Thursday, June 01, 2023

Make everything use electric power. And shut down electric power plants

Gov. Jay Inslee logic: Shut down electric power plants at the same time you require more use of electricity.

He is rejoicing the shut down of the state's last coal-fired power plant in Centralia, WA in 2025. How will Puget Sound Energy cope? It gets 14.5% of its electricty from Centralia. 2025 is not far away. What will they do? They say they are studying options in Seattle Times 5/30/2023. (PSE provides electricity to 1.1 million customers - households and businesses - in Western Washington.)

So in the future we will have less electricity from coal. Less electricity from natural gas. Less from hydroelectric dams. Gov. Jay also wants to tear down four dams on the Snake River that provide hydroelectric power. Less electricity.

You say: solar and wind will provide more than enough. But the sun doesn't shine at night. And the wind? On and off. And the dream of batteries storing energy and  providing it at night is a dream. For all the talk no one has done this at the scale required. Oh, Germany has some batteries... Yes, building toward 1 per cent of the load (and for several days of outage). For all their talk the UK is in the same situation. More on this below.

So we need power plants that can run at any time, not dependent on sunlight or the wind, as back up to solar and wind. 

The next step by Jay Inslee logic is to require stopping use of gasoline, natural gas, biomass and any source that can emit CO2. And replace them by electricity - of which there will be less.

Electric cars required, not gasoline-powered. Cooking by natural gas: make it illegal. Heating by natural gas? No. Must be electric.

Uh... Gov. Jay, how will you keep the lights on and the cars running?

Frances Menton of the Manhattan Contrarian blog did an in-depth study on the energy storage problem - storing power for when solar and wind provide no power. It is the source of data on Germany and UK. See The Energy Storage Conundrum at Global Warming Policy Foundation

[https://www.thegwpf.org/publications/lack-of-energy-storage-makes-renewables-only-grids-a-pipedream/]

Friday, May 19, 2023

Drugs remain illegal in Washington, but some really want them legal

 The Washington Legislature finally passed a law to continue that crack, heroin, meth and fentanyl possession and use remain illegal. It was a close call;  if no action was taken by June 1 drugs would have been wide open. Oregon did so two years ago and it's ugly.

The law they passed is cumbersome; an incredibly simple fix was available. But they did something.

But the Seattle Demos are mourning the lost opportunity. They wanted full legalization.

Fentanyl kills - the Demos want its use fully legal.

Heroin kills - the Demos want its use fully legal.

Methamphetamine ruins lives and families - the Demos want its use fully legal.

Danny Westneat leads the mourners at Seattle Times


Sunday, February 26, 2023

Another Amazon, Costco, Starbucks, AT&T Cellular or Boeing - Not in Washington

 Another Amazon, Costco, Starbucks, AT&T Cell or Boeing? - Not in Washington

Washington politicians inherited an incubator for successful business start ups. And they are determined to destroy it. What??

WA has no income tax -- one of only six states -- and a good workforce. Entrepreneurs want these conditions, so they come here and succeed - not all, but more than elsewhere - and a few grow up here and return here, like Bill Gates.

Washington politicians want an income tax and want it so badly that they ignore the fact the our constitution does not allow a graduated tax on property and income is property. Oh! They say this is an excise tax, not income tax. But the IRA says it is. And all 49 other states says it is.

Our leaders are determined, but the "State Supreme Court will rule against it next month." Not likely, sadly. They always rule in favor of the Seattle big money. 

Goodbye entrepreneurs; Tennessee is ready for you.