Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

This really is a full service blog.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

You are here: Home / Politics / Biden Administration in Action / Saturday Morning Open Thread: When Dems Are In Charge, Good Things Happen

Saturday Morning Open Thread: When Dems Are In Charge, Good Things Happen

by | 160 Comments

This post is in: , , ,


And some people say there’s no such thing as the perfect tweet…

Reader Interactions

160Comments

  2. 2.

    OzarkHillbilly

    The co-founder of the “We Build The Wall” project aimed at raising money for a border wall pleaded guilty Thursday to charges in a case that once included Donald Trump’s adviser Steve Bannon.

    Brian Kolfage admitted to pocketing hundreds of thousands of dollars while promising all donations would pay for the wall. His plea came a month before a trial in a case that began in dramatic fashion in August 2020, when Bannon was pulled from a luxury yacht off the coast of Connecticut and arrested on allegations that he and three others ripped off donors trying to fund a southern border wall.

    Bannon was pardoned by Trump just before he left office last year. Bannon had pleaded not guilty to charges he pocketed over $1m, using some of the money to secretly pay Kolfage, a 39-year-old air force veteran who lost both legs in a mortar attack in Iraq.

    A guilty plea on Thursday by co-defendant financier Andrew Badolato, 57, in the case during the same remotely conducted electronic hearing before US district Judge Analisa Torres in Manhattan meant that only one of the four defendants originally charged might go to trial in mid-May.

  3. 3.

    different-church-lady

    But the point isn’t to strengthen unions! The point is to bitch about Biden for lefty Twitter cred!

  4. 4.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Cause:

    There is a moment in the revelatory PBS Frontline docuseries The Power of Big Oil, about the industry’s long campaign to stall action on the climate crisis, in which the former Republican senator Chuck Hagel reflects on his part in killing US ratification of the Kyoto climate treaty. In 1997, Hagel joined with the Democratic senator Robert Byrd to promote a resolution opposing the international agreement to limit greenhouse gases, on the grounds that it was unfair to Americans. The measure passed the US Senate without a single dissenting vote, after a vigorous campaign by big oil to mischaracterise the Kyoto protocol as a threat to jobs and the economy while falsely claiming that China and India could go on polluting to their heart’s content.

    The resolution effectively put a block on US ratification of any climate treaty ever since.

    A quarter of a century later, Hagel acknowledges that the vote was wrong, and blames the oil industry for malignly claiming the science of climate change was not proved when companies such as Exxon and Shell already knew otherwise from their own research.

    “What we now know about some of these large oil companies’ positions … they lied. And yes, I was misled. Others were misled when they had evidence in their own institutions that countered what they were saying publicly. I mean they, lied,” he told the documentary-makers.

    Asked if the planet would be better placed to confront the climate crisis if the oil industry had been honest about the damage fossil fuels were causing, Hagel did not flinch. “Oh, absolutely. It would have created a whole different climate, a whole different political environment. I think it would have changed everything,” he said.

    ETA: forgot to add this: But Hagel apparently has not asked why he was so willing to be swayed by big oil when there was no shortage of scientists, including prominent Nasa researchers, telling him and other political leaders the truth.

    Effect:

    Firefighters working to keep more homes from burning on the edge of a mountain town in northern Arizona were treated to scattered showers and cooler temperatures early on Friday, but the favorable weather was not expected to last as more ferocious winds were forecast to batter parts of Arizona and all of New Mexico through the weekend.

    The combination of high winds, warmer temperatures and extremely dry conditions will make for an atmosphere that’s “pretty much on steroids”, said Scott Overpeck, with the National Weather Service in Albuquerque, New Mexico. “This is not typical,” he said, looking ahead to what could be explosive fire growth on Friday. “This is really one of those days we need to be on our toes and we need to be ready.”

    The weather conditions will complicate the firefight on a half-dozen large wildfires burning in the American south-west.

  5. 5.

    Kay

    I hope Democrats run on this. It’s genuinely different and a real credit to Joe Biden. I know Tim Ryan already is, along with Marcy Kaptur (US House) but I hope it’s part of the national pitch for the Party.

  6. 6.

    Baud

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    The measure passed the US Senate without a single dissenting vote, after a vigorous campaign by big oil to mischaracterise the Kyoto protocol as a threat to jobs and the economy while falsely claiming that China and India could go on polluting to their heart’s content.

     
    I blame Bill Clinton.

  9. 9.

    germy

    EXCLUSIVE: In a leaked video call, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz begged managers to increase their union busting.

    The billionaire CEO blasted unionizing, hourly employees as “so-called workers” and “some outside force that’s going to dictate or disrupt who we are and what we do.” pic.twitter.com/KIFI5FzDxr

    — More Perfect Union (@MorePerfectUS) April 21, 2022

    Didn’t he run for president for about five minutes?

  10. 10.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    I don’t think it matters. It’s a perfect fit with their broader economic agenda. They can jump right off it, even in areas that are not strongly labor. It’s a great story that leads right in to what they want to talk about. The interviews with the Starbucks and the Apple employees who unionized are interesting. They like working for those companies. They’re not unhappy employees. They just want things like regular shifts and sick leave and a process if they’re treated unfairly. They want a contract. Amazon management wouldn’t make a single purchase without a contract with enforceable terms and remedies and a forum available. No one tells them to just “trust” their suppliers or insists they and their suppliers are “a family”. They would laugh.

    Why can’t their employees have contract protections too?

  11. 11.

    germy

    Rossann Williams, Starbucks’ president for North America, joined Schultz for the call.

    She told managers it is “your number one responsibility” to persuade store employees to vote no.

    Williams claims there has been zero union-busting — the NLRB disagrees. pic.twitter.com/kAinawqH65

    — More Perfect Union (@MorePerfectUS) April 21, 2022

  12. 12.

    Ken

    @OzarkHillbilly: opposing the international agreement to limit greenhouse gases, on the grounds that it was unfair to Americans

    Well, it is, much in the same way that laws against murder are unfair to serial killers.

  13. 13.

    prostratedragon

    Rachel Vindman: Marvelous!
    Jacques Perrin​ ETA He was just 10 years older than I. In 1969 I was coming out of high school, and he was co-producing an Academy Award-winning feature movie.

  14. 14.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud: Well if you’re gonna blame folks who came along after it was voted down, I’m gonna blame Obama. Again.

  16. 16.

    Kay

    @sab:

    No. That they support David in this David and Goliath story. It’s amazing what they’re doing. There was no “Starbucks” or “Amazon” union two years ago. They made one. From scratch.

    The only people who will have any clue what the “NLRB” is or does are labor audiences. That’s useful for Democrats too, in places like PA an OH and WI and MI. They want a 60 share of union households rather than a 50 share.

  18. 18.

    OzarkHillbilly

    via Arwa Mahdawi, comes this little gem:

    “There are many people out there who can’t stand this world of billionaires,” Anderson said to Musk in the interview. “Like, they are hugely offended by the notion that an individual can have the same wealth as, say, a billion or more of the world’s poorest people.”

    Only an idiot would be offended by something like that, Musk essentially replied. “I think there’s some axiomatic flaws that are leading them to that conclusion,” he told Anderson. “For sure, it would be very problematic if I was consuming, you know, billions of dollars a year in personal consumption. But that is not the case. In fact, I don’t even own a home right now. I’m literally staying at friends’ places … I don’t have a yacht, I really don’t take vacations. It’s not as though my personal consumption is high.”

    See? He’s not that rich. In fact, he’s sleeping on somebody’s couch!

  19. 19.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay: The only people who will have any clue what the “NLRB” is or does are labor audiences.

    Too true.

  20. 20.

    Kay

    @germy:

    The Bessemer Amazon organizing effort was by a traditional union- the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. The difference with the independent, new unions is they have pro-union workers inside the workplace instead of organizers outside the workplace. Then when Amazon hires anti-union consultants who are inside the warehouse, the pro union side are inside the warehouse too. It’s a fair fight.

  26. 26.

    Kay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    and Corporate.

    True. The WSJ publishes one insanely angry editorial a day about Biden’s NLRB general counsel, so she’s certainly got their attention :)

    Last week she wrote she interprets current administrative law to include a version of “card check” so they may have a stroke.

  27. 27.

    sab

    So many pronouns that I cannot understand who or what you guys are discussing.  ” They, them, it, who.”

  28. 28.

    Xentik

    @OzarkHillbilly: Seems to me like he’s arguing that he has nothing he can or wants to do with his money, so he doesn’t really need it. Perfect justification for raising taxes!

  29. 29.

    BlueGuitarist

    @Kay:

    Yes!

    I also hope the House or Senate labor committees will hold public hearings investigating union-busting and wage theft.

  33. 33.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay: That’s enough.

    Just pointing out: Not in Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, Utah, Wyoming, Idaho… You get my drift. All most of those folks need to know is “Federal Gubmint bad!”

  36. 36.

    Citizen_X

    @OzarkHillbilly: it would be very problematic if I was consuming, you know, billions of dollars a year in personal consumption

    Motherfucker, you just spent $3 billion last month on Twitter stock.

     

    You’re goddam right that’s “problematic.”

  38. 38.

    Tazj

    After that Amazon facility in NYC became unionized there were some progressives and leftists that were quick to say that Democrats had nothing to do with the victory and they had better not take credit for it. The workers did it on their own. I didn’t know one way or the other so I’m pleasantly surprised to find this out. I knew Biden was pro labor but I didn’t know this.

    It’s very important to tout these accomplishments as I’m finding social media is unsurprisingly becoming more hostile against the Democratic Party before the midterms, especially among people who should be our side.When the administration announced that medical debt would no longer be included in credit scores, some people acted as if it meant nothing and responded with “Who would ever vote for these people?”

    Now I realize that people shouldn’t have that amount of medical debt to begin with, and I’d be happy if it was all forgiven but I’m glad the administration is starting to change things.

  42. 42.

    Kay

    @Tazj:

    The pro Biden story was written by Ryan Grim, who sort of epitomizes scolding, sanctimonious Lefty twitter.

    Hey I’m surprised too but there it is.

  46. 46.

    Kay

    @Tazj:

    Of course he OPENS the article about Biden with how Bernie is going to the Amazon warehouse. Guffaw. They can’t help themselves.

  56. 56.

    Kay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    It doesn’t flip until it does and then it’s a “swing state”. Texas Republicans were clearly alarmed. They frantically put in as much voter suppression as they possibly could even to the detriment of their own GOP (absentee) primary voters.

  58. 58.

    Mike E

    Watching Bundesliga on Hulu, Leipzig modified the center “kickoff” circle into a giant peace sign. Nice gesture.

  59. 59.

    zhena gogolia

    @Steeplejack: “Putin’s unnatural pose is being discussed on social media.” “Did you notice that Putin spent the whole 15 minutes of his meeting with Shoigu sitting in the same unnatural pose, clutching the table, not moving, and not rocking back and forth?” “Why is he constantly holding onto the table?” “The old guy looks like he’s about to explode.”

    Then they do a speeded up version. “Over the whole course of the meeting with Minister of Defense Shoigu, Putin holds onto the table without taking his hand away. The whole 12 minutes.”

  60. 60.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay: I know the blue wave delusion of 2020 didn’t help (which I fell for). In hindsight it was very reminiscent of some Crawford County DEM meetings I went to. They were all really nice folks with whom I agreed with on 90-95% of everything, but listening to them talk and the candidates they were promoting was depressing as all get out. I had to wonder if they knew anything about where they lived.

  61. 61.

    Calouste

    Ukraine claims that two Russian generals were killed yesterday when they hit a command post. I’ve lost track, but I think we’re now at at least 10. And I don’t think the admiral who was on the Moskva has been seen in public either recently.

  62. 62.

    mrmoshpotato

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    The co-founder of the “We Build The Wall” project aimed at raising money for a border wall pleaded guilty Thursday to charges in a case that once included Donald Trump’s adviser Steve Bannon. 

    It was hilarious seeing them ripping off fellow Trump trash, but still LOCK HIM UP!

  66. 66.

    Baud

    @zhena gogolia:

    I don’t speculate about health, but he does look pretty bad in the more recent videos I’ve seen of him, especially for someone who cares about his image.

  67. 67.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

     

    @Citizen_X:

    Imagine being the most wealthy man on earth who isn’t Vova Putin, and your single biggest current goal is to make an unprofitable asset like Twitter a haven for white supremacist authoritarians and theocrats to put out unfettered hate speech.

  68. 68.

    taumaturgo

    @Baud: Remember, Biden voted for it and these two peas in a rotten pod is called bipartisanship, an idea Biden cherished to no end.

  71. 71.

    Baud

    @taumaturgo:

    Biden has made plenty mistakes.  At least he’s never acted like Trump after losing an election.

    ETA: Few people can be as right as Bill Clinton.

  72. 72.

    Kay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Republicans have their own bubble too, though. They misread and make errors. I said here last week that their whole national campaign was conceived by Christoper Rufo, who is a SINGLE far Right influencer and activist. I didn’t know at the time that Rufo actually appeared with DeSantis- right next to him- for the “punish Disney for bad speech” law.

    They bet the whole wad on one unhinged, insanely angry “online influencer”. He’s running the whole thing. Say what you will about Democrats but they diversify a little. That’s a big bet they made, and it’s all on one square.

  73. 73.

    MagdaInBlack

    @zhena gogolia: Whatever is wrong with him, I’m sure its not improving his mood.

    You mentioned the other night ( when I asked if he had had a stroke) that he looked like a late-stage Yeltsin.

  74. 74.

    taumaturgo

    @Baud: True, yet an extremely low bar. Now that you mentioned, I’m hoping Biden’s reaction would not be like Gore when he acted as a statesman while the presidency was stolen from him, but that it would 2x Trumps reaction when the GQP attempt to really steal the election.

  75. 75.

    Geminid

    @OzarkHillbilly: Electrek covers clean energy, especially solar.They published an article a couple days ago about a giant clean energy project in Morocco. The developer, XLink, intends to build 7 Gigawatts of photovoltaic generation capacity and 3.5 GW of wind, with a project footprint of 570 square miles. There will be substantial on-site battery storage.

    The electricity will be transmitted to England by four 2,361 mile cables, using high voltage direct current (HVDC). They could supply 8% of the UK’s electricity needs by 2030.

    According to the Electrek article,photovoltaic panels are typically 3 times more efficient in Morocco than England, even more in winter. The project is expected to create 10,000 jobs in Morocco, 2,000 of them permanent.

    There will be more jobs at a new plant in Scotland where the undersea HVDC cables will be manufactured. They will require 90,000 metric tons of steel. The plant will almost double existing HVDC cable manufacturing capacity.

    The plant should have more work when this project is complete. HVDC cables seem like the coming thing for electricity transmission. Overhead lines are cheaper, but HVDC cables can be placed in railroad right of ways. That saves a lot of problems with public opposition and permitting.

  76. 76.

    Baud

    @taumaturgo:

    LOL.  Tough internet talk.  The last bastion of scoundrels who will accomplish nothing in their lives.

    ETA:

    True, yet an extremely low bar

     

    You don’t even realize who I was referring to.

  77. 77.

    patrick II

    The solution to the Trolly problem reminds me of Kirk’s  solution to the Kobayashi Maru.

  78. 78.

    ian

    @sab:

    So many pronouns that I cannot understand who or what you guys are discussing.  ” They, them, it, who.”

    wish commenter Marklar would come along and explain the origin of Marklar to the non-Marklar.

  80. 80.

    Omnes Omnibus

    Well, you kids play nice.  I am off to the pro-trans /anti-TERF protest at the Madison Library.

  82. 82.

    germy

    Unca Kosmo just told another commenter to kill himself.

    Drunkenness and/or bipolar disorder, whatever it is, he should have been banned a long time ago.

  85. 85.

    marklar

    @ian: @ian: 

    “wish commenter Marklar would come along and explain the origin of Marklar to the non-Marklar.”

    Sorry, I’m busy working in the marklar helping my marklar to prepare the marklar so that we can plant (once the date of last marklar passes)!

  86. 86.

    Formerly disgruntled in Oregon

    @Baud: 

    Clinton pushed for Kyoto and got no support.

    Trying to do something about global warming and climate change back in the 90s, before it was too late? Down the memory hole. Democrats will never get credit and Republicans will never take the blame. I was there and remember it all. Being a Cassandra sucks.

  92. 92.

    PaulB

    @taumaturgo: Personally, I’m proud to be intolerant of the kind of rank stupidity and fundamental dishonesty you have tried to bring to this thread.

  93. 93.

    WaterGirl

    @sab: Yeah, that does get a little frustrated.  For my part, I have started reading my comment as soon as it’s published, and then replace the pronouns with nouns.  I think that saves a lot of clicking back from a reply.

  95. 95.

    Soprano2

    @Kay:  It’s crazy to me, because they could improve the jobs! Why don’t they do that?

    I read an article about how more employers are flexible about 4 year degree requirements now because of the tight job market. That’s good, bring back training! Quit thinking you need a person with a 4 year degree so you don’t have to train them. You have to train people anyway, why not expand your job pool? You’re screening our a lot of good people. This will be a good effect of the pandemic, I think.

  96. 96.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Baud: Populist left attacks Clinton as much if not more than the RWNJs. We just a week long series on this blog whose thesis seems to be neoliberal policies and capitalism gave us the Orange Spray Tan President without mentioning racism or anti-immigration fervor or misogyny that paved his way to the WH

  97. 97.

    Soprano2

    @Kay:  It’s crazy to me, because they could improve the jobs! Why don’t they do that? If you want to keep the union out, make your job desirable without it.

    I read an article about how more employers are flexible about 4 year degree requirements now because of the tight job market. They’re using apprenticeships. That’s good, bring back training! Quit thinking you need a person with a 4 year degree so you don’t have to train them. You have to train people anyway, why not expand your job pool? You’re screening out a lot of good people. This will be a good effect of the pandemic, I think.

  98. 98.

    Kay

    @Soprano2:

    I think there was a long term trend to essentially outsource private sector employee training responsibilites and shift the expense and responsibility to the public. So they’d scream that schools weren’t teaching “coding” or “welding” when surely they could train their own coders or welders. It’s not my job to provide them with employees ready for specific tasks off a shelf. You want welders at Caterpillar? Train some.

    Apprenticeships have to be regulated and monitored. 17 and 18 year olds are not savy enough to spot rip offs, which is also (sadly) true of college loans. I’m a big trades fan but Trump did an “apprenticeship” program that was glutted with for profit truck driver training schools and useless certificates. They weren’t “apprenticeships” at all but it’s a bit of a buzzword now so they all use it for anything. Someone needs to be looking out for the apprentice. They’re young. They make poor decisions.

  99. 99.

    James E Powell

    @WaterGirl:

    Okay, you’re on. Win or lose, it’s all for a good cause.

    Is there are point spread or is this just win or lose?

    Abbott/DeSantis parlay?

  102. 102.

    Kay

    @Soprano2:

    The reason I thought the Apple and Starbucks employees were interesting is because there was no “sticking it to the man”. They all but rave about the companies. They like working there and want to stay. They just want some measure of control over their workplace. They sound reasonable and the CEO of Starbucks sounds angry and unhinged. I think it’s been so long since there was an uptick in organizing there’s an entire generation of managers and executives who just have no familiarity with labor unions and are outraged they even have to deal with this.

  104. 104.

    Kay

    @burnspbesq:

    It is so funny how fast the Right wing puke funnel shifts into gear. Every Trumpster in this county now fawns over Musk. He’s their new hero.

  106. 106.

    Calouste

    @Geminid: The Netherlands and Belgium for about 4-5 hours today produced more electricity from wind and solar power than they use. Some people (with certain flexible energy contracts) were paying negative prices for electricity.

    Producing renewable electricity economically is now more or less a solved problem. The next problem to solve is how to store large amounts of excess power produced so it can be used at times when production is less. The problem after that is what to do with more electricity than we know what to do with (carbon capture seems like a good plan).

  109. 109.

    Martin

    Keep an eye on how Apple handles the unionization efforts. I guarantee the company dislikes the idea as much as any other company, but I think they’re smart enough to realize that union busting would be a catastrophic mistake given their brand. Their retail employees play a very different role than most retail employees, and that role requires that the employees be fans of the company. Apple should handle this the same way that Josh Marshall did with his employees.

    Not sure Apple will do this, but it could change the dynamics of unionization a bit having such a large company taking a neutral stance.

    Caveat: I used to have to deal with a couple of unions at work, and my long term approach was to elevate the positions to exempt with higher responsibilities and compensation. Workers made more, had more workplace flexibility and a stronger voice, and liked their job more. Result was fewer positions because each one needed to do more, but generally speaking most clerical level positions can be eliminated by restructuring how you do things, which improves efficiency. Also helped the budget because benefit costs were uniform across all positions, so the concentration around fewer higher responsibility positions freed up enough money to raise pay quite a bit. It’s a slow process though. Takes years to restructure how you operate, but you also need a bit of attrition to make it work. I managed to never have to lay an employee off. Fired a bunch, but never had to lay off.

  110. 110.

    Kay

    Don Moynihan
    @donmoyn
    ·2h
    One sign of a moral panic is that it sweeps up completely irrelevant concepts and people into its worldview. Florida just banned a bunch of math textbooks for concepts that conservatives have been championing, such as “grit.”

    You guys don’t follow public schools as closely as I do, so let me tell you about “grit”.

    Angela Duckworth is a researcher who came up with this WILDLY popular educational theory that students were “soft” and needed to learn “grit”. It’s just “perseverance”, overcoming adversity, with a catchy name. She wrote a book by that name. Every Right winger embraced it. Lots of public schools in conservative areas used the concepts. Bootstrappy! They adored it.

    DeSantis and Rufo just banned it.

  111. 111.

    burnspbesq

    @Kay:

    Every Trumpster in this county now fawns over Musk. He’s their new hero.

    They’re betting that a successful takeover of Twitter will lead to restored access for their God-King.

  112. 112.

    trollhattan

    @Kay: Ain’t that a hoot. Okay, not a hoot but typical. Hope “tiger mom” is keeping an eye on who might be sneaking up on her.

  113. 113.

    Calouste

    @Kay: MAGA = Morons Admiring Giant Assholes.

    That’s the only thing it’s about anymore, they want people to be mean to others. It’s the distillation of Cleek’s law.

  114. 114.

    Kay

    @Martin:

    My oldest son is a fintech person and he’s working in Denmark and (now) in a union, because almost everyone in Denmark is in a union. He never imagined he would be in one, but so far he likes it. I don’t think it’s changed how he works day to day at all, but he has a family now and he likes the guarantees, that he has a contract if he needs one. So like what everyone likes about every contract ever- you hope you don’t need it but you’re damn glad to have it when and if you need it.

  116. 116.

    Kay

    @trollhattan:

    Absolutely Tiger Mom concepts.

    It’s really nice for political actors too of course because they don’t have to actually do anything for poor kids other than reorder their thinking and make it all their job :)

    Gritty! Don’t whine that you’re homeless. USE that to PROPEL yourself forward. So much of “conservatism” is “The Power of Positive Thinking”. There’s a lot of woo woo in the ideology.

  117. 117.

    Ken

    @Kay: It’s Duckworth’s own fault for not choosing a publishing firm owned by the governor or one of his major donors.

  119. 119.

    Geminid

    @Calouste: The EU seems to be planning on using excess electricity to produce hydrogen. There are skeptics, but those countries seem set on making hydrogen a substantial component of their future energy mix.

    I read of a big wind project planned by a large electrical co-op, to be built offshore of Valentia, Ireland. There’s all kinds of wind, but western Ireland is distant from consumers. The coop intends to use the wind power to produce hydrogen. They plan on just using the gas to power local ferries at first; they envision that eventually tankers like the LNG tankers we see now will be loading at the windfarms and carrying the fuel to Europe or north America.

  120. 120.

    Kay

    @Ken:

    I think it’s funny because their basic complaint – they have so many, I think this is their basic complaint- is that conservative concepts or ideology are not allowed in public schools.

    Which is nonsense. Every single on of my school board members is a Republican. It’s a conservative district. It reflects the area. We regularly have school assemblies that are 1. mandatory and 2. overtly Christian- themed. They’re holding a Christian rally in the public school gym once a month. They can get just forget about my taking their complaints about a pride flag in a liberal area sincerely.

  121. 121.

    Martin

    @Kay: Apple is a little different in that their retail strategy is quite unique as far as I know. Their approach is to turn the retail employees into advocates for customers, to help them solve whatever problem they walk in the door with, with the assumption that the customer wants an Apple solution and the employee doesn’t really need to sell that aspect of it, but rather to help them navigate the how and what of it. It’s a long-term relationship building strategy, not a short term ‘push this product to make our numbers’ strategy.

    Apple retail only works if the employees love the company. They can’t hide that like most other retail because they aren’t primarily transactional employees (cash handling, stocking, etc.) but are all foremost customer service/consultant employees that all do a bit of the other stuff as well.

    If Apple pushes against unionization in any way, it risks undermining the whole operation. Generally speaking if the Starbucks employee you interact with hates their job, it probably doesn’t really affect your view of the company because you aren’t really there for that interaction. They can get away with it at least a bit more.

    I’ll also add that Starbucks does not have a lot of financial flexibility here. They average around $600/sqft in sales with a high staffing level, so their labor costs are a very high percentage of their revenues, which makes them exceptionally sensitive to labor costs. Costco is kind of the opposite with sales of about $1500/sqft and a relatively light staffing level (relative to the size of the store) so they have a lot more room to deal with staff pay, benefits, etc. Apple is actually kind of in the middle, but at a scale that doesn’t matter. They’re north of $6,000/sqft but also with a high staffing level, but also retail is only a portion of their revenue so they have loads of cash they can throw at employees. And they should. And they know they should. My guess is they’ll handle this right. They did covid right – continuing to pay employees (including part time) even when stores were closed. They didn’t lay anyone off. They’ve actually been a lot more thoughtful about their retail staffing than their corporate staffing, which makes sense to me, but which seems counterintuitive to how like, every other company operates. But Starbucks may have to make significant changes to their prices in response to unionization relative to say Costco or Apple.

    Not defending their union busting, but you’d expect them to respond to unionization in a different way because it has a greater impact on the business. If Apple retail employees unionize, it would have no meaningful effect on the business.

  122. 122.

    Kay

    @Ken:

    I thought someone should do a Cons of Tik Tok in public schools. There’s plenty of material. There are plenty of Right wingers in and running public schools in conservative areas who are overtly pushing Right wing/religious ideology.

  124. 124.

    Kay

    @Martin:

    I’m (obviously) pro union, but I was thinking these jobs becoming more “real jobs” with a contract might benefit the companies longer term. You saw how UPS did much better than FedEx in the panemic and resulting labor shortage and chaos because they have long term (Teamster) employees who are really committed to remaining there. They don’t walk away for a buck more an hour. They’ve earned raises and better shifts with seniority and they want to keep them.

  125. 125.

    Geminid

    @Calouste: Storage is a constraint on decarbonizong electrical generation. There is a lot of progress being made there. One way: hanging a hundred ton weight in an abandoned mineshaft, letting gravity turn a generator as the weight drops when electricity is needed, then using extra electricity in low demand periods to hoist the weight back up.

    There is a pumped storage system in Bath County, Virginia, about 60 miles west of me. Dominion Energy pumps water to an uphill reservoir at night when their demand is low. In the daytime the water flows down through the same turbines that double as generators. Dominion built the complex in the early 1970’s, when their four nuclear reactors went online. Nuclear reactors are best operated at a constant level, so Dominion wanted a way to store the night’s electricity.

    Pumped storage with lakes probably won’t be used much, though. It’s expensive and there are many alternatives.

  126. 126.

    Martin

    @Ken: Well, Apple doesn’t have any. The companies they contract with do.

    Pay attention too to how Apple’s manufacturing is changing. They’ve moved a substantial amount of their assembly to Vietnam, India, Indonesia, etc. Some of that is due to China’s tech crackdown, and some due to covid making Chinas supply chain efficiencies look fragile.

    The unfortunate part of this is that it could have yielded a better outcome had the US not irrationally turned against TPP. Now the CPTPP has formed with China having applied for membership which will make those supply chains a lot easier to manage through that partnership, but which excludes the US. The UK and Taiwan have also applied. This is now an active barrier to this settling in the US, but opens up Canada and Mexico as potential manufacturing centers should China be admitted to that alliance.

    Just massive dumbfuckery by the US, especially by Democrats that also turned against the TPP.

  127. 127.

    Dan B

    @Geminid: Great to hear!  I’ve been hoping for a large scale demonstration of HVDC.  Next is getting benefits to flow to people who have been ignored like Fiona Hill’s neighbors in NE England.  Their manufacturing jobs were outsourced with zero reinvestment in their welfare.  I recall (maybe a dream?) that one of the NE shipyards was reopened to build a new ship.  Don’t remember the details but it seemed like a ray of sunshine.

  128. 128.

    Martin

    @Kay: Yeah, unfortunately the finance/investment ‘protect the shareholders’ culture is just too strong and is receiving so little pushback that I think it’s unlikely to happen. Apple’s long-term vision was a cultural byproduct of Steve Jobs, and pretty much him alone, which is now fully embraced by the company. Not sure where UPSs culture came from, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was from a similarly strong-handed CEO. You see similar dynamics at Costco where their culture is still very aligned with what their founder laid down.

    Schultz could certainly force that into the Starbucks culture, but seems steadfastly opposed to doing so.

    It seems silly to think of big, bottom line driven corporations being so reliant on culture, but it shows up time and time again as why some persist and why some collapse. It’s always been the core of my investing strategy, and, well, I’m 53 and retired so I’ll let that speak for itself. It’s why Disney is going through some shit right now as well, and why I don’t expect that’s going to get better before it gets worse.

  129. 129.

    Calouste

    @Geminid: I don’t know enough to say whether hydrogen is essential in the future energy mix, but it’s definitely handy for a few decades during conversion. You can basically keep the existing gas fired power plants but just retool them to use hydrogen, and there are a lot of industrial applications of natural gas that could fairly easily be converted to burn hydrogen instead, but might be a lot harder when you can’t use a 2000 degree C flame.

  130. 130.

    Dan B

    @Kay: My partner’s former house was a block from Howard and Sherry’s (sp?) old house.  They built substantial landscaping – 6’+ walls – into the park next to their house.  It’s the park where Kurt Cobain fans go to pay their respects / paint sad things on a bench.  Sherry complained to my partner that “the neighbors here aren’t nice”.  Projection much?  The Schultz’s moved.  I believe it was to a whites only gated community.  Any Jackals surprised?

  131. 131.

    Martin

    @Geminid: The UK should have no problem meeting their power needs through floating wind, the costs of which are coming down now that the technology has been dialed in.

    California should be making similarly large investments. Both places have stupid amounts of offshore wind.

  132. 132.

    Roger Moore

    @Kay:

    Why can’t their employees have contract protections too?

    The cruelty is the point.  We use this saying mostly about the Republican party, but I think it helps to understand a lot of modern management, too.  They have all kinds of fancy explanations for why they mistreat their employees, but the root of it all is that they see employment in terms of dominance.  They mistreat their employees because they can, and because forcing employees to accept an unfair relationship proves their dominance.

  133. 133.

    Martin

    @Calouste: Hydrogen is essential.

    We’re already hitting problems with battery storage as costs have been climbing the last 2 years, against all projections. Battery costs don’t scale well.

    Hydrogen works better at scale. Expanding storage is relatively cheap allowing for better long-term storage which is both necessary for seasonal variations but also to allow for grid maintenance and disruption. Battery helps you shift supply by hours, but not by days/weeks/months. Costs just get out of hand very quickly, and we’re already hitting supply constraints.

    The key to hydrogen is both *very* good engineering – you can’t just throw it together like you do other gas storage systems, and a rigid regulation to green hydrogen.

    The ultimate dynamic is going to be massive overproduction of peak power supply – solar/wind, because they carry virtually no marginal cost. You turn off a coal plant when the power isn’t needed because coal costs money to burn, but you don’t turn off solar because it’s literally more expensive to turn it off than to just leave it on. So instead of balancing supply to meet demand, in a renewable scenario you balance demand to supply, and need to introduce new regulations on limiting demand to prevent Jevon’s Paradox from showing up (which it already is). A great solution for that excess renewable generation is efficient electrolysis and storage, either for overnight fuel cell operation or longer term load balancing, say Texas in a freak February cold snap.

    Hydrogen has been shit on pretty badly by renewable advocates because it’s been slower to come to maturity and be competitive to other solutions, but it will prove to be essential. Lot of bad takes of arguing that hydrogen is a bad idea because of <insert solution that hydrogen is particularly poorly suited for>.

    But right now, BEVs are at a critical point with costs escalating so much due to supply issues that it risks falling apart. The problem isn’t gas/diesel, it’s cars in general and an over reliance on them. The BEV market is also making grid battery storage problematic by driving those costs up as well.

    Lack of a conservation strategy and culture is going to render all of these ‘solutions’ unviable in the longer term. Its a failure to understand how these dynamics work.

  134. 134.

    Dan B

    @Martin: There is a group planning a large offshore floating wind farm 42 miles off the Washington coast.  They claim, and i believe them, that the technology has reached the point, in just the past few years, that it is economically feasible.  The power lines will run past the WPPS abandoned nuclear reactors – world’s largest default at the time.  Sweet!

  135. 135.

    Geminid

    @Martin: It sounds like Cali is reaching it’s clean energy goals through onshore means. But I am curious: You have a good base of scidnce knowledge. Have you looked into hydrogen as a future energy source? I have just general knowledge, but it seems like the EU is serious about incorporating hydrogen into it’s future energy mix. It’s a good store of energy and can be greenhouse gas-free in both production and use

    But now I see you answered this question at #133.

  136. 136.

    Roger Moore

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    To me, this raises the obvious question: why is it so important for Musk to have billions of dollars if he isn’t going to spend them on anything?  Why couldn’t he have a more fair and inclusive system of running his company that let employees share in more of the massive wealth the company is creating?  It’s actually more sickening to me that Musk has hundreds of billions of dollars that sit idle than that he spent lots of money on a lavish lifestyle.  Yeah, it’s disgusting that some people mistreat their employees so they can live high on the hog, but at least they’re getting some tangible benefit from it.  It’s much worse that someone would mistreat their employees and get no tangible benefit, only so they could brag about being the richest person in the world.

  137. 137.

    Kay

    @Dan B:

     It’s the park where Kurt Cobain fans go to pay their respects / paint sad things on a bench.

    Kurt Cobain is enjoying renewed interest among the youngs.

    My 19 year old was telling me about him :)

    This is the same 19 year old who plays the guitar and once played Folsom Prison Blues and looked over at me and said “Johnny Cash”. I said yeah, I’m familiar with him. I can’t imagine what he thinks about me. That I know nothing.

  138. 138.

    WaterGirl

    @James E Powell: Just Beto vs. Abbott for me!

    I’m right and Beto wins?  You are a $250 BJ Angel for the first political fundraising we do after Nov 2022.

    You’re right and Abbott wins?  I am a $250 BJ Angel for the first fundraising we do after Nov 2022.

    Deal?

  139. 139.

    Geminid

    @Dan B: I was reading about a HVDC power line that will carry electricity generated by wind farms in western Iowa to Illinois. Most of the line will be buried in railroad right of ways. A similar project to the south would use overhead transmission lines. That one has been tied up in permitting and may never be built. People hate big powerlines, but they will barely notice a HVDC line buried along a rail line.

    Another project I read about was a 680 ton tidal electrical generator that was assembled in Dundee, Scotland. A submersible barge was required to move the generator to it’s place on the River Tay. Dundee used to be a shipbuilding center. That barge was the first vessel launched there in 40 years

  140. 140.

    Dan B

    @Geminid: There are battery technologies in the pipeline that should address some of the mineral bottlenecks plus hydrogen is good for running trucks at remote worksites.  The Brits are using their offshore wind fir electrolysis and adding a small amount of hydrogen to their natural gas.  The shortages of Lithium and other metals is well known.  It is fueling (apologies) investment in alternatives.  Transitions are bumpy but not insurmountable.  One big bump may be Manchin who views successful renewable energy as a threat to his dirty coal, extremely dirty even for coal, gravy train.  It seems very likely that several existing technologies for storing energy just need to be brought to scale

    BTW Hydrogen fuel cells are finicky, according to my partner.  Just burn it to generate power the old way.

  141. 141.

    Baud

    @Martin:

    The unfortunate part of this is that it could have yielded a better outcome had the US not irrationally turned against TPP. Now the CPTPP has formed with China having applied for membership which will make those supply chains a lot easier to manage through that partnership, but which excludes the US. The UK and Taiwan have also applied. This is now an active barrier to this settling in the US, but opens up Canada and Mexico as potential manufacturing centers should China be admitted to that alliance.

    Just massive dumbfuckery by the US, especially by Democrats that also turned against the TPP.

     

    RIP Jim, Foolish Literalist. I will miss him.

  142. 142.

    Dan B

    @Geminid: I believe you found the shipbuilding success story.  Thanks!  Fiona Hill’s analysis of the destruction of the shipyards of NE England is clear-cut and damning of the English class system.

  144. 144.

    Geminid

    @Dan B: One interesting aspect of the Iowa/Illinois HVDC powerline is that Siemens Industries is a project partner. They’ve already used this technology in Germany to bring wind generated electricity from the North Sea to central and southern Germany. Now they are ready to start laying their cable in North America.

  146. 146.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Baud:

    RIP Jim, Foolish Literalist. I will miss him.

    Not me. Good riddance to that grudge-bearing obsessive old fuck

     

    Hey! Wait a minute….

  147. 147.

    Another Scott

    @Martin:

    As with any technology, whether hydrogen makes sense depends on the details and the goals. Hydrogen fuel cells are usually much less polluting than burning the stuff (water vapor is a (short-lived) greenhouse gas; NOx), but hydrogen production still has its own issues.

    ScienceDirect – Desantes et al, 2020:

    With the rise of cleaner technologies for transport and the emergence of H2 as a fuel, most of the emissions in the well-to-wheel process are shifting towards the energy carrier production (fuel or electricity). The objective of this study is to perform a simplified cradle-to-grave Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) that compares the greenhouse gases (GHG) and NOX emissions of H2, electric and conventional technologies for the automotive sector in Europe and to devise the optimum strategy of vehicle fleet renewal to reduce the emissions. In this study the effect of water as GHG was considered and, unless [sic] other studies, the current European energy mix and that meeting the objectives for 2050 were considered (while technology level was kept constant) since H2 from electrolysis and electric vehicles’ well-to-wheel emissions are sensitive to the energy mix. To estimate the emissions, the fuel, vehicle production and operation cycles were considered independently for each technology and then put together. For H2, the best production and distribution strategy was steam methane reforming (SMR) with CO2 sequestration for GHG-100 gases and without capturing CO2 for NOX, both with central plant production and tube trailer transport. Fuel cell vehicles (FCV) with optimum H2 production always produce the lowest GHG-100 emissions and slightly higher NOX than battery electric vehicles (BEV) in the EU 2050 scenario. In contrast, HICEV would need to reach a fuel consumption of around 30 kWh/100 km to be competitive in emissions against BEV, for that, direct injection (DI) combined with a range extender (REx) hybrid architecture is the recommended powerplant concept. Finally, the optimum strategy to reduce emissions that Europe could follow is presented for the short, mid and long term.

    It’s good people are thinking about the details of these issues before we just let the neo-liberals magic of the marketplace bake-in the future for us.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  148. 148.

    JPL

    Wow Balloon Juice was busy this morning.

    Grand imp slept over so I’m still recovering.  I did indoctrinate him with Susan Meyers picture books, so that might have added to his late-night antics.

  150. 150.

    sab

    @Roger Moore: Their training makes them prove they are tough. Otherwise they are not fit to manage, because employees would eat them alive. I believe that is the mindset.

    I have worked fifteen years with a family firm that does not act this way, and pretty much runs their town because everyone likes them.

  151. 151.

    Another Scott

    @Baud: Wait, Jim, FL was in on that??  I only remember occasionally arguing with Kay about it.

    Hmm…  ;-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  152. 152.

    Martin

    @Dan B: Yeah, they worked out how to make it work in the North Atlantic. The cost of floating offshore wind is still pretty high, but it’s no longer in the ‘not going to happen’ category of high price. But compared to building nuclear, it’s pretty much in the running and faster to build out.

  153. 153.

    Another Scott

    BREAKING — Baristas at a Starbucks in Leesburg, Va., voted overwhelmingly — 23 to 1 — to unionize, according to the NLRB's count.

    This means that despite Starbucks' fierce anti-union efforts, the union's overall record increases to 29 wins versus 3 losses https://t.co/33ke3vE7zS

    — Steven Greenhouse (@greenhousenyt) April 23, 2022

    Good, good. More please.

    (via LOLGOP)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  154. 154.

    Martin

    @Geminid: Yeah, think of hydrogen as a battery, not as a fuel source. There are places where it can be portable, but probably only in fairly large vehicles like ships and in some parts of trucking (like drayage that tends to run 24/7, and where charging becomes problematic).

    But put a hydrogen electrolyzer and pipeline or storage facility at the large solar farm and you can pretty much stop curtailing that power. Put fuel cells somewhere else in the system for nighttime production.

    In 2020, CA curtailed 1.5TWh of solar production because there was no demand for it. The state is adding batteries to soak up some of that and electrolysis to soak up more. I’m expecting the state to see that the electricity cost of desalination could go to zero with this level of curtailment which makes desalination much more cost-effective for residential water use.

  155. 155.

    Martin

    @Another Scott: the main problem with hydrogen production is the steam reforming process, which uses fossil fuels. At least in places like California, it’s impossible for fuel cells to add enough water vapor to the air to even make up for what we’ve lost in the last decade, which is the largest contributor to the fire problem in the state. Increasing humidity is a benefit here.

    There will be other places where it’s the reverse, but at least for CA, increased water vapor is a feature.

    So long as the state has the regulatory discipline to cut off non-green hydrogen production, there should be no meaningful downsides to a rapidly expanding hydrogen economy. The state even has hydrogen and mixed hydrogen/methane pipelines either built or planned.

  156. 156.

    Geminid

    @Martin: Airbus says they want to build hydrogen powered airplanes, even put out some concept pictures. I read the clean energy program of the EU airline industry group, and they at least plan on using hydrogen for a large portion of their flights by 2040.

    And I read about an Otter seaplane that was converted to battery electric propulsion. The developers were trying to get it certified to fly passengers around the British Columbia sea coast.

  158. 158.

    Dopey-o

    @Martin: the main problem with hydrogen production is the steam reforming process, which uses fossil fuels. At least in places like California, it’s impossible for fuel cells to add enough water vapor to the air to even make up for what we’ve lost in the last decade, which is the largest contributor to the fire problem in the state. Increasing humidity is a benefit here.

    How do you know all this? I’m not questioning your knowlege, i somehow think i am missing a graduate-level course here. Books, articles, blogs to recommend?

  159. 159.

    Geminid

    @Dopey-o: There is a lot of material out there on the various sources of hydrogen. The product is characterized as “gray” hydrogen, “blue” hydrogen, and “green” hydrogen. The first two have more or less CO2 as byproducts, while the last produces no CO2. Since hydrogen itself produces only water when it burns, hydrogen produced by electrolysis is called green.

    If you look up any of these hydrogen types you will find numerous articles, some about innovative processes to produce hydrogen, some about projected uses of the gas.

    For a wider look at the clean energy transition, looking up “clean energy news” will produce a flood of articles describing developments in this area. They’ll be from scientific journals, general interest publications, and industry newsletters. There really is a lot going on here, from basic research to large scale commercial applications.

  160. 160.

    Another Scott

    @Geminid:  Nit:

    Since hydrogen itself produces only water when it burns…

    In any useful engine, turbine, etc., burning hydrogen also creates nitrogen oxides – a big component of smog (because air is mostly nitrogen). Fuel cells use hydrogen, but don’t “burn” it the same way, so while water is created, NOx isn’t.

    Auto fuel cells are still immature, but progress is being made. NREL 2019 report (20 page .pdf):

    Significant improvements have been made in degradation and operation time of FCEV power plants since the first phase of the Learning Demonstration project, but the technology will need to improve in order to meet DOE MYRD&D 2020 targets. To date, some fuel cell stacks in the fleet have exceeded the 5,000-hour operation time target, but degradation remains an issue. Fleets are on average experiencing 10% degradation between 2,000 to 3,000 hours of operation. The data indicates that, through the rate of improvement since the first Learning Demonstration phase, technology advancement should allow fuel cell stacks to meet the target in 2–4 years.

    Fuel cell performance data show that the technology will need to continue to improve to meet DOE MYRD&D 2020 targets of 65% peak efficiency at 25% rated power. FCEV fleets reported approximately 57% efficiency at 25% rated power. Voltage and power data indicate that the fuel cells are being operated at lower power levels under high voltage and low current scenarios. Power usage also mirrors range data showing that FCEVs are being driven in a manner similar to internal combustion engine cars.

    The lifetime goals seem surprisingly short, but Wikipedia claims that 2500 hours translates to about 75,000 miles. DOE goals are 8,000 hours for light trucks, 30,000 hours for heavy trucks, and 80,000 hours for distributed power systems.

    Exciting times.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

Comments are closed.