A storm descends on a small town, and the downpour soon turns into a flood. As the waters rise, the local preacher kneels in prayer on the church porch, surrounded by water. By and by, one of the townsfolk comes up the street in a canoe.
"Better get in, Preacher. The waters are rising fast."
"No," says the preacher. "I have faith in the Lord. He will save me."
Still the waters rise. Now the preacher is up on the balcony, wringing his hands in supplication, when another guy zips up in a motorboat.
"Come on, Preacher. We need to get you out of here. The levee's gonna break any minute."
Once again, the preacher is unmoved. "I shall remain. The Lord will see me through."
After a while the levee breaks, and the flood rushes over the church until only the steeple remains above water. The preacher is up there, clinging to the cross, when a helicopter descends out of the clouds, and a state trooper calls down to him through a megaphone.
"Grab the ladder, Preacher. This is your last chance."
Once again, the preacher insists the Lord will deliver him.
And, predictably, he drowns.
A pious man, the preacher goes to heaven. After a while he gets an interview with God, and he asks the Almighty, "Lord, I had unwavering faith in you. Why didn't you deliver me from that flood?"
God shakes his head. "What did you want from me? I sent you two boats and a helicopter."
It bans cloud seeding and geoengineering. Passing this off as a 'ban on chemtrails' is deliberately dishonest.
a Class B misdemeanor for the injection, release or dispersal of “a chemical, a chemical compound, a substance, or an apparatus into the atmosphere within or above this state for the purpose of affecting the weather, including temperature, climate, and intensity of sunlight.
Yeah. A series of fucktarted decisions caused Germany to fuck themselves:
Germany turned off all their nuclear plants (why?!)
Germany turned off all their coal plants (good)
Germany vastly increased natural gas imports and tied themselves at the hip to Russia (they were publicly told this was a bad idea. Germany laughed it off)
Germany ramped up solar/wind production (good)
Germany did not invest in grid-scale storage to go with that solar/wind (Just going whole-hog on trusting Russia)
Russia invaded Ukraine and held natural gas exports to Germany's throat (boy, who would have guessed Russia would fuck over Germany?!)
Germany had to emergency expand their LNG imports amid record-high prices and with hastily-built LNG terminals (LNG is also the most expensive way to import natural gas)
Germany had to online coal plants due to shortages (boy, those nuclear plants would have been damn helpful!)
Germany now has some of the highest priced electricity anywhere
They really, really, really should have kept those nuclear plants like France...
Yep, France has cheaper energy than Germany. France went nuclear, Germany went solar/wind (and even had to re-online some coal plants due to shortages).
The pushback on nuclear from anti-fossil advocates never ceases to amaze me.
Batteries plus solar is still cheaper than all other power systems.
Several of my friends live in states with energy provider choice. Buying from the 100% green power providers is more expensive. Natural gas is extremely cheap after all.
Yep, the unreliability is exactly why buying from 100% green energy providers is more expensive than buying from natural gas providers. Batteries are extremely expensive, natural gas is cheap.
Source: Several of my friends live in states with energy provider choice; the green providers cost more.
Are you getting their specific electrons? No. (Electrons in AC systems don’t actually travel very far, you get the same ones jiggling back and forth!) But they make that much more power and your previous provider makes that much less power. The end result is you buy power from that provider, just as promised.
As you said, the grid must be balanced. Your old provider cannot generate the power, and your new provider must generate the amount if power you now buy. If either of those are not the case, the grid is not balanced.
In the US, a big part of it is that natural gas is a waste product of oil fracking. If you want the oil, you will get a giant gob of natural gas to go with it. The stuff is really, really fucking cheap because of this.
Lots of US states have legislation that lets you choose your energy provider. People buy from the 100% green energy providers if they wish to pay more, not if they wish to save money.
Source: Several of my friends live in these states; they pay more to buy from 100% green energy providers.
it must be short term as a response to market shocks
NYC has had rent control for decades. If we are talking about short-term rent control working, we are necessarily talking about removing rent control from NYC.
Talking about adding more rent control in NYC is doubling down on failure, doubling down on fucking over NYC renters.
Economists of all stripes agree rent control doesn't work. A mere 2% think it has positive effects, according to a 2012 survey by the IGM Forum.
The analysis of rent control is among the best-understood issues in all of economics, and – among economists anyway – one of the least controversial. In 1992, a poll of the American Economic Association found 93 percent of its members agreeing that 'a ceiling on rents reduces the quality and quantity of housing.
Why would I need an app for my skiis?