Governor Kristi Noem didn’t produce a Glamour Shots video of her first veto the way she did for her first bill signing. She just sent out the standard veto message, saying she vetoed Senate Bill 14 because if “creates unacceptable ambiguity and confusion over the Public Utility Commission’s authority” and imposes additional regulation over solar power plants.
Now that’s interesting, because the PUC’s Chris Nelson said SB 14 actually reduces regulations, and enough Republicans voted for it, by veto-proof majorities, that one would think that’s the case…. unless they’re all on the ALEC take and are working to kill solar power.
SB 14 itself doesn’t write new regulations: it just adds a definition of solar energy facility and subjects such facilities to the same application process the PUC already conducts for other energy plants.
Governor Noem did sign House Bill 1031 Tuesday to allow the Commissioner of School and Public Lands to offer easements and leases for wind and solar power on the land in his hands, so it appears the Governor is not trying to stick a spoke in the wheels of renewable energy.
CleanTechnica author Tina Casey sides with solar and the Governor, noting that while there are some sunnier places, there’s still plenty of opportunity here to make some green energy… with which Henry Red Cloud wholeheartedly agrees. SolarPowerRocks.com still gives us an F for promoting solar power:
Dang, maybe if the Legislature were as interested in incentivizing wind turbines and solar plants as they are in giving tax breaks to factory feedlots, we could raise that grade to green!
Cory,
If you want to spend money on the more expensive green energy, do it out of your own pocket, not the taxpayers.
I see that Democrats want to get rid of all cows and airplanes.
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.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/02/the-green-new-deal-and-gerundive-government.php
No steak for you is going to be the new campaign slogan against Trump.
I can’t wait.
https://brookingsregister.com/article/thoughts-on-the-green-new-deal
Today just pumping out a lot of solar and wind energy will encumber us (or somebody else) to emit natural gas or coal to balance supply and demand.
We have solved the intermittency of renewables via the use of natural gas. We have not solved carbon capture or energy storage that would avoid or reduce the emissions from natural gas (including from flaring and leaks which generate no electricity at all).
Until we solve those two items, one can either try to use solar and wind energy whenever it is available (which will not match up with demand), or have more nuclear energy available.
Vermont by the way (home of Bernie Sanders) shut down its nuclear plant, and increased its carbon emissions by 16%. That kind of increase doesn’t come from cows, that comes from backup power along with economic growth.
Hey, Doc. You been hiding? I was curious a week or som ago about a report that Drumpf administration dumped weapons grade plutonium on Nevada without telling authorities. Some dispute whether the story is true. The guy that reported says his version is supported by court docs.
I will look for original story. And my apologies for the off topic.
https://www.rgj.com/story/news/2019/01/30/doe-secretly-shipped-plutonium-nevada/2725872002/
I guess it was originally supposed to go to Miss Lindsey Graham’s home COD. (I made some of the last statement up.)
Hey Mike,
Plutonium can be safely shipped, and apparently it was. And a federal judge ordered them to remove it from South Carolina. They moved a metric ton of the stuff, so they had to use containers that can withstand severe impacts…I don’t think an earthquake or a flood will make a difference.
What is not being reported is that there used to be a program to process weapons-grade plutonium into commercial nuclear fuel, and we stopped doing that. Partly because of the upfront expense of doing so (cleaning up old facilities and and building new ones).
So the plutonium would be consumed in a reactor, we would get carbon-free energy, and there would be no weapons-grade plutonium to ship in the first place. That would have been the best solution, but the present shipment had a lower cost and complied with a federal ruling.
Also off-topic…the amount of nuclear waste that we produce per person today if all of our electricity over a lifetime came from nuclear power would fill one soda can….reprocessing would allow the waste of 20 people to fill a soda can and be less radioactive. But we are not spending the money to do that.
This link is to a 1978 testing of casks for transport of nuclear materials. The casks have been improved since then.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzupfyrWiew
“Had California and Germany spent on nuclear what they instead spent on renewables, both places would already have 100% clean power.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2019/02/08/the-only-green-new-deals-that-have-ever-worked-were-done-with-nuclear-not-renewables/
Thanks, Doc. I am a watt brighter than before.
We’ll have more renewables Mike…don’t worry about that. I would rather have them without more total carbon in 30 years.
Mr. McTaggart, I am unfamiliar with how nuclear reactors work and am too lazy to spend much time Googling to learning. What does the plutonium used in a nuclear reactor turn (degrade?) into?
There is no one final product…the short answer is you will find a good number of the heavier elements in the periodic table at the end of the day.
If you just had a bunch of plutonium and let it decay over millions of years, you would wind up with isotopes of lead. The half-lives are such that we don’t have any naturally-occurring plutonium any more. In a reactor, fission breaks up plutonium into some of the heavier elements in the periodic table below lead, but fission also leads to the generation of plutonium from U-238.
Over time, some Plutonium-239 is made after U-238 absorbs a neutron. That Plutonium can either absorb a neutron to become something else (including other isotopes of plutonium) or it can fission, or it can decay. Each Pu isotope follows a different decay sequence, and all of those daughter isotopes can interact with neutrons.
Pu-239 and Pu-241 are fissile, and they contribute to the power of a reactor (I think it is something like 10%). After they fission, there is usually a high mass isotope and a low mass isotope, both of which decay into other things until the end isotope is stable.
If the dimwit party is going to link us to information cites, they should at least be credible.
Rightwing Powerline blog is hardly credible.
By the way, Pat Powers is also complaining about cow farts and airplanes.
Some of the isotopes that are left after the fission of uranium and plutonium would support solar energy, wind energy, and energy storage. One would not reprocess used nuclear fuel to only collect the critical elements needed by renewables, but it would be a side benefit.
Hey Doc: reviewing uranium cost websites I wonder if hidden costs or subsidies or externalities are included in renewable energy comparisons. Like costs to environment from Baaken flaring, or disposing waste, or bird deaths, or battery storage. Elimination of carbon fuels must occur now.
Jason, I’d love to share a link with you pertaining directly to wind and solar power, specifically how they differ from fossil fuel. Humans are notoriously bad at understanding exponential energy sources (which wind and solar are). This video does a great job at explaining these differences and the effect it has on pricing.
https://youtu.be/ssfbq7PVktA
The short answer is no, those are not included. While people are more aware of the sustainability issues that we are not dealing with now, I do not think anybody wants to admit how much that will cost.
Wind turbines and batteries need special metals like the rare earths. China provides most of the global supply, and we could have a wider trade dispute than we have now. If we do not do any mining or recycling ourselves, and we depend on a 100% renewable energy supply, then what happens when we can no longer replace wind turbines and batteries as they fail?
Ultimately the green new deal, or what I hope becomes the “new green deal” will be sustainable, generate the power we use when we want to use it, and reduces our total carbon.
Kevin, thanks for the video. It’s nearly an hour long and I was hesitant to invest the time watching but it was well worth it. We are standing on the edge of the future. Just as coal was the energy of the 19th Century and oil was the energy of the 20th Century, wind and solar will be the energy of the 21st Century. We are standing on the edge of the future.
Kevin,
I’m not against wind and solar. I am against taxpayers paying for it.
I am also against subsidies to carbon fuel producers given by Democrats and Republicans.
Jason – I think when one boils (or fissions) down your resistance to anything, it all comes down to “I don’t want to pay”. By throwing that “taxpayers” term in there I think you are simply smoke-screening your personal stinginess in general. BTW – how do you feel about federal subsidies (taxpayers paying for) to oil exploration?
Richard has Jason’s game down, exactly. Jason’s too damn cheap to pay for all that he gets from America. [He’s like the guy who eats like a pig but goes to the head when the bill shows up.]
Jason, like most of his ilk, is OK with someone else paying for what he uses; like roadways…
I pay private companies for my utilities and fuel.
I also pay for the roadways through income tax and fuel taxes.
Jake and Porter once again show the intelligence of the Democrat party.
Richard,
I addressed subsidies in my post that you must not have read.