Rick Perry’s plan to subsidize coal and nuclear plants is bonkers

[RandomGuy]

By keeping uncompe ive plants open, it would blow up energy markets.

The Trump administration has not typically put a premium on transparency or fealty to empirical fact. So it was somewhat puzzling when the Department of Energy released its long-awaited study of power grid reliability in August and it looked ... mostly normal.

By all accounts, DOE’s experts were allowed to work on it unimpeded. Its conclusions lined up with the broad consensus in the energy field: The loss of coal plants has not diminished grid reliability; in fact, the grid is more reliable than ever. Reliability can be improved further through smart planning and a portfolio of flexible resources. Regulators should work on ways to better compensate reliability in compe ive energy markets.

The summary bits of the report added a bit of political spin, but the analytic work and core conclusions were solid — and very much not in line with the administration’s position, which is that reliability is immediately threatened and coal and nuclear plants are necessary to preserve it.

Where, wondered the more cynical observers [waves], was the hackery? Where was the political interference to prop up a favored industry, the blithe disregard of expert knowledge? This is not the Trump administration we’ve come to know and ... know.

Well, it turns out, we just needed a little patience. The hackery has landed. Repeat: The hackery has landed.

Unfortunately, the hackery comes obscured by a thick cloak of acronyms — it’s an NOPR from DOE about ISOs that contradicts NERC, FFS — so it takes a little unpacking.

Here’s the short summary: Perry wants utilities to pay coal and nuclear power plants for all their costs and all the power they produce, whether those plants are needed or not.


https://www.vox.com/energy-and-envir...energy-markets


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So the inept bunglers in the Trump administration are ignoring their own experts, and want to make electricity more expensive for everyone, so they can pick winners and losers.

I guess it will be up to the Democrats to protect the free market. Again.

[boutons_deux]

Perry instructed that he is "in the business of picking losers and losers"

(winner renewables ignored, kneecapped)

[RandomGuy]

Nothing from the free market crowd?

I thought free markets were good things.

I guess messing with them is bad, unless a Republican is the one putting his white thumb on the scale. The stink of hypocrisy from the GOP gets worse each day.

[DMC]

Your le isn't click baity enough. Say something about a dead baby.

[RandomGuy]

Your le isn't click baity enough. Say something about a dead baby.

Sure.

Dead baby.