yunyun333
1d ago
yunyun333
1d ago
"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids renewable and coal alike to produce lung-killing particulates, heavy metals, and excess CO2".
The EPA has rolled back a bunch of these measures but it won't change the trendline. The last coal plant started was in 2013 and it still hasn't come online.
yunyun333
1d ago
The amount of energy that goes into both making and maintaining solar panels is so enormous, that the net gain we get back from those panels before they expire is paltry.
Nuclear does have the best EROI, but that doesn't really matter in a comparison if both sources manage to stay above the required threshold of 3 or 7 or whatever. The additional energy costs will be subsumed into LCOE anyways. Which also incorporates all those maintenance and construction costs. Batteries obviously add cost and reduce EROI but it's also getting better every year.
China's doing some interesting work with pebble bed/molten salt reactors, but it's still going to be years before large scale deployment and renewables just keep getting better in the meantime.
yunyun333
1d ago
Datacenters use gas turbines because it's the fastest way to bring online a shit ton of reliable power. The goal is first to AGI, costs (and disruption to neighbors) be damned. That being said, some companies have already signed contracts with renewable farms for next year.
yunyun333
1d ago
Even with the subsidy phase out, >50% of new power generation will be solar this year. Seems like good evidence that green energy isn't more expensive.
yunyun333
1d ago
Coal miners: "This job is hell on earth"
Politicians: More coal mines, gotcha
yunyun333
1d ago
Why are Americans becoming more anti-renewable?
The share of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents who say the country should prioritize oil, coal and natural gas over wind and solar power has doubled to 71% over the last six years. Majorities of Republicans see wind and solar power as less reliable than other energy sources, and decreasing shares of Republicans say wind and solar energy is better for the environment.
With rising energy costs and increased demand, Americans are still more likely to say that renewable energy should be prioritized over fossil fuels. But that share continues to drop: 57% say this today, down from 79% in 2020. About eight-in-ten Democrats and Democratic leaners (83%) say the country should give priority to developing wind and solar production, but this share has also ticked downward in the last few years.
Wind and solar attract the most support, with about two-thirds (65%) calling for policies to expand production from these sources. And coal mining attracts the least support, with more saying the government should discourage (36%) this activity than encourage it (27%). Americans have more mixed views of other sources, with none attracting majority support, but also none facing large opposition.
Republicans have long been less supportive of wind and solar production than Democrats. In 2022, a slim majority (54%) of Republicans supported government policies to encourage production of these renewable sources. In four years, that has dropped 10 percentage points to 44%. This is consistent with past Center surveys, which found that the shares of Republicans who say they support more wind power and solar power both dropped by more than 20 points from 2020 to 2025. An overwhelming majority of Democrats (85%) continue to say the federal government should encourage the production of wind and solar power.
The opposite pattern emerges with fossil fuel sources: Republicans have been more supportive than Democrats of federal programs to encourage these sources, and the share in favor of such programs has grown. 62% of Republicans now say the federal government should encourage oil and gas drilling, up 11 percentage points since January 2022. 45% of Republicans say the federal government should encourage coal mining, up 13 points in four years. Much smaller shares of Republicans say the federal government should discourage oil and gas drilling (8%) or coal mining (14%). Just as in the Biden years, Democrats are far more likely to say the federal government should discourage rather than encourage oil and gas drilling and coal mining.
As with other attitudes around renewable energy, Republicans are less likely than they were five years ago to say solar and wind power are better for the environment. Republicans are 14 percentage points less likely now to say that solar power is better for the environment than most other energy sources. Similarly, there has been a 12-point drop in the share of Republicans who say that wind power is better for the environment than most other energy sources. About three-in-ten Republicans (29%) now say wind power is worse for the environment, up 12 points from five years ago. More Republicans say wind (44%) and solar (43%) cost consumers more than other energy sources than say these cost less than other sources (19% and 24%, respectively).
Americans view both solar and wind power as less reliable than other energy sources (though more Americans say wind is less reliable than say the same about solar). Republicans are especially negative about these sources’ reliability. This year, Republicans are far more likely to say solar and wind power are less reliable rather than more reliable compared with other energy sources, while Democrats are more mixed. Democrats are split on the reliability of wind power, and they’re more likely to think solar power is more reliable than less reliable.
Landman really is that popular, huh? Battery tech has only gotten better and cheaper, and the LCOE of renewables even with storage added is competitive with or better than fossil fuels, yet public opinion is backsliding. Gas is still great because the US has so much of it, but the DoE is even trying to force coal plants to keep running at cost to consumers, even when states and operators want them retired. Coal miners can't be that large of a constituency, surely, so what's driving this obsession in particular?
yunyun333
2d ago
Biden begged Zelensky to take the threat of invasion seriously and Zelensky refused. It was almost pure luck that Ukraine happened to have troops in the right area to blunt the initial thrust.
yunyun333
2d ago
There was a fear that the massive number of returning GIs would flood the labor market and restart the depression. This was deftly avoided by sending them off to college.
yunyun333
3d ago
How did the EU 'lose' over Greenland? Trump backed down, no tariffs, no annexation, nothing. SCOTUS struck down his tariffs and the only thing he can do is emergency section 122 tariffs capped at 15% that expire in July.
The Trump cabinet shakeup continues
After Pam Bondi’s ouster today, which followed Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s firing last month, Cabinet secretaries and other senior administration officials were anxiously eyeing their phones, wondering whether they’d be next. One top official didn’t have to wait long: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth removed the chief of staff of the Army, General Randy George. Several people familiar with the White House’s plans told us there are active discussions about others leaving the administration, including FBI Director Kash Patel, Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll, and Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer. The people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive personnel matters, said that the timing was uncertain and that President Trump had not yet made up his mind. But what was once an unofficial motto of the second Trump term—“no scalps”—no longer applies.
Trump had been reluctant to get rid of any of his top lieutenants, viewing firings as a concession to the Democrats and the media. Even in the past few months, there had been an edict that no Cabinet officials would be removed prior to the midterms, though a series of dismissals were planned for after Election Day. But the president’s declining support since he launched the Iran war has changed the political calculus. The odds of confirming replacements, advisers know, are only growing longer. One person close to the White House told us that Trump was buoyed by the reaction to his decision to oust Noem, and that made him more likely to move ahead with Bondi. (Still, an administration official cautioned that after pushing out Noem, optics were a concern; officials worried that getting rid of Bondi would be viewed as jettisoning only the most “attractive” women, while keeping the men).
Some Trump allies (and many of his critics) believe that he had asked Bondi for the nearly impossible—to win convictions for seemingly unwinnable cases. But other members of the Cabinet and administration have expressed frustration that Bondi’s apparent lack of involvement in the details of managing the Justice Department resulted in basic mistakes. “They are sending in idiots” to defend the Trump administration in court without sufficient experience, one official from another agency told us. The president’s demand for absolute loyalty among the department’s rank and file resulted in a profound loss of institutional expertise and a sharply reduced talent pool. Multiple prominent Republican attorneys told us that they considered joining the second Trump DOJ. But the requirement to take what they viewed as an oath of loyalty to the president—not the Constitution—was a step too far.
Officials in other departments said they regarded the Justice Department’s errors as harmful to the administration’s credibility with judges, blowing up what should have been easy wins for the president. “This has been festering across the administration for a while,” said a second person close to the administration. “It’s the Epstein stuff, partly. It’s also the critiques of the indictments, like Comey. It’s a general sense of WTF—she’s not logging a lot of wins, not clocking a lot of good media.”
In Trump I, many of the early firings were because of insufficient loyalty. Trump adapted and overcame by ensuring personal loyalty at the apparent cost of competence. A junior law student could have told you his vengeance lawsuits would be laughed out of court. And it seems like the Iran SMO will snatch a few more scalps that would have delayed until after the midterms - poor Kash, he just wanted to party with the hockey chads. It's already claimed the Army Chief of Staff's, although it's not clear what exactly was wrong with Randy George's performance (the Army isn't even particularly involved in this op), or that of the Transformation and Training Command leader and the head of the Chaplain Corps.
Bondi is vulnerable as Republican frustrations grow over DOJ Epstein handling
Like a radio built to pick only one channel — tuned to Mr. Trump’s demands — Ms. Bondi has gained and maintained her position through her attentiveness, loyalty and obedience. That makes her uniquely vulnerable to shifts in Mr. Trump’s opinion. In recent weeks, Mr. Trump has privately sent mixed signals. He has discussed firing Ms. Bondi, according to four people familiar with the conversations, and replacing her with Lee Zeldin, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. He has complained about her shortcomings as a communicator and vented about what he sees as the department’s lack of aggressiveness in going after his foes, according to people who have spoken to him recently, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations. But he has also praised her loyalty in public, and he speaks with her several times a week, sometimes to seek advice or temperature-test ideas, a person close to Ms. Bondi said. And on Wednesday, she accompanied the president to the Supreme Court to watch arguments in the birthright citizenship case.
The greatest danger Ms. Bondi now faces, in the view of current and former officials, is the possibility that she has become expendable to Mr. Trump, who was able to quell Republican criticism of his hard-line immigration policy by removing Kristi Noem as homeland security secretary. Some of the protection Ms. Bondi enjoyed from G.O.P. lawmakers in the wake of Mr. Trump’s unifying victory in 2024 appears to be eroding ahead of the midterm elections, with congressional Republicans increasingly willing to call out the attorney general over what they see as her mishandling of the investigative files.
Ms. Bondi had no one else to blame for the major mistake she committed after being sworn in early last year. In February 2025, she appeared on Fox News to hype “breaking news” on the Epstein case, while also claiming that she had key documents, including Mr. Epstein’s client list, sitting on her desk. Soon after, she showed up at a gathering of far-right influencers at the White House, where she handed out half-filled white binders labeled “Epstein Files: Phase 1” that contained virtually no new information, prompting accusations of a cover-up. Her team suggested there might not be a Phase 2. Several of Ms. Bondi’s friends now describe that episode as a catastrophic miscalculation from which she might never recover.
Last July, she issued a joint statement with the F.B.I. concluding that there was no basis for new charges, no “client list,” no evidence that Mr. Epstein had blackmailed “prominent individuals,” and that releasing sealed investigative files from Mr. Epstein’s trial would only endanger the victims. The backlash among far-right influencers was instant and threatened to sap the president’s support with his base. Ms. Bondi reversed course and reopened the inquiry. Around that time, Ms. Bondi told Mr. Jordan and other members of the Judiciary Committee that “all that’s left in there is child pornography, and nobody wants to see that,” according to Representative Thomas Massie, Republican of Kentucky.
The two top F.B.I. officials, Kash Patel, the bureau’s director, and his deputy, Dan Bongino, had been pushing for a much broader release of the Epstein material after finding little in the files that added to what was already widely known about the president’s interactions with Mr. Epstein. Behind the scenes, Ms. Bondi began butting heads with Mr. Bongino, who repeatedly urged her to release as many documents as possible to stave off a political disaster. Ms. Bondi was considerably more cautious, citing her previous experience as a local prosecutor in Tampa handling trafficking cases, saying that releasing a trove of unredacted documents could reveal details about Mr. Epstein’s victims, including children. Her conflict with Mr. Bongino escalated into an angry confrontation at the White House last July, when an irate Ms. Bondi accused Mr. Bongino of leaking unflattering information about her to the news media.
But the main source of stress on Ms. Bondi appears to be Mr. Trump himself. He has relentlessly pressured Ms. Bondi and her deputy, Todd Blanche, to go after targets of his choosing even after the failure of cases brought against the former F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, and the New York attorney general, Letitia James, which were brought over the objections of U.S. attorneys appointed by Mr. Trump. At a reception for U.S. attorneys last December, Mr. Trump berated the top federal prosecutor in Maryland, Kelly O. Hayes, for not indicting Senator Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California and an outspoken critic, for mortgage fraud, as Ms. Bondi and stunned officials looked on, according to a person who attended the event. Ms. Bondi and Mr. Blanche have gotten the president’s message. They have stepped up efforts to investigate several other Trump targets, including the Democratic fund-raising group ActBlue and John O. Brennan, the former C.I.A. director. They have also pushed prosecutors to investigate a former White House aide, Cassidy Hutchinson, whom the president has accused of lying about his actions on Jan. 6, 2021, according to two officials briefed on the effort.
So, republicans are mad that the epstein files are being slow-walked, and Trump is mad that she isn't successfully destroying his enemies with lawsuits. The interesting detail is that Patel and Bongino were pushing for more releases, presumably believing that it wouldn't incriminate Trump. In the end, they managed to piss off everyone and accidentally release personal photos of victims.
There hasn't been as much turnover in Trump's 'A' department as in his first administration (although still more than the last six presidents), because Trump took a more active role in selecting loyalists. We'll see how that continues over the next year with the Iran war and more unfriendly SCOTUS rulings.
Edit: And she's gone
yunyun333
5d ago
They want to leave, but not if it makes them poorer, which it obviously will. So the status quo will continue. And they certainly don't want to join the US.
A 2025 poll showed that a majority 84% of Greenlanders would support independence from Denmark, with 9% opposing. 61% opposed independence if it meant a lower standard of living, with 39% in favour. When asked in a binary choice between the USA and Denmark, 85% preferred to be part of Denmark with only 6% preferring the USA.
yunyun333
5d ago
There are only 1-3 non-autocracies in the middle east, depending on how you categorize Turkey and Lebanon, so that's not the problem.
yunyun333
6d ago
From a Bayesian perspective, there is strong evidence that Trump really likes Jews and is not a great long term thinker. Hegseth's record does not inspire confidence either.
Poland also refused to transfer two patriot batteries over, and France refused a request from Israel to use its airspace for weapons transfer. This is the logical conclusion of the boiling, seething contempt that the administration has for Europe (which is of course mutual).
yunyun333
11d ago
Israel has invaded south lebanon many times, why will they stay this time?
yunyun333
11d ago
The Oslo accords, at best, would have required a significant amount of good faith on both sides to be workable. Like what the fuck even is this? It was never a practical means to peace.
And why is the kibbutz crisis attributable to Reagan or Thatcher specifically rather than plain neoliberalism, which was applied in many other parts of the world at the same time and with much harsher results?
Other than that, "Israel doesn't have a right to exist" is pointless navel gazing, and what happened in Gaza is generally reckless disregard for human life rather than true genocide, although the net effect is still a lot of war crimes.
yunyun333
13d ago
It turns out that spending hundreds of millions for users to make useless slop videos was having a meaningfully negative financial impact. The bizarre thing is that Disney signed a $1b deal with OpenAI just a few months ago - who fucked up here? Of course, there are many more video AI tools out there, with fewer considerations for copyright law. But for now, Hollywood doesn't have much to worry about, at least on this front.
yunyun333
16d ago
If you're like me and you barely paid attention to the Mueller Report while it was happening and don't remember anything, the article is a decent summary. I was under the impression that Russia did stuff, Trump didn't actively participate but didn't put up a protest either, and some of his team got busted for lying to investigators (Trump's lawyers were worried about him also getting involved in perjury but successfully managed to get him to "not recall" everything).
Anyways I still don't see what the big deal was, other than lying to investigators. They didn't do any hacking themselves or ask anyone to do it. Knowing about it in advance, or using it as part of campaign strategy, isn't a crime either.
yunyun333
19d ago
"We have to attack them because if we attack them, they'll attack our allies" is strange logic.
Israel deliberately chose to allow Hamas to grow until it blew up in their face. Maybe they should do a better job managing the terror groups in their backyard next time (and hey, right now they are, so we're not needed).
yunyun333
21d ago
We could go back to the days of the three-person crew with a flight engineer, and ensure that 2 people are in the cockpit at all times.
Even with a second set of hands, a pilot can still irreversibly fuck up a plane during takeoff or landing, when the margin of error is smallest (see Air India 171).
What's the plan to defend refineries and fuel plants? Solar farms are at least widely dispersed. A drone can only knock out a few panels, or a single turbine, at a time.
Russia's invasion didn't save coal and this won't either.
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