nsplayr

I get what you're saying, to a point. Trust but verify. But I mean...do you believe USAF mishap data? The DoD and USAF are part of the executive branch just like the EIA. There is absolutely no reason to disbelieve the EIA data.

The Prager U video seems to use some data about global energy mix that isn’t accurate. I provided credible sources that seemed to contradict their main point. Let’s talk about that instead of literal whataboutism. Do you think renewables are in fact used as little as their claim, rather that what the EIA published?

Prager U has a very pronounced bias, I would proceed with caution with anything they put out. According to the US Energy Information Administration, we get 12% of our overall energy from renewables and 20% of our electricity from renewables, as of 2020 (latest data they published). Edit to add: So the video talked about global usage vs US that I cited above, but global energy mix has about 16% renewables + nuclear so IDK what data they’re using.

I do but I haven’t compared prices…maybe I need to move that higher on the priority list.

I did have a level 2 charger installed, yea. I went with the chargepoint flex home and it cost $700 on Amazon. Hired an electrician to hard-wire that in my garage on a dedicated 80amp breaker. He also ran a conduit to the other side of my garage to match where the EV is parked. That charger only pulls 48amps so it was a little overkill for future proofing. That all cost $1,000. I get about ~30 miles of range added per hour with the level 2 charger, so charging from 5%-80% would take 6 hours. I normally only have to charge for about 2-3 hours per day though and if I had variable electricity rates I’d take advantage and do that overnight, but my utility doesn’t do that so I just plug in right when I park and unplug when I leave again. All controllable in both the charger’s app or the car’s app/touchscreen. I just re-ran the numbers with current gas prices and my EV (VW ID.4 AWD) is now 8.4x more cost efficient per mile than my gas car (2010 VW GTI, 27mpg but requires premium). I paid $62 to put 2,774 of range on the EV in February via home charging and that same $62 now buys me one tank of gas and 330 miles of range on the gas car ☹️ With these numbers it would take me ~26 months of driving the EV to repay the cost of installing the charger based on lower per mileage costs alone, less if i drove even more (I already drove it a lot for 1 month!) or if gas prices continue to climb. Obviously there are other benefits in the equation on the side of the EV (brand new, faster, instant torque, steering assist, cool spaceship noises, etc.) but that’s the bottom line on costs and home charging based on my local electricity rates (which are very cheap in middle Tennessee FWIW). I could have done the level 2 charging infrastructure slightly cheaper but I wanted what I considered the best charger and I am not an electrician able to install myself. You can factor in level 1 charging (regular 3-prong plug ie no new infrastructure needed) and DC fast charging to the equation. Level 1 only was giving me ~3 miles per hour of range added which was not enough for all the driving I am doing and the frequency of turn time in the garage. I’ve done DC fast charging once and it was great, and free on the Electrify America network for the next 3 years for me, but there are not DC fast chargers located near where I idle (eg work, grocery stores, etc.) and I haven’t done a road trip yet to really test it out. Tesla is way ahead here with their supercharger network but there’s a lot of investment happening to build that out for non-Tesla EVs and to hopefully have Tesla let other EVs charge in their network too. Get an EV if you can find one, it’s been really great so far. I already have reservations on 2 more, another VW ID.4 AWD and an F-150 Lightning…still deciding on if I wanna hold out for the Ford or just double down on another ID.4 AWD that’s honestly been a 9.5/10 for me and what I need to do with it.

So let me get this straight…you want to fly nuclear-capable US bombers over Ukraine, directly into Russian IADS, and somehow HALO airdrop cargo from an internal weapons bay? Are you actually a member of the United States Air Force in some capacity? Please tell me no 🤞 My expert recommendation is to just put that stuff on trucks and drive it in from Poland but I’m just spitballing here…

So is this about energy policy in some way or just a general “let’s sh*T on Biden / our least favorite politician du jour?” Nowhere have I “blamed Trump” for current economic conditions or for oil prices. FWIW our economic performance from 2020-Jan 2021 when he left office while bad objectively was admirable comparatively and our recovery from the pandemic recession has been much better than most of the other advanced economies. Trump also greatly increased domestic oil production, which is a good thing given where we’re at now re: boycotting Russian oil. I only even brought up Bush/Clinton/Obama/Trump/Biden here to demonstrate that Biden isn’t some uniquely anti-oil leader…we’re producing a lot of domestic oil right now during his administration! The numbers don’t lie…the lowest levels of domestic production came under GWB, the Texas cowboy, go figure…it’s not intuitive but it’s also true. BL: If there’s something to be said about energy policy, let’s talk here. If y’all just wanna make another thread “Biden Sucks and Let Me Count The Ways” or “Trump 2024” then feel free to rename this and I’ll see my self elsewhere. I am for much more energy. Like let’s freaking Dyson sphere the sun if we can. I’m very pro-nuclear and renewables and would spend more money and cut regulation for building both significantly if I could wave a magic wand. Let’s figure out fission. In the short-term, let’s allow for continued high levels of domestic oil production to end once and for all our need to get thrashed by global events quite as hard, although with oil being a global commodity that’s tough even for a big producer like us. I still fully support moving away from fossil fuels to other sources of energy with less negative externalities as quickly as is feasible understanding that there are roles where fossil fuels are still massive more favorable, and ok in those roles let’s use what we’ve got. Electric vehicles *are* a viable alternative for like 96.9% of the driving Americans do and they absolutely would shield you from variable gas prices right now. I happened to recently have purchased an EV and it’s fantastic. Literally 6x more efficient cost per mile than my gas car, and that was calculated at pre-Ukraine gas prices. Electricity rates at least where I live are only reassessed annually at most and you can easily power an EV (and probably most of your other electricity usage) with rooftop storage if you own your home, which I plan on doing soon. I think energy policy and EVs and nuclear reactors are cool and would love to discuss that. I also follow politics very closely and tend to want to point out stuff that’s not accurate, perhaps to a fault. But I disagree that every discussion *always* has to be all about politics. Let’s make this one at least a little bit better than the several other dumpster fires raging (I’m looking at you COVID thread…) That’s my two cents anyways, maybe I’m just pissing into the wind here, which I’ve learned over many years on BO.net is a truly renewable resource 😅

There was thing little hiccup that started in February/March 2020…not sure if you remember haha. To be fair, Trump’s total numbers would have been higher were it not for the pandemic cutting out a lot of production for ~18 of his 48 months in office, and Biden’s would be higher as well if we had not suffered the pandemic slow down. We’re near it now, but the projection is that we’ll no-joke be back at all-time high annual production in 2023 and continuing to press higher in 2024. My big point is that domestic oil production is at or near all-time highs with growth on the horizon, especially given the high prices we’re seeing now. A lot of people get *vibes* that Biden has somehow hurt domestic production, but the data does not back that feeling up.

https://careers.alaskaair.com/seattle-wa/ascend-pilot-academy-become-a-pilot/CDE46FFE084A4CE7A8148B3596922752/job/?vs=1606&utm Alaska/Horizon opening up the latest flight academy -> regional -> mainline training pipeline.

Cool cartoon and all, but US domestic oil production during Biden's time in office has been very high! The highest, in fact! More is great and let's do it specifically to screw over Putin but...it's hard to complain when he's #1. Domestic Oil King Biden 2024, basically. Sucks when the actual data doesn't fit your preconceived notions though...if anything you can blame Dubya, the rich cowboy rancher from Big Oil Texas for severely underproducting during his 8 years in office 😁 Ya know it's almost as if it's not as simple as 1) President says thing, 2) massive industry bends to his will. The US in fact does not have a state-owned oil production monopoly, but I'm all ears if you'd like to propose that in order to give the executive branch more direct control of production at any given time. It's almost as if oil is a global commodity controlled mostly by a merry band of dictators and foreign country politics + global market prices drive the vast majority of production decisions that affect prices...weird. Source: yes it's paywalled but I pay and it's well worth the subscription p.s. - can we try to keep at least 1 thread about actual policy free of meme-driven pure political sh*t-talking? I vote yes, who's with me? Mutual disarmament to actually discuss energy policy...we already made it to page 2 and have stayed on the rails so far...you in @Sim?

There's currently a minor Wikipedia editing battle to give "Igor from Ukraine" status as a current operator of the Tor Missile System 😆 Here's a photo snip from a previous edit to the page...I for one stand with Igor ✊🇺🇦

Indeed. "China remains the pacing challenge." #AllTheBestBuzzWords

Hey now, those are some valuable sorties making sure that the Taliban were complying with the latest PETA guidelines! 🐑😆

"The dwarves delved too greedily and too deep." This is not my prefered "all of the above" option lol 😅

And Romney! Both very seriously believed they would win even late into the evening on election day.

All good polling organizations use this model, it's an industry best-practice for a reason. It's not perfect obviously and there is both an art and a science to getting your demographics right based on who picks up the phone. Efforts are being made in the industry to layer on additional data since as was pointed out, not everyone is excited to pick up the phone and talk to a pollster calling from an unknown number. That being said, the fact that Quinnipiac is a university has absolutely nothing to do with it. Polls can be conducted by media companies, universities, private companies, or any combination of the three and can either do a good job or not, but the best-practices are the same. Quinnipiac happens to do a pretty good job, but that's not because they are associated with a university necessarily. The confusion for a lot of people comes in because A) there are pollsters who do not do a good job on a particular poll or cycle either due incompetence, bad data, or bad practices and B) there are also polls conducted and released specifically for influence rather than inform the public. Be wary of internal campaign polling that is released publically or organizations that do not follow industry best-practices and/or are looking to influence public opinion rather than report on the world as it actually is. Most pollsters benefit by calling races accurately and putting out good and interesting data, but some less scrupulous or less neutral groups benefit by either giving politicians the numbers they want to see or by pushing hot-button patsian issues backed by dubious "data," and they are paid well to do so. This from 538 is a good place to start when evaluating how good a particular pollster is, and Quinnipiac currently rates an A-.

Yea I saw that too and was pissed. Guess the last day I’ll use that card is 31 Dec 22! It also makes me rethink moving my entire banking/insurance business elsewhere since I was keeping my direct deposit in my USAA checking specifically to take advantage of that limitless 2.5% cash back card. They can pay Gronk and run a shit load of ads but that extra 1% cash back that was a great benefit for using their premier card really was tipping them into the red so it’s gotta get cut 🙄😡

To consolidate discussions from both the Ukraine & politics threads. Open for discussing all things energy policy! I’ll lead with this: despite rhetoric to the contrary, US domestic oil production is projected to set a new record high in 2023, reflecting a full recovery from the losses due to the pandemic. “U.S. crude oil production averaged 11.2 million b/d in 2021. We expect production to average 11.8 million b/d in 2022 and to rise to 12.4 million b/d in 2023, which would be the highest annual average U.S. crude oil production on record. The current record is 12.3 million b/d, set in 2019.” Source: Energy Information Administration Short-Term Energy Outlook, Jan 2022

It's easy to get caught up arguing about this project or that project, but the macro trends are very clear. The U.S. has massively ramped up domestic fossil fuel production and exports, and our reliance on foreign fossil fuel imports has dropped significantly. We're a net exporter of fossil fuels as of 2020. However, not all fossil fuels are interchangeable obviously, so there's some stuff we import because we have less of it than we need or it's cheaper to import than to produce domestically to meet our needs 100%. Repeal the Jones Act for one. Overall though fossil fuels are a giant global commodity and there's not some lever on the Resolute Desk that makes oil (or consumer gasoline) prices go up or down. Fair arguments can be made that Dem administrations typically try to reduce fossil fuel production/usage at the margins due to climate change concerns and GOP administrations usually don't, but the big numbers don't lie, see the graph below. 2008-2020 was 2/3 controlled by Democrats and our domestic production went up very significantly and our net imports dropped very significantly. BL: Obama admin recently oversaw very substantial domestic fossil fuel production increases! Trump admin also did this. Good work. Long-term, I'm personally in favor of an energy abundance policy - we need *massively* more energy as a human species and we can do a lot of amazing things if we're able to achieve that. Space colonization, significantly more food production, large-scale ocean water desalination, and direct carbon capture all become much more commercially viable with energy abundance. That means way more nuclear (ideally figuring out fusion), way more solar/wind/tidal/geothermal, and yes also some fossil fuels so long as you can price in or mitigate the negative externalities of carbon emissions and other pollution. If you have direct carbon capture powered by fusion for example, and other emissions controls such that net emissions/pollution are negative, burn all the fossil fuels you want! It's also currently impossible to launch rockets without fossil fuels so even in the above fantasy example, there will likely always be a place for extremely energy-dense types of fuels. Medium-term, I'd love to rely less on OPEC dictators + Putin and would rather see us put more effort into energy sources that are more sustainable. Nuclear + renewables > domestic/friendly-nation fossil fuels > hostile-nation fossil fuels while we still need them, which we do. We are well on way down this track. Short-term, we still import fossil fuels from Russia and we should stop. Their illegal and immoral war in Ukraine is a travesty and we should punish them as directly as possible without risking significant further escalation or loss of American lives. This will cause pain at the pump and we should do whatever we can to alleviate that, e.g. temporary federal gas tax holiday, increasing any domestic production that we can, and leaning on the rest of OPEC+ to pump more. Not to detract from efforts to move toward abundant, sustainable energy as described above, but we can and should do both. Source for the graph below. Edit to add: f*ck Putin, long-live Ukraine...to stay on topic 🇺🇦

The baseline assumption in modern American politics is the incumbent party loses seats at the first midterm. All bets should be made from that baseline, e.g. a Dem loss of both chambers in 2022 should be expected even if you know nothing about anything other than the raw seat numbers in both chambers and which party holds the White House. My personal guess as of tonight is the GOP takes the House with a 10-20 seat majority (net +20-30ish from now) seats and I could believe a senate anywhere from 46/54 GOP-led to a 52/48 Dem led, there are some interesting senate races out there this cycle. But as we see in the news, sh*t happens and people’s memories are short, so we’ll see where we’re at by November! Feel free to look back and laugh in a few months, although I will mention that I predicted Biden’s SCOTUS nominee correctly when the vacancy was first announced 😎 My guy did famously narrow it down quite a bit though haha…made it relatively easy. Though one could say the same of Trump, having chosen all three of his nominees from a well-publicized short list and saying specifically he wanted to replace Ginsburg with another woman (how sexist of him! /sarcasm).

^^this A big reason why the Libertarian Party will never succeed in the US is because too many libertarians who otherwise have some valid points are then also weirdo maximalists who will tell WWII veterans who were drafted that they were slaves 🤷‍♂️ 😶 To tie back into Ukraine (and this is shamelessly stolen from reddit)

Ok tough guy yea let’s assassinate the head of state of a nuclear power…any other brilliant ideas? And trust me, I’m fully in the “F Russia” camp 🇺🇦💪

Not sure if I'm late to the party or what but the "new & improved" USAA homepage on their website just went live for me today. Whoever designed it should be drawn and quartered. It literally might be the last straw. #GetOffMyLawn

So it…gets an massive boner before “busting” the sound barrier? Giggity.