“… costs for Plant Vogtle have ballooned past $34 billion, the equivalent of $15,000/kW, making it the most expensive power plant ever built on earth.”
“… no, it’s not ‘litigation’ ‘anti-nuke greenies’ or ‘overburdened regulations’ that’s behind Plant Vogtle’s failures. It’s incompetence. Or let’s be charitable: Is this thing just too hard to build?” (Patty Durand, below)
Patty Durand, candidate for the Georgia Public Service Commission (GPSC) in a special election this year, is running on a platform, “let’s regulate utilities better.” I would prefer her tag line to also be, ‘let’s remove franchise protection from Georgia Power and the rest of the Southern Company utilities for competition.’ But take whatever is available in a crony business/regulator state, long exposed by Jim Clarkson (here).
Candidate Durand is focused on the Plant Vogtle #3 and #4 boondoggle, long chronicled at MasterResource.…
“Fossil fuel-supporting Chicken Littles have done their best to spread fear of renewable energy, warning that relying on wind, solar and storage would lead to blackouts and economic devastation.” (Tomlinson, pre-Storm Uri)
“The Republicans’ goal [with new legislation] is to keep coal plants open and burn more natural gas … [and] wreck the climate….” (Tomlinson, today)
Chris Tomlinson rides again–bashing gas/coal-based grid reliability in favor of more wind, more solar, enormous battery reliance, and government demand-side management to ration demand to (wounded) supply.
The latest is his editorial in the Houston Chronicle last week, “Lawmakers to Send Electric Bill Much Higher” (March 22, 2023). Rather than admitting that the unreliables have wounded (and will further wound) the reliables because of government intervention and planning (see here, here, and here), he fusses at fossil fuels and muckrakes (hypocritically [1]) against the rich.…
“Last chance travel …. From melting glaciers to unbearable summer heat, climate change will make some holiday destinations unrecognizable.”
The mentality of the doomsday crowd is something to behold. Why would one go zombie on the coming end of modern civilization rather than soberly examine the (failed) track record of alarmism and the (non-alarming) data of weather extremes, temperature, and climate-related deaths?
I am reminded of two authors of the 1972 Club of Rome study who were so confident of doomism (here):
Dennis and Donella Meadows retreated to a New Hampshire farm after completing the book “to learn about homesteading and wait for the coming collapse.” “We definitely felt like Cassandras,” Donella Meadows added, “especially as we watched the world react to our work.”
But maybe Kenneth Boulding got it right when he said:
…Is there any more single-minded, simple pleasure than viewing with alarm?