MT residents thoughts on Steve Bullock

[BigHornRam]

Politicans suck!

Bullock Flips on Coal

Montana governor and 2020 presidential candidate Steve Bullock (D.) flipped on his support for coal last week during an interview.

freebeacon.com

 

[Doublecluck]

Politicans suck!

Bullock Flips on Coal

Montana governor and 2020 presidential candidate Steve Bullock (D.) flipped on his support for coal last week during an interview.

freebeacon.com

“we have to be taking steps to also mitigate the impacts of greenhouse gas when it comes to coal."

Translation- I want to tax someone, ultimately the consumer, and do nothing that will effect the climate.

 

[Ben Lamb]

Bullock: Renewables are cheaper than coal now, so let's find ways to protect coal workers, while transitioning to cheaper power.

Knee-Jerkers:

 

[BigHornRam]

Bullock: Renewables are cheaper than coal now, so let's find ways to protect coal workers, while transitioning to cheaper power.

Knee-Jerkers:

I've heard this claim, that renewables are cheaper than coal, before. Where is the data to back this up?

 

[Ben Lamb]

I've heard this claim, that renewables are cheaper than coal, before. Where is the data to back this up?

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...-expensive-than-wind-solar-energy/1277637001/

https://e360.yale.edu/digest/renewables-cheaper-than-75-percent-of-u-s-coal-fleet-report-finds

https://energynews.us/2019/03/25/mi...per-than-operating-most-existing-coal-plants/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source

 

[MTGomer]

Dam the Yellowstone. Dam the Missouri some more and put a milltown dam back in. There’s your affordable renewable source for a state like Montana.
Sounds great.

Billions would have to be spent on storage to capture enough solar/wind power to provide baseload energy for states like Montana. I don’t know where the energy would come from.


If we can use the word ‘clean’ instead of ‘renewable’ we could talk about real solutions for carbon free energy with nuclear but politicians are cowards.

 

[Ben Lamb]

Dam the Yellowstone. Dam the Missouri some more and put a milltown dam back in. There’s your affordable renewable source for a state like Montana.
Sounds great.

Billions would have to be spent on storage to capture enough solar/wind power to provide baseload energy for states like Montana. I don’t know where the energy would come from.


If we can use the word ‘clean’ instead of ‘renewable’ we could talk about real solutions for carbon free energy with nuclear but politicians are cowards.

Nuclear is one of the most expensive types of energy. How are you going to reduce the cost to make it competitive with other energy supplies?


We spend billions on pipelines now. Billions on infrastructure to move LNG & Crude, billions on shipping coal. How is developing the storage infrastructure any different than what we do now with Coal, oil and gas?

I think the baseload argument doesn't carry water. https://skepticalscience.com/print.php?r=374

 

[MTGomer]

The summary does make a bit of sense

“by coupling them with peak-load plants such as gas turbines fueled by biofuels or natural gas ”

LA, Phoenix and Vegas alone are enormous, hot cities with major industries and tens of millions of AC units.
It’s hard to imagine or calculate the area needed to run them all on solar/wind.
Where I work, we are not installing any more solar without pairing it with a battery for storage. There is actually plenty of solar it’s just on the grid at the wrong time. The ‘Duck Curve’ is what it’s called.

But we also just brought on line two new quick cycle gas turbines for peak demand.
Bio fuels are being looked at pretty hard too.
Renewable, and abundant but not clean.


The sun is always out here though. I bet supplying Seattle and Portland with solar would be a project.

 

[BigHornRam]

Your USA Today link has no data Ben. Just opinion.

It did contain this paragraph however.

Renewables are getting ever cheaper
The rise of fracking has produced a natural gas boom in the USA. Though less polluting than coal, it's still a fossil fuel, and burning it pumps carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Natural gas is cheaper than coal, which it has rapidly replaced, and produces 35% of U.S. electricity, according to the Energy Information Administration.

 

[Ben Lamb]

The summary does make a bit of sense

“by coupling them with peak-load plants such as gas turbines fueled by biofuels or natural gas ”

LA, Phoenix and Vegas alone are enormous, hot cities with major industries and tens of millions of AC units.
It’s hard to imagine or calculate the area needed to run them all on solar/wind.
Where I work, we are not installing any more solar without pairing it with a battery for storage. There is actually plenty of solar it’s just on the grid at the wrong time. The ‘Duck Curve’ is what it’s called.

But we also just brought on line two new quick cycle gas turbines for peak demand.

The issue of land use for renewables is one that the conservation & environmental communities tend to gloss over, and that's a damned shame. Zinke had the right idea on solar - use existing developed land to install industrial scale solar projects, not public land. If you had every new housing unit required to be energy neutral then you could severely reduce the amount of fossil-fuel based energy. Home solar works perfectly well, and the storage issue is being dealt with through battery innovation. Wind takes us vast amounts of land for the industrial scale as well, and if sited improperly, is a bad deal for critters.

Every form of energy we have today has negative impacts on the land, air, water and wildlife. How we mitigate that and move towards a more livable energy portfolio is a huge challenge.

 

[Ben Lamb]

Your USA Today link has no data Ben. Just opinion.

It did contain this paragraph however.

Renewables are getting ever cheaper
The rise of fracking has produced a natural gas boom in the USA. Though less polluting than coal, it's still a fossil fuel, and burning it pumps carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Natural gas is cheaper than coal, which it has rapidly replaced, and produces 35% of U.S. electricity, according to the Energy Information Administration.

The USA article contained links. You have to click those to find the study.

The other three sources have studies as well.

And yes, LNG is what is causing coal to crash, but Renewables are closing in. Coal is a dinosaur and is on it's way out - and that was Bullock's point. The market has decided that coal is too expensive to stay the primary energy source for the nation that uses more energy than any other.

 

[BigHornRam]

Your links are opinions from activists Ben.

Bullock made this statement in 2016.

"Coal is an important part of Montana, it has been, and we need to make sure, not only for the communities, but for the workers and the community, that it continues to be a part of it." he said. "More coal was actually mined in the first three years of my administration than on average the past 30 on average, each time."


Now it's a dinosaur. Hillary played that hand in 2016. Good luck playing it in 2020.

 

[Ben Lamb]

Your links are opinions from activists Ben.

Bullock made this statement in 2016.

"Coal is an important part of Montana, it has been, and we need to make sure, not only for the communities, but for the workers and the community, that it continues to be a part of it." he said. "More coal was actually mined in the first three years of my administration than on average the past 30 on average, each time."


Now it's a dinosaur. Hillary played that hand in 2016. Good luck playing it in 2020.

Sad. Low energy. Can't read!

 

[BigHornRam]

Australia's energy troubles should be of concern to the USA.

Australia's big power blackout

Energy riches split the country and poison politics

asia.nikkei.com

Yes Ben, this is an opinion piece.

 

[Carnage2011]

We are a loooong way from having solar as a reliable option. Battery storage for an entire city would be unbelievably expensive, and the maintenance would have a ton of cost as well. 99% of people don’t even understand how solar energy works. Most people think that it goes straight from your panel to feeding your house. It’s fairly easy to build a system that will store energy on batteries for a single house, but to scale that to a large area is going to be a process. Currently people are able to backfeed the grid and the utilities cover the maintenance costs, but that’s not going to last much longer. Seattle and Portland like to talk about their renewable energy, but when Colstrip begins to shut down the cost of their power is going to jump significantly. That 500kv line provides a ton of power to a bunch of states (I believe 16). Bullock is simply trying to win over some more democrats.

 

[MooseCaboose]

Bullock has positioned himself far more centrist than his personal views but has proven to be a reliable friend of federal public lands and hunting. Seems to put solutions above party but is a politician and opportunist to the end. Couldn’t ever stomach voting for him but consider him well intentioned. There have been whispers (growing louder) of indiscretion and it will be intriguing to see if any of these are borne out during this election cycle.

 

[Carnage2011]

Bullock has positioned himself far more centrist than his personal views but has proven to be a reliable friend of federal public lands and hunting. Seems to put solutions above party but is a politician and opportunist to the end. Couldn’t ever stomach voting for him but consider him well intentioned. There have been whispers (growing louder) of indiscretion and it will be intriguing to see if any of these are borne out during this election cycle.

Those whispers are definitely gaining traction. I don’t believe they will end well for him.

 

[BigHornRam]

The summary does make a bit of sense

“by coupling them with peak-load plants such as gas turbines fueled by biofuels or natural gas ”


Bio fuels are being looked at pretty hard too.
Renewable, and abundant but not clean.

The greens don't like bio fuels either. Turning slash into energy is not acceptable to them.

Europe's 'renewable' energy plan is actually destroying US forests

Wood is a "renewable energy" in Europe, but it's terrible for the environment.

amp.businessinsider.com

 

[BigHornRam]

Coal is bad and so is wood biomass.

U.S. pellet exports boom as Europe mixes wood with coal to reduce carbon footprint - treesource

Worse than coal. Exploits a carbon loophole. Creates a carbon deficit. No, we are not talking about drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Rather, these are a few of the complaints critics level against burning wood pellets in place of coal to reduce Europe’s carbon footprint...

treesource.org

 

[MTGomer]

I always thought getting your D s’ed by a staffer was a right of passage for a married democrat.
Maybe he will hit 1%