Lone Candle
Champion of Truth
Even when comparing an electric vehicle getting electricity from a gas power plant to a gas vehicle, electric vehicles are still more carbon friendly because a car’s engine is less efficient at generating power than a gas power plant, and because a lot of carbon is used to transport gasoline. And, as electric grids use more and more low-carbon sources, the electric cars have an even greater carbon advantage.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gp5KF2IhUtY
Global warming is a contributor to increased electricity prices, then politicians use high electricity prices to argue that we need more fossil fuel based electricity, which drives global warming higher.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pk0Zm_xpk3c
Private electricity companies are supposed to have their prices managed by governments because they form natural monopolies, but they make tons of money because they capture the government and screw over the electricity user.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfRKOlqRG8s
Renewable energy from salt and fresh water doing some weird shit together!?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kko09WIC6yc
Small modular nuclear reactors may end up being a good idea, but they have problems. They require more shielding overall compared to one big reactor. As of yet, they haven’t been built with more speed. They produce energy less efficiently than one big reactor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1r_WPtqLp0
“The timing of this loan makes the investment all the more questionable. As CNBC reports, “When asked why Constellation was receiving the loan now,” an Energy Department official said, “Constellation could have completed the project without help from the Energy Department. But the loan will help make electricity cheaper for consumers on the grid operated by PJM Interconnection, which serves more than 65 million people across 13 states.”
Wanting to reduce electricity rates may be a worthwhile goal—energy costs are outpacing inflation and are rising faster in some states with a higher concentration of data centers—but pouring public money into restarting nuclear power plants is not the best way to achieve this.”
https://reason.com/2025/11/19/three-mile-island-can-restart-without-subsidies-the-federal-government-is-giving-it-1-billion-anyway/
“Over the last decade, roughly one in every 10 dollars of budget authority has worn an emergency tag.
…
On paper, the Office of Management and Budget has a five-part test for emergency spending: It should be necessary, sudden, urgent, unforeseen, and not permanent. Congress rarely forces itself to demonstrate, item by item, that all five prongs are met. There’s no neutral referee. Once “designated as an emergency” appears in the bill and the president concurs, the amounts are exempt from caps and PAYGO scorecards.
And because this budget label is separate from more specific “national emergency” declarations under statutes like the Stafford Act or the National Emergencies Act, it quietly turns into a vehicle for funding routine projects. It’s such a procedural magic word that fiscal guardrails all but disappear.
Finally, even when a real crisis exists, so too does opportunism. Emergency bills move fast, face weak scrutiny, and become irresistible means for unrelated projects or those that Congress would never approve otherwise. This dynamic marred the 2012-13 Hurricane Sandy package and has recurred in other disaster bills, not because relief is illegitimate but because speed plus political cover invites provisions that would die in regular order.
…
The stakes of the abuse of emergency labelling are no longer abstract. Interest costs on debt that results from the extra spending are crowding out core functions of government. Americans are hammered with “emergency” tariff costs. The next true crisis will arrive with less room to maneuver if we keep burning credibility on manufactured ones.
A republic that treats emergencies as a governing philosophy is a republic that lives without its safeguards. We must put the word back in its place: as one describing something rare, reviewable, temporary, and paid for.”
https://reason.com/2025/11/06/emergency-has-become-washingtons-favorite-loophole-its-cost-taxpayers-15-trillion/
“States that embrace renewable energy are far more likely to save money for electricity consumers than those relying on fossil fuels or nuclear power, a POLITICO analysis of federal and industry data shows — findings that undermine one of the Trump administration’s main justifications for its aggressive rollback of federal clean energy policies.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/07/green-electricity-costs-cheap-trump-00594123
“the Energy Department announced that it will offer $625 million in funding to “reinvigorate and expand America’s coal industry.” The funding includes $350 million to modernize outdated coal power plants or recommission closed ones, and up to $175 million for coal power projects in rural communities. This announcement was coupled with an Interior Department directive to open 13.1 million acres of federal land for coal mining at lower royalty rates. The Environmental Protection Agency, meanwhile, announced on Monday it would roll back several Joe Biden-era regulations on coal plants
…
In May, the Energy Department issued an order to prevent a Michigan coal plant from closing in order to prevent blackouts. The order failed to keep the lights on and cost the utility $29 million over five weeks, which is expected to be, at least in part, paid for by ratepayers
…
These cost hikes are likely to escalate if the federal government continues to force power plants to stay open. An August report from Grid Strategies, a power sector consulting firm, estimates that ratepayers could pay more than $3 billion per year through 2028 if the Energy Department “mandates that the large fossil power plants scheduled to retire between now and the end of 2028 remain open.” This figure could soar to $6 billion per year through 2028 if additional power plants move up their retirement dates to secure government subsidies.
…
the federal government has opened up millions of dollars in funding for coal projects and passed several measures to benefit coal, including subsidizing coal production overseas. The cost of those actions won’t necessarily show up in monthly utility bills—but it will force the federal government to borrow more heavily in the future, at a time when the national debt is already unsustainably large
…
Ben King, director of the Rhodium Group’s energy program, told Semafor “the price of coal would need to fall by at least half,” to “change the calculus” and make coal more attractive to investors than natural gas or renewables. Brendan Pierpont, director of electricity modeling at the think tank Energy Innovation, told the outlet, “this funding is essentially cash for clunkers, but without trading in the clunkers.”
Trump’s latest coal maneuver will benefit utilities and coal companies, but it will come at the expense of taxpayers, who will be forced to finance yet another wasteful government spending account, and ratepayers who will likely see their utility bills continue to climb.”
https://reason.com/2025/09/30/trumps-625-million-coal-plan-may-raise-utility-bills-for-millions-of-americans/
“Whether he is waging the drug war, imposing tariffs, deporting alleged gang members, or fighting crime, the president thinks he can do “anything I want to do.””
https://reason.com/2025/09/17/trump-has-a-habit-of-asserting-broad-unreviewable-authority/