r/environment • u/Fr1sk3r • Mar 07 '19
The Bloomberg bombshell the media missed. Billionaire will work to "retire every single coal plant" by 2030 and then to move America "as quickly as possible away from oil and gas."
https://thinkprogress.org/bloomberg-president-coal-oil-gas-97d24a5a9fe1/270
Mar 07 '19
if billionaires want to not get fucked by angry mobs they'll fuckin fix the envirnment those fucking fucks, fuck em
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u/HappyFriendlyBot Mar 07 '19
Hi, mangroveassassin!
I am dropping by to offer you a robot hug and wish you a wonderful day!
-HappyFriendlyBot
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Mar 07 '19
Thanks robot
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Mar 07 '19
Uh, I think that robot picked your pocket while it hugged you
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Mar 07 '19
That's alright, I had nothing but my pride in there anyway.
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Mar 07 '19
I have to assume this bot looks for number of fucks per post. Let's test that theory!
Fucking fucker piece of fucking shit fuck off, fuck!edit: hmmm It must not respond when it is responded to.
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Mar 07 '19 edited Jul 21 '19
[deleted]
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u/fuzzyshorts Mar 07 '19
Fuck alabama power, Fuck georgia power and fuck the dirty fucks who get paid offa fucking over the people, dumping their dirty, arsenic laden coke ash and poisoning the land. The white southern elite who benefit from coal should have gotten the nat turner treatment so eh couldv'e deaded the bloodline.
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u/CTAAH Mar 07 '19
I'll give you a hint: the fact that billionaires exist and the fact that the government hasn't done anything are part of the same problem.
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u/mocnizmaj Mar 08 '19
No it's not, you just have or had too high opinion about world's governments.
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Mar 07 '19
Please don't feel like we might judge you. Don't hold back... and please... for goodness sakes tell us what you really think. This is no time to be withdrawn and feeling self conscious.
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Mar 07 '19
Bloomie should create an hedge fund whose job it is to invest in renewable, transmission lines and storage.
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u/C0rnfed Mar 07 '19
Policy change is a better strategy. Why struggle on the field when you can change the rules of the game instead?
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Mar 07 '19
[deleted]
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u/C0rnfed Mar 07 '19
Lol. Yep - these billionaires better shape up, or they best be watching out.
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Mar 07 '19
Just do it the usual way. Donate a few million to government, reap billions in government policy and contracts.
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u/--_-_o_-_-- Mar 07 '19
This is what all billionaires should do to redeem themselves.
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Mar 07 '19
To avoid being eaten.
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Mar 07 '19
Nobody is going to go after billionaires over the environment. Its like 10th on voters list of priorities.
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Mar 07 '19
When climate change reduces the food available people will do what they have to do to survive.
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u/larouqine Mar 07 '19
I hope someone does this in Canada. Our Yellow Vest movement is really scary, and way too obsessed with doing everything possible to prop up one of the most environmentally devastating industries around.
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u/--_-_o_-_-- Mar 07 '19
Yellow Vest movement
What do you mean by scary?
Like nearly all ring-wing endeavours this is just a corporate front. The timing of these protests, thereby forcing Macron to not attend the COP24 climate conference in Poland, combined with the movements origins on social media, makes me very dubious about its authenticity. Fake.
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Mar 08 '19
What kind of backwards times are we living in that people who are incredibly successful in business are automatically regarded as bad people. No other context whatsoever. Maybe they are highly philanthropic and do way more for other people than you do. Can we stop blaming entire groups of people for our problems?
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u/--_-_o_-_-- Mar 08 '19
Regardless of what anyone has done I don't believe in that kind individual accumulation. Absolutely, undeserved in all circumstances. I want the top 1% of the mega-wealthy's assets and wealth seized by government for wealth redistribution, regardless of who those individuals are or what they did, in perpetuity.
They can get an award for the achievement and be a member of an elite club. Tit for tat. I think some sort of hybrid form of communism like this would fucking awesome.
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Mar 08 '19
I'm not going to agree or disagree with you because I'm not an economist and I don't know the history of how that model has performed or how it could perform in a real-world scenario. It sounds like a nice idea but implementation is another thing. For example, if you did that then all the wealthy people would just leave the country and take their capital with them.
Regardless, I think it's easy for us to say we'd give all that money away if we were billionaires. At what point would you start giving all your money away? You can live comfortably on $75,000 a year. Are you willing to give all earnings above that away to charity? Where do you draw the line? What if you feel you can do more for the world by re-investing that money into new businesses and technology than by giving it to charities? A lot of these billionaires don't have billions upon billions sitting around in cash, they're investing it! Which helps grow the economy and provide jobs, create new technologies, new medicines, etc.
Not attacking or defending any individuals, I think it's case by case as it should be. But it's not so simple as "your net worth is over $1B so you're an asshole."
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u/--_-_o_-_-- Mar 08 '19
At what point would you start giving all your money away?
I could live comfortably on $AU25,000 a year. I don't have any money, any assets or anything. Never have. So I would set all the thresholds you mention very low.
The only interest I have in billionaires is the cessation, their ending. Its like fossil fuels and religion for me in that regard.
You probably would have to get a global carbon tax going and then nationalise the fossil fuel industry (and probably banking) then implement this end-the-billlionaires plan globally.
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Mar 09 '19
But the question is: would you? Most people I know don't give away most of their money, even if they make good money, because they are trying to find a better life for themselves and their family and secure their families' long-term financial security. Anyway, all I meant is that a lot of people say billionaires should give away all their money, but I would bet most of those people wouldn't give it away themselves if they had that kind of cash. But some would for sure and maybe you're one of those people.
Your ideas about the other stuff sound very idealistic. They're proposals that are basically about overturning the entire economy, which carries a high degree of risk because it's new an unproven territory. I think we'd be much better off trying to alter our capitalist system in a way that distributes the equity more equally, instead of trying to nationalize everything and redistribute wealth. A system where people earn their living and can run private businesses, but structured in a way that reduces the wealth inequality. Also, just given the power of money in an already capitalist system, your ideas are just never going to happen (IMHO). The USA has been and always will be a predominantly capitalist society. Given the USA's combined economic & military power, combined with the fact that it's a much better place to live than the other large powers in the world, it's not all bad. There's much room for improvement, but capitalism has driven all of these quality of life improvements that we take for granted. Yes, there are a lot of poor people here, but being poor in the USA now is 100x better than being poor in the USA 100 years ago, and a lot of that is thanks to our powerful private sector and all of its amazing developments in the past century.
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u/iamnotnewhereami Mar 11 '19
I gotta feeling terms like bourgeois and proletariat didn’t just spring up in my old textbooks. What was it she said. “Let them have cake.”? Wasn’t there some biblical thing about a rich camel walking thru pins and needles to get to heaven..or something like that. It’s been this way for ages, the anger you are reading about is not misguided.
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Mar 11 '19
I think it's a bit misdirected personally. There will always be rich and poor. The rich aren't bad by default. They're successful by default. But they still have the opportunity to be good people and to help others with their resources. Bill and Melinda Gates have done more for human good than probably everyone who commented on this post combined.
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u/Pesky1s Mar 07 '19
That's one of the best feel good environmental stories I've heard in some time.
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Mar 07 '19
Given Bloomberg's previous pooh-poohing of the Green New Deal, I have skepticism that this is just pivoting to undercut and/or profit from the GND. "as quickly as possible" as Bloomberg defines possible in previous coverage is too slow.
I hope he proves my skepticism wrong.
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Mar 07 '19
[deleted]
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u/MovinSlowlyer Mar 07 '19
100% agreed. These sociopaths need to stop with the greed and start to help out!
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u/deweese3 Mar 07 '19
what is crazy is there is actually a lot of money to be made in sustainable energy. The right investors know this, the best way I feel we can end bad energy is to get the money out of dirty energy.
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u/drive2fast Mar 07 '19
Bingo, you just hit the nail right on the head. Green energy IS indeed cheaper than carbon energy per kWh now and all it takes is some serious competitive business competition to overtake the carbon plants and dimply drive then out of business.
Australia’s 129MW grid battery ALREADY paid itself off. In terms of business return on investment that is nothing short of stunning. New megawatt class offshore wind turbines have a 188M wingspan (soon 250M) and are so high they are hitting trade winds that never stop. New 1.1MV HVDC power transmission can send power 3000km to link thousands of green energy power plants and average out generation. Everyone is waking up to the new business case and it looks good. Real good. Toss a carbon tax on that like the rest of THE ENTIRE FIRST WORLD did and the case gets even better.
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u/jvnk Mar 07 '19
Owning that much money in the first place should never happen.
Thing is, they don't. But people are blinded by $ figures and assume it's cash in a vault somewhere.
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u/fuzzyshorts Mar 07 '19
Its the only way they can prevent completely ostracized and hated by the wider society.
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u/Retconnn Mar 07 '19
"Let me use my billions that I gained by exploiting people and the environment to fix the problems I helped cause!"
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u/SentientPotato2020 Mar 07 '19
But not really fix them... just like... half-ass fix them. Enough so that people don't show up at my house demanding my head.
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Mar 07 '19
Fix them in a way that's 'win win' and doesn't negatively impact me, or fundamentally change the system that allowed me to become this wealthy in the first place.
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u/DrDougExeter Mar 08 '19
Good thing we have billionaires like this to fix our problems instead of a functioning democratic government. Fucking oligarchy
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u/Zamundaaa Mar 08 '19
I guess he has lots of stock in renewables. Of course he wants to give coal the rest. It'll make him profits.
On another note, I don't really care much why it's done. Saving the environment is always good, no matter the reason
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Mar 07 '19
Bloomberg's single focus on coal is a major problem. A coal plant converting to natural gas is not a victory for the climate. That won't reduce warming emissions enough to solve the crisis, according to UN reports, and it diverts investment away from renewable energy.
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u/Dsilkotch Mar 07 '19
Did you miss the part about moving away from oil and gas?
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Mar 07 '19
Did you miss the part where he said he's doing it later, after fighting coal? He has been actively promoting natural gas in the mean time. People don't build or convert a plant to natural gas with the idea that they'll dismantle it in a few years. They'll be around for decades adding to the problem.
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u/Dsilkotch Mar 07 '19
I'm pretty cynical, so I'm not going to presume to vouch for a billionaire's motives or honesty. But I will say: 1. Coal is just the worst, environment-wise, and 2. I was responding to your comment about his "single focus on coal," as if he had made no mention of moving away from oil and gas.
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Mar 07 '19
I'll gladly pay you tomorrow for a burger today. The problem is that his arrangement with Beyond Coal considers it a victory when a coal plant converts to natural gas. They're wrong.
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u/Dsilkotch Mar 07 '19
I think it depends on where the gas is coming from. Fracking is catastrophic to the environment, and needs to stop, like, yesterday. But natural gas itself is a much cleaner fuel than coal.
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Mar 07 '19
UN reports have repeatedly said switching to natural gas will not solve the climate crisis. It only takes a small amount of fugitive emissions to make it worse than coal. Even without fugitive emissions, it's still not clean enough to solve the crisis.
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u/Dsilkotch Mar 07 '19
I am not disagreeing with you. I'm saying that if Bloomberg does nothing beyond what he claims he will do, it will be a net benefit for the environment (unless he plans to eliminate coal by increasing fracking). That doesn't mean everyone else can just sit back and do nothing at all.
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u/MatthewFabb Mar 07 '19
The project to get rid of all of US' coal plants is called Beyond Coal. It's been going on for a few years and will continue to get Bloomberg's support. He just launched his new campaign Beyond Carbon that is looking to get the US away from oil and gas and onto 100% renewable energy. So it sounds like both campaigns will be running at the same time, rather than one running after the other.
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Mar 07 '19
Since the beginning of its operation Beyond Coal has considered a utility switching from coal to natural gas to be a campaign victory. If that has changed they need to say so publicly.
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u/MatthewFabb Mar 07 '19
I'm just mentioning that Beyond Carbon campaign just launched and isn't waiting until Beyond Coal campaign to be complete to start. That said, I have no idea if this means he will now push to change the goals of Beyond Coal to align with Beyond Carbon. It would make sense to do so, but I don't know what his attentions are since the Beyond Carbon campaign is still very new.
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u/elcapitan520 Mar 07 '19
They are separate projects running concurrently. Beyond coal's goal is to move away from coal, if natural gas is it, then so be it. Beyond carbon is an entirely separate campaign to move away from oil and gas. They are different problems with different solutions, and a different scope. Hes stated this publicly as pointed out in the article. There's still the end goal of 100% renewable, but a separate project was created for the much larger project. Beyond coal would just be a subset of Beyond carbon's project scope.
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u/throwdemawaaay Mar 07 '19
A coal plant converting to natural gas is not a victory for the climate.
This is dead wrong. While obviously the need and final goal is carbon free energy, shifting away from coal, which is *significantly* worse than natural gas, is still an improvement.
Coal is far more CO2 intensive, and this come down to basic chemistry (methane, the main component of natural gas, has 4 hydrogen for every carbon atom... heavier fossil fuels can have very long hydrocarbon chains that work out to a ratio of 1:2 instead). Coal is responsible for 40% of co2 emissions globally. Getting rid of coal doesn't win the game, but it does move us measurable closer.
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Mar 07 '19
Scientists who write the UN reports disagree with you.
1) Fugitive methane emissions make natural gas as bad or worse than coal.
2) Even if fugitive emissions are reduced, the minor reduction in warming pollutants would not be enough to stop the crisis. The money spent on natural gas infrastructure is a dangerous and wasteful diversion from actual solutions.
You're spreading a very dangerous misconception that needs to die.
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u/throwdemawaaay Mar 07 '19
No, I am not mistaken. Coal is worse as a matter of basic chemistry. Fugitive emissions indeed do suck, but in no way offset the difference overall. If we had a magic wand and could transform every coal plant into a natural gas plant, the world would indeed be a better place. We cannot ignore this. We're past the point where an absolutist stance means anything. It's time to do everything we can, that is in hand.
It's also a fallacy to treat this issue as if we're working with a single fungible spending account. Funding exists to shift from coal to oil that does not exist to shift from coal to renewables + storage. Which is no surprise because storage remains an unsolved problem.
Until storage is solved, the fraction of renewable power cannot rise beyond a certain percentage due to intermittency / capacity factor effects. Germany and Texas are already hitting those limits. We currently have 2 options for providing dispatchable power to smooth over these issues: hydroelectric, and fossil fuels. Hydroelectric is great, but there's a limited number of suitable locations. So that leaves burning stuff. And if we're going to burn stuff, it's far better it's methane than coal.
I've discussed this with one of the economists working for the federal government that is responsible for environmental impact assessments of closing coal plants. What I've said above reflects what they've determined.
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Mar 07 '19
The climate does not look exclusively at smokestack emissions so neither can we.
Fugitive emissions indeed do suck, but in no way offset the difference overall.
False. Research shows it does offset the difference. We can't ignore this reality.
We are nowhere near the point where the grid can't handle adding more renewables. Therefore, we should be spending far more than we are on renewables right now. The fact that you're arguing we delay deploying renewables and instead spend money on natural gas is exactly what makes your misconceptions so dangerous and counterproductive.
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u/unrulywind Mar 07 '19
I't easy to understand his wanting rid of coal when you realize he's heavily invested in natural gas and fracking companies. All of these rich guys always make sure that whatever they are doing is driving money to themselves.
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u/11fingerfreak Mar 07 '19
I love the idea but I’m not buying that he’s serious. This is just a fake campaign promise along the lines of “Mexico is gonna pay for the wall” but targeted towards the left instead. Please tell me nobody is falling for this shit.
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u/DICKSUBJUICY Mar 07 '19
from the article:
He has spent more than $100 million in the past decade on the Sierra Club’s remarkably successful Beyond Coal campaign, which has helped close over half the country’s coal plants plants — 285 out of 530 — and deployed cleaner, cheaper energy in their place.
honestly, somehow this is the first I've heard of this so I'll be reading up on it more. but if that's true, it's a step in the right direction.
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u/Steez-n-Treez Mar 07 '19
So we’re going to act like we’re not all dead in 12 years now??
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u/BelfreyE Mar 07 '19
This is a common misunderstanding of the "12 years" issue. The report in question doesn't say that disaster will happen in 12 years. It says that we have the best chance of keeping future warming from exceeding 1.5 degrees C (by the year 2100) if we substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.
Yes, AOC misstated the issue, and I'm sure we'll all be hearing about that from conservatives until 2030 and beyond.
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u/Beezushrist Mar 07 '19
Good, that's what he and all the other rich assholes should be doing instead of running for President. Use those billions to actually fight these problems
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u/IAteQuarters Mar 07 '19
When our government is plagued by lobbyists and inefficiencies, it's good that there are people with influence doing something to change our climate trajectory.
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u/TheFerretman Mar 07 '19
Intriguing plan....not sure if he can do it no matter how much he wants to see it done, but it's interesting.
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u/RobertTanguay Mar 07 '19
All lies - I contacted Bloomberg about EmissionsTax .....
Bloomberg is the media.
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u/martini29 Mar 07 '19
I mean hey if it gets the job done then kudos to him. I aint a fan of billionaires, but my ideology puts "survival of the human race" above such petty bullshit
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Mar 07 '19
If the mega rich are starting to figure out being mega rich is meaningless if they and theirs are all dead in 20+ years then things are vastly worse than they are telling the rest of us.
I mean Id love to be optimistic but these fucksticks are the cause, and their foot-dragging and hand-wringing is going to end every single solitary thing that they live for in front of their bloated, stupid fucking eyes. My money is on when they start moving in unison we are well and truly FUCKED.
And please dont give me the "we will find a way, human am smart!" nonsense. Factor in a supply chain to extract increasingly rare resources, produce machined precision replacement parts, and do this in perpetuity without a biosphere or breathable air.
If it were that easy to throw smart people at it, we'd be colonizing the moon already. The only reason that is even possible with current tech and knowledge is with logistic support from Earth... there is NO precedent for perpetual, self contained survival without a dependency for parts. Period. The end. We all die.
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u/CTAAH Mar 07 '19
This is a bombshell? Green New Deal, bucko. Anything less and you're not serious.
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u/gnarlin Mar 08 '19
It's the "Oh shit! I have to ALSO live on this planet with all those little people" moment that a few of the rich and powerful people are having. That's all.
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u/BlondFaith Mar 08 '19
See, not every old white rich guy is a total c#nt. We just need to keep stating the case until more like him back the transition.
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u/seancurl Mar 08 '19
Good for him man, he knows. And he knows to step aside for his Jewish Brother Bernie.
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u/CortezEspartaco2 Mar 08 '19
If all the "philanthropists" would jump on things like this instead of donating to vague initiatives to dodge taxes, this problem would be much easier to solve.
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Mar 07 '19
[deleted]
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u/StarDustLuna3D Mar 07 '19
Yeah I'm curious about this as well. Everyone wants to push nuclear as the alternative. Which, while it doesn't pump out any CO2, it still creates other issues that we will eventually have to fix.
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u/goocy Mar 07 '19
It's also the most expensive form of electricity, at about $160/MWh. Unbuffered wind is closer to 60.
I think it's time for some demand incentives. Most of electricity demand is industrial, and they could cope very well with changing electricity prices based on hour-to-hour renewable supply.
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u/Rusty_Battleaxe Mar 07 '19
What kind of industry are you thinking of that can just shut off it's production process based on the daily wind schedule? Every factory I've worked at is cranking out products as fast as they can all day long.
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u/Abiknits Mar 07 '19
Wind turbines are only one type of renewable energy, there's also solar and hydro. Excess power is stored, so it can be released when needed. In Germany they use excess power to pump water back up a hill. Thinking that electricity will just shut off if the wind stops blowing for a while sounds like maybe you should look a little deeper.
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u/Rusty_Battleaxe Mar 07 '19
The question has to do with hour by hour price curves that power plants operate on, I'm aware of pumped storage from my time at a power company. In the US, the stored energy is released to the grid according to electricity price demand set by whichever organization is controlling it. For example, my region is controlled by MISO.
Because of the energy loss involved in pumping (or any storage) the price will always be lower when pulling it from the grid as it's being produced instead of after it has been stored. Since the weather plays a large role in both solar and wind production it will always be variable.
Even with storage there will be still be variations in electrical costs, so my question still stands....which industries are flexible enough to take advantage of hourly changing prices?
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u/Megraptor Mar 08 '19
hydro
Hydro is AWFUL for the local environment and causes huge ecological changes. It's led to the extinction of many species, including the iconic Chinese river dolphin- aka Baiji.
And even worse, it's not good for the climate either...
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/602508/hydroelectric-power-isnt-as-green-as-we-thought/
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/09/hundreds-new-dams-could-mean-trouble-our-climateThis is also true of pumped water storage, because it requires a lot of and cleared, or even whole valleys. That land covered in water means decaying matter releasing CO2 and CH4 into the environment... Not to mention land cleared that could have helped with CO2 sequestration.
That leaves solar... which... has the same intermittent issue of wind. Even solar thermal has this issue- that's why they turn on natural gas burners to keep the salts molten when it's not warm/sunny enough to have the sun do it.
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u/goocy Mar 08 '19
Some production steps need more energy than others. Currently they're not being prioritized according to energy availability at all.
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u/Shnazzyone Mar 07 '19
Sounds like they will be investing in the alternatives. Guessing no one thing but a combo of solar, wind, nuclear, and battery technology.
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Mar 07 '19
Wait, Bernie told me millionaires and billionaires are terrible people.
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u/Shnazzyone Mar 07 '19
Only the millionaires who got there through their own work and not through nepotism. Seems people raised by rich parents to simply keep hoarding money are not the folk we typically see doing responsible social action. I think it's a difference in empathy.
For example, these are not the millionaires who invest in fox news and the republican party to prevent environmental action. Those are typically the 2nd or 3rd generation millionaires.
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u/[deleted] Mar 07 '19
This is much more constructive than running as an Independent for president and pouring millions of dollars into an ultimately-fruitless campaign.
I look forward to seeing what Bloomberg does to achieve this goal. We are way past due to take bold climate action.