the effect of excessive fuel consumption on global warming. To think that they were the only large company in a similar industry to realise this is just sticking your head in the sand.

Shit has to change. We are running out of options, and frankly if some of these companies go under because they didn't prepare based on knowledge they more than likely knew, well stiff fucking shit.

I'm in a world where my son has to deal with the consequences of the previous generation, and to an extent my own actions before I had learnt enough to know.

It's time to own up, act in the best interest of everyone as a whole. If you don't, well, don't come crying to me when people start taking drastic action.

Edit: a few words, on a mobile.

I sympathize with where you're coming from. There needs to probably be a unified response from each country to make this transition happen as soon as possible.

Please keep in mind that building a coal plant wasn't a dumb idea 20 years ago where we had forecasted load growth, expensive natural gas, and renewables weren't a thing.

Why would retiring unprofitable coal plants raise prices?

Closing them all would save US consumers 10 billion a year, just in electricity costs.

No Country for Coal Gen report

https://www.carbontracker.org/reports/no-country-for-coal-ge...

In the energy market things would be cheaper when replacing it with renewables, but spending billions on additional wind farms, solar, and storage has a steep initial price tag. You'd also have to spend billions on transmission to connect all the new generation to the grid. That or mass scale microgrids which would be cheaper, but still very expensive.

Expensive up-front things that save you money can be bought with loans and paid off with future savings.

Agreed, but the key difference is that this is not only massively expensive, but will require years of construction and the coordination of millions of people.

To make that happen, FERC is trying to incent the right market conditions and some are occurring naturally.

> wait until they haven't exhausted every penny of profits before moving to renewable energy?

XCel is a regulated energy company. Their profits are defined by their state regulators and they are granted a right to a specific rate of return through the regulation process.

Be careful what you wish for. Look at Germany for the best example of what you are asking for. Ignore the PR and look at the data. They have increased solar capacity, but are closing natural gas and nuclear plants to build new lignite coal plants(the worst of the coal burning plants). Since their focus on solar, Germany's CO2 reductions have actually slowed!

It seems like the biggest problem is the retreat from nuclear, not the focus on solar.

Or the fact that the sun doesn't shine that much in Germany? Look at a world solar potential energy map. They are throwing money down the drain.

A combination of shutting down nuclear to just import from France's nukes down the road and use solar where they don't get much sun I would guess.

Off topic so I apologize, but I saw your name, did a double take and had to say, "It's awesome".

Ok, looking at the data, Germany gets over 40% of its electricity from renewables, while the USA gets less than 20%.

The US has multiple states larger than Germany I think. Regardless, it is much bigger and requires more work.

Germany has a population of 80 million people. The largest US state is California with 40 million people.

Population and load is only one piece to the puzzle. A larger country means a much larger and more expensive transmission grid.

> to build new lignite coal plants

Germany has reduced it's energy from coal by 20% over the period since the transition began. Please cite your reliable sources that show they are replacing nuclear and gas with coal.

Energy from gas is up slightly, about 7%, over the same period. Nuclear is down 50%. The difference is all replaced by solar and wind.

> are closing natural gas and nuclear plants to build new lignite coal plants

Do you have a source for this? Specifically the building of new coal plants.

Yes, since it is a political shitshow. Just today they presented a plan to distribute 40 billion to give those "poor" workers and communities depending on lignite a "perspektiv for the future" [0].

And I do see reasons for that. It's just that all of this would have been done ages ago if we had a lignite fukushima.

[0] https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/kabinett-kohleausstieg-101....

Because they took a stance on nuclear power and refuse to use it. The do not care about facts and safety of nuclear power, instead they choose to poison the air for surrounding countries and be the 9 out of 10 largest CO2 contributor of Europe. Renewables + nuclear power is the real deal in clean energy, having renewables + coal is definitely not going to cut it.

You're being super disingenuous here. The main priority of Germany's energy transition program was not to lower electricity carbon emissions; it was to phase out nuclear. They were far more worried about a 2nd Fukushima than global warming.

And as you point out, they are managing to reduce CO2 emissions anyway.

What makes you think it's only corporate power companies out to make a profit that are the bad guys? It's all of them, including the public utilities. I live in the Tennessee Valley, TVA is consistently the WORST utility in the South in terms of green energy initiatives, and they're a quasi-governmental agency with a complete monopoly over the region they serve. They don't make profits. Their green power program is a sham and in fact they killed our budding green energy manufacturing economy back around 2005 with absurd, arbitrary restrictions on who could get solar panels and hook them up to the grid because those were a threat to their coal buddies' bottom line. Freaking DUKE POWER, whose history includes the blood of who knows how many coal miners, blows us out of the water. (Not that TVA doesn't have blood on its hands, either, but that's another story.)

Anyway, to all the people who wonder why Appalachia won't do the obvious and just replace coal with green energy: oh, we tried, and the powers that be shut that shit down cuz they weren't gonna have none of that. Coal owns us and they aren't gonna let go without a fight.

It's almost like government-enforced monopolies are bad. You want the regulators to be in charge, until they do something you don't like, funny how that works. You want democracy until democracy votes in people that don't represent you, funny how that works.

If there wasn't a ubiquitous subsidized power grid already, at-home solar installs would be cheaper. Large utilities are only competitive because they can externalize their costs via state-enforced mechanisms (absolving responsibility for pollution, stealing property aka eminent domain).

For all the crap I give the Cali government. Their high cost of gas made me buy an ev as it was cheaper.

Now with the PGE bankruptcy, rates will increase and I'll likely buy solar.

Capitalism works. people optimize for what's cheapest for themselves

People always optimize, whether in capitalism or communism, or anything else. It's a survival function - even ants do it [1].

And what you're calling capitalism is more "fascism-lite" due to excessive regulation. (see [2] for "...severe economic and social regimentation, ...")

[1] - https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/05/140526182749.h... [2] - https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fascism

> I live in the Tennessee Valley, TVA is consistently the WORST utility in the South in terms of green energy initiatives

Really? Of TVA's energy sales in 2017, 7.09% were from "green sources", good for #4 of all power utilities, private or public, in the country.

https://www.nrel.gov/analysis/assets/pdfs/utility-green-powe...

I think you misunderstand the linked doc.

Oak Ridge Electric Company, which is a tiny municipal utility that sources electricity from TVA, has 7.09% participation in its green pricing program (which presumably bypasses TVA). This has nothing to do with TVA itself and how it generates power.

There's not even case here for Greenpeace style bootstomping. a Green New Deal legislation could redirect funds from carbon taxes back into renewable energy reinvestment, turning an externality into a mechanism to fund the cleaning of that externality. Hell, the very companies that would be paying that tax could turn around and open their own renewable energy arms and take that money right back as reinvestment. I don't know why this wouldn't get bipartisan support.

So you think that carbon taxes invested into renewable energy have no negative policy consquences at all?

Either the customers of the utility will have to pay higher rates to support the higher costs of new renewable energy or capital providers will be expected to take a haircut. In basically every prior case policy makers have essentially ringfenced energy suppliers from bearing the financial cost themselves and consumers are ultimately the ones who pay extra for renewable energy with business and industrial users often avoiding higher utility bills like in germany.

So basically, you might as well do what germany does and just force consumers to pay in the first place for higher electricity prices. That's a lot easier to administratively manage than having to collect new taxes from energy users.

OK? You raised a valid point that there may be a negative policy consequence, then abruptly undermined it by saying "we'll just make them pay it anyway." I mean, that's the point. We're paying for externalities with regards to energy creation one way or another. To not pay for "dirty" energy out of pocket now is just kicking the can down the road. Plus there's myriad positives to tipping the balance of incentives toward renewables.

I suppose conservatives might oppose such legislation because it would be an opposing view, but... well hell, who am I kidding. It's not like they have any other reason to exist now besides being contradictory.

> 3. The modern Senate under McConnell appears wholly uninterested in passing legislation of any kind, and is almost exclusively dedicated to approving judges nominated by conservatives

This is arguably close to an optimal strategy for the GOP. If current demographic trends translate to the ballot box, the GOP may be less successful in future elections, at least in the near term. If a large number of GOP federal judges can be appointed for life to the bench, this puts in place at least a beachhead from which conservative economic and social policy from judicial activism can check any potential liberal influence from legislative or executive branches.

And lest we forget: grandstanding oratorical epics and investigations because Hillary lost.

Yeah screw the planet because I'm bitter about an election. Makes sense /s

We all lose on this game plan.

It doesn't get bipartisan support because Green New Deal comes mixed in with a bunch of other controversial welfare crap (universal healthcare, basic income, guaranteed jobs, free college) that makes it too hard to swallow. Thus, you can easily oppose GND even if you are not opposed to climate change policies. If we want to get serious about climate change we need to propose legislation specifically to target that and nothing else, otherwise you just add fuel to all the "fixing climate change is a wealth redistribution plot" conspiracies.

First off, the GND is just a framework for lowering CO2 emissions while creating new jobs in an industry in transition. There's no inherent legislation in it, so I'm using it as a framing for any actual bill that would be drawn up in its framework.

And I think you're right about "riders" convoluting such legislation too much to make it too political. But there _is_ an inherent problem to transitioning to clean energy, and that's: What do we do with all those people in the "dirty" energy world? The original New Deal sought to employ people as a primary effect of building US infra. If it had just been focused on infra, it may have never got off the ground.

Let them figure that out. Let’s not hold the climate hostage because a few people are going to lose their jobs, otherwise we are no better than companies pumping CO2 into the atmosphere.

Would that be before or after all planes are grounded and every building in the US is retrofitted or rebuilt to be more energy efficient in ten years?

Do you have a source for all planes being grounded? And retro fitted can mean a whole spectrum of things from very cheap things to very expensive things.

They initially released a document with more detail then the bill and pulled it back when they realized it was insanity.

I found a archive of it here: https://www.heartland.org/publications-resources/publication...

Some quotes:

"We set a goal to get to net-zero, rather than zero emissions, in 10 years because we aren’t sure that we’ll be able to fully get rid of farting cows and airplanes that fast, but we think we can ramp up renewable manufacturing and power production, retrofit every building in America, build the smart grid, overhaul transportation and agriculture, plant lots of trees and restore our ecosystem to get to net-zero."

"we also need to start doing new things (like overhauling whole industries or retrofitting all buildings to be energy efficient)."

"Totally overhaul transportation by massively expanding electric vehicle manufacturing, build charging stations everywhere, build out highspeed rail at a scale where air travel stops becoming necessary, create affordable public transit available to all, with goal to replace every combustion-engine vehicle"

"A Green New Deal is a massive investment in renewable energy production and would not include creating new nuclear plants."

"The Green New Deal makes new fossil fuel infrastructure or nuclear plants unnecessary."

"Repair and upgrade U.S. infrastructure. ASCE estimates this is $4.6 trillion at minimum."

"The level of investment required is massive. Even if every billionaire and company came together and were willing to pour all the resources at their disposal into this investment, the aggregate value of the investments they could make would not be sufficient."

"How will you pay for it? The same way we paid for the New Deal, the 2008 bank bailout and extended quantitative easing programs. The same way we paid for World War II and all our current wars. The Federal Reserve can extend credit to power these projects and investments and new public banks can be created to extend credit."

"Promote justice and equity by stopping current, preventing future, and repairing historic oppression of frontline and vulnerable communities"

"Work with farmers and ranchers to create a sustainable, pollution and greenhouse gas free, food system that ensures universal access to healthy food and expands independent family farming"

Bonus quote:

"That would be pretty hard for Hawaii" - Sen Mazie Hirono on the air travel elimination plan

I highly suggest reading the FAQ and the bill (its only 14 pages) if you haven't it is laugh out loud funny.

That's because it was a draft document. In other words, you're pinning everything you're saying on a document that wasn't even done. What, you think this is some kind of "gotcha" moment? Do you really think they'd release an official document about "cows farting"?

If that's the case maybe they should focus on running their small office and get that solid before proposing to restructure the entire economy.

They still must be drafting it because I don't see a document to take it's place yet.

I see nothing about grounding all planes unless " doing things to make it unnecessary" is what you mean. That is quite a stretch. Keep in mind if we go down our current path the result is potentially human extinction.

Retrofitting older buildings is a fantastic idea that isn't terribly expensive in the grand scheme of things.

Retrofitting every building in the United States in ten years is what was purposed. The tradespeople I know are all very busy and find it hard to hire in this college focused age. Unemployment is virtually zero. Where will all these able bodied skilled workers come from? (Not to mention the trillions of dollars required)

You’re taking this literally when you should be taking it seriously. All of those issues will become more important the next time there’s slack in the construction labor market.

If I can't take a policy proposal literally how on earth can I take it seriously?

> The clean energy strategy is part of new legal settlement between the company, environmental organizations, and labor groups involving Xcel’s proposed $650 million purchase of a 760-megawatt natural gas plant.

So they’re cutting about twice as much coal production to replace it with cheaper natural gas and the renewables they probably had planned anyway?