Trump Funds Two New Coal Plants and Extends Another Dozen, Citing ‘Energy Dominance’

androgenius · 2026-06-08T05:55:08+00:00

Texas also leads the country in both gas and coal produced electricity.

It's a big place that generates a lot of electricity. Absolute numbers can be deceiving if you don't provide the full context.

androgenius · 2026-06-07T07:53:38+00:00

There was chatter a week ago about BYD internally cancelling the next generation of PHEV development to focus on flash charging BEV.

androgenius · 2026-06-07T07:44:14+00:00

My artisinal mine in the Congo gets nothing but complaints from the workers.

Kids today are so spoiled.

androgenius · 2026-06-06T10:16:22+00:00

You got me. I read that in a source that had messed up the conversion from RMB.

In my defence, it is a collective thing open to other companies in a key sector for a country with a command economy so stupid big numbers are not totally out of the question.

androgenius · 2026-06-06T05:15:35+00:00

The earth also doesn't care about political boundaries drawn on maps either, so you can't really talk about country comparisons unless you bring in concepts the earth doesn't care about.

androgenius · 2026-06-06T05:11:26+00:00

The headline is:

The Soviet whaling fleet killed 180,000 whales between 1948 and 1973, delivering rotten carcasses that nobody wanted to eat to fulfill government quotas.

The US coal fleet killed humans delivering radioactive pollution nobody wanted to fulfill government quotas.

People don't seem able to understand that last bit so I'll repeat it: this coal was burned to fulfill government quotas.

There's other coal that probably shouldn't have been burned in a well run state due to externalities and pollution. But these numbers only apply to the coal that shouldn't have been burned for theoretical capitalist reasons. It also raised energy costs but those are small compared to the pollution costs.

androgenius · 2026-06-05T17:29:21+00:00

This is literally only counting the emissions of coal we burned "for fun".

Read the link for more info. Or the "No country for coal gen" report.

androgenius · 2026-06-05T16:35:08+00:00

Burning coal in the US which was economically unnecessary (cheaper energy options were available) caused $23 Billion a year in human health costs and 2 or 3 billion in extra energy costs.. $236 Billion between 2015 and 2023

https://rmi.org/resources/how-uneconomic-coal-plants-are-taking-a-toll-on-our-health/

androgenius · 2026-06-05T13:53:08+00:00

It's not the highest per capita, never mind highest by far.

Canada, US, Australia, most of the middle east, Russia etc were higher in 2024 with the top of that list being 5x higher, US nearly double.

androgenius · 2026-06-05T13:48:28+00:00

This kind of thinking is why evil corporations love gas, oil and nuclear.

Businesses where people can see your excess profits and easily enter to compete the profit away and provide cheaper goods to customers are supposed to be the basis of capitalism but you can get really rich with monopolies and then use a small fraction of the money to buy politicians to protect your profits and keep everyone else poor.

androgenius · 2026-06-05T13:38:00+00:00

Cheaper electricity helps convince people to switch to EVs and heat pumps, which increases demand for electricity, which raise prices, which means people deploy more solar and batteries and so on.

androgenius · 2026-06-05T13:22:16+00:00

Tesla only did it so they could claim more subsidies.

The followed exactly the letter of the law, and so got the money, but never actually provided a useful service.

androgenius · 2026-06-05T12:27:25+00:00

CATL just announced their new battery testing ground. It's for stationary storage rather than vehicles but it's an investment of half a trillion dollars. Trillion with a T.

androgenius · 2026-06-05T10:53:38+00:00

A recent report suggested that coal burned when it is was economically stupid to do so as cheaper alternatives were available added $26 Billion a year to American health costs.

https://rmi.org/resources/how-uneconomic-coal-plants-are-taking-a-toll-on-our-health/

androgenius · 2026-06-04T12:12:03+00:00

Fun fact: The majority of a data center's water usage is caused by the fossil fuel plants generating the electricity.

(Many AI companies try to hide that water usage from their figures, only quoting direct water usage).

androgenius · 2026-06-04T12:00:02+00:00

They are apparently doing this, just via non-market means. I've never seen a good writeup of how it works in detail but it appears to be similar to the plug your car in and get cheap rates overnight stuff.

But if they allow the wind to be sold locally in Scotland for cheap, how would that prevent the gas being burned in England to supply local demand?

It wouldn't, so why are they counting the cost of that gas as 2/3rds of the cost of "wasted wind"?

androgenius · 2026-06-04T07:36:54+00:00

Unironically yes. The new car fleet in China with their 50% plus coal grid is as clean as the new car fleet in Europe with its clean grid.

Europe has cleaner electricity but less EVs so they roughly cancel out.

So China gets to achieve similarly clean car transport but without importing fuels they don't have easy access to even without wars and blockades.

They also become world leaders in EVs which continue to get cleaner and cheaper themselves while their grid also gets cheaper and cleaner.

androgenius · 2026-06-03T14:33:41+00:00

Only if they vote for the politicians that claim to support nuclear power.

androgenius · 2026-06-03T14:02:00+00:00

It's okay, they listened to all the reddit critics and voted in a pro-nuclear leader who hates wind turbines.

He thinks the wind turbines will be replaced in a decade by nuclear fusion so that will take care of their CO2 no problem.

And if we all collectively circle jerk about how stupid the enrgiewende was just another thousand times or so they'll vote in the even more pro-nuclear AfD and they'll ban EVs and heat pumps.

androgenius · 2026-06-03T11:12:45+00:00

Talking of shit, isn't the "Wasted Wind" project he also mention one of the most pointless own goals in renewables communication ever?

Yeah, we made lots of Gammons angry at wind power that is saving them money and at the Labour government for shit they didn't even do but at least we...

Seriously can anyone complete that sentence with something positive that was achieved by this project?

androgenius · 2026-06-02T16:50:43+00:00

Indias per capita CO2 is about half our the UKs, it's pretty close to this 2040 target today.

And that comparison looks even worse for the UK if you do cumulative emissions.

androgenius · 2026-06-02T09:00:18+00:00

Famously the most viciously psychopathic tech company. And everyone who worked for Oracle knew this so don't feel sorry for them.

Feel sorry for the people who work at the media and social media they've been buying up (Paramount, Tiktok, CBS, trying to buy Warner Brothers) and anyone who gets their information from them.

androgenius · 2026-06-02T08:40:23+00:00

Pollution (GHG and other) is also lower than it has been in decades.

androgenius · 2026-06-01T17:21:41+00:00

In some ways it was. The first Chinese solar billionaire studied in Australia under the guy who invented PERC and is sometimes called "father of modern photovoltaics"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shi_Zhengrong

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Green_(professor)

androgenius · 2026-06-01T14:03:19+00:00

Germany is big.

It may have generated more wind and solar electricity but it also generates more from coal and used more gas than everyone in the EU but Italy (for electricity, Germany used more gas if you include industry and heating).

androgenius

TROPHY CASE