Anti-pipeline activism isn't generating more investment in renewable energy

[Marina Schwarz + 1,576]

Anti-pipeline activism isn't generating more investment in renewable energy

On a scale of Oh, really? to Climate denialist fake news, where do you place yourself? I may regret asking this but I'm not going back.

[Red + 252]

Corn does not grow everywhere.

Edited December 19, 2018 by Red
sp.

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

3 hours ago, Marina Schwarz said:

Anti-pipeline activism isn't generating more investment in renewable energy

On a scale of Oh, really? to Climate denialist fake news, where do you place yourself? I may regret asking this but I'm not going back.

Happy to see you read an article in The Washington Examiner.  Beats the heck out of CNN, in my opinion.  At least it is an alternative to MSM.

[Marina Schwarz + 1,576]

I didn't really pay attention to the source, to be honest. if I did, I'd be at it all day every day. Give me facts and figures, and let me interpret them, I say.

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

3 hours ago, Tom Kirkman said:

Happy to see you read an article in The Washington Examiner.  Beats the heck out of CNN, in my opinion.  At least it is an alternative to MSM.

There seem to be local newspapers around both DC and NYC that print just news, without opinion or "helping" you to understand and "get" what you "should" be understanding.  But it truly seems that all of the big papers and media outlets are just touting what they want you to believe so that you do what they want you to do.

[Marina Schwarz + 1,576]

1 hour ago, Dan Warnick said:

There seem to be local newspapers around both DC and NYC that print just news, without opinion or "helping" you to understand and "get" what you "should" be understanding.  But it truly seems that all of the big papers and media outlets are just touting what they want you to believe so that you do what they want you to do.

This almost restores my faith in humanity and reason.

@mthebold, here's another hypothesis: tell them, shock them, make them think before they act... and you won't because they won't believe you. Eh...

[Rodent + 1,424]

10 hours ago, Marina Schwarz said:

 Give me facts and figures, and let me interpret them, I say.

No way! People are far too stupid to be able to assess all those complicated facts and figures all by themlittleselves. Leave that up to the media to spoon feed you. They know best. (best read that with a heavy sarcasm filter)

I will say, in defense of the media, (and I'm going to duck and run as soon as I say this), that sometimes facts and figures without context can be fairly meaningless. Sometimes it is helpful to know WHY something is important. 

For example, Saudi Arabia exported 7.1 million bpd in exports in November. 

Now, someone who doesn't follow oil news all day every day might not have much else to go on to contextualize that. 

So the media might add that that is 30% more than the month prior.

Another outlet, wanting to make an alternate point (perhaps with an agenda, perhaps not), may add instead that it is 20% down from last year.

Both might be true, but they tell a different story. One might say that it is fair to point out both points and let the viewer decide how to assess the entire situation. 

Maybe the outlet frames the headline to say "Saudi Arabia's exports fall 20%". The other may say "Saudi Arabia's exports skyrocket 30%".

The bare bones facts sometimes don't do an article justice.

[without turning, Rodent backs slowly and quietly toward the exit]

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

1 hour ago, Rodent said:

< well expressed explanation by Rodent >

[without turning, Rodent backs slowly and quietly toward the exit]

Nicely put, Rodent.

[Red + 252]

6 hours ago, mthebold said:

When people are sufficiently immersed in an ideology, you can't force them to change. Ideology is mere belief and may not have any reasoned foundation.  Example: "coal mining was good because it created wealth and employment for a town."  But now most of the miners are dead or suffering black lung disease; town is in meltdown.

They have to see something very wrong and want to change.  Or they might just use their brain to work out their ideology was flawed.  The trouble with shocking them is that, more often than not, they see you as the source of their discomfort and dig in even deeper. There is no counter to irrational belief.

Thus, I conclude that it's best not to disturb the extremists.  You have labelled people who might have a rational belief as "extremists".  Let them feel good about themselves while barely making a difference.  You have not considered their actions were an attempt to save people from their own ignorance.   Eventually, the smarter ones will begin to question the ideology.  When that happens, those can be told.  Given my example, that would be a positive outcome.

Politics is difficult because everyone can vote, but easy because elections often hinge on convincing a receptive 1-2%.  Better to aim for the receptive minority.  Conjecture: best policy is honesty.

 

[ronwagn + 6,290]

19 hours ago, Marina Schwarz said:

Anti-pipeline activism isn't generating more investment in renewable energy

On a scale of Oh, really? to Climate denialist fake news, where do you place yourself? I may regret asking this but I'm not going back.

Great article. New England citizens have been badly harmed by New York's blind opposition to natural gas pipelines. Of course they don't know that unless they have studied the issue. I am fairly the certain the "news" papers are not telling them that. There are lots of greenies in New England but you have to be pretty dense to not understand that your heating bill could be a lot lower if you had piped natural gas coming from Pennsylvania.

It has been fun watching offshore wind turbines trying to proliferate off New England shores due to NiMBYS. I haven't heard about much solar activity proliferating there either. 

I think New England has been unable to even plan a floating LNG receiving plant, as has Philadelphia. Please correct me if I am wrong. 

Someone, please give me an estimate of the comparable cost of LNG piped within New England if it was offloaded to a nearby plant and regasified. 

[Marina Schwarz + 1,576]

Oh, but Rody, context is king and I assumed everyone knows it. You're absolutely right, of course, but I'll just add that context consists of more facts. Cherry picking what facts you want to report (in your example of SA's exports) to suit an agenda is what I'd call spin, not journalism.

@Red, "rational belief" is an oxymoron, also called a contradiction in terms. But it sounds cute, I'll give you that.

Edited December 20, 2018 by Marina Schwarz

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

51 minutes ago, Marina Schwarz said:

"rational belief" is an oxymoron, 

So perhaps its opposite - "irrational facts" - might be an ... antimoron.  

[Marina Schwarz + 1,576]

Hmmm, that's interesting. I don't know if facts can be rational or irrational, actually. Emotions -- certainly but facts are just there. Can rationality/irrationality be assigned to them? Elaborate, please (until another mod catches us in the act of spamming this thread ad throws us out).

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

Seems to me that rational belief and irrational facts are equally and oppositely oxymoronic.  Just mirror image of craziness.

[Red + 252]

4 hours ago, Marina Schwarz said:

@Red, "rational belief" is an oxymoron, also called a contradiction in terms. But it sounds cute, I'll give you that.

Really?

Did you consider the belief being merely probable, based on the believer's evidence and their inductive reasoning; or probable, given the believer's evidence and correct inductive criteria. Or it may be rational as a result of what the believer regards as adequate investigation.

Such factors are rational, rather than definitive, eg, you are a coal miner, and may contract black lung disease.  Would you like me to continue?

 

[Marina Schwarz + 1,576]

Yes, really. 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

10 hours ago, ronwagn said:

Great article. New England citizens have been badly harmed by New York's blind opposition to natural gas pipelines.

Someone, please give me an estimate of the comparable cost of LNG piped within New England if it was offloaded to a nearby plant and regasified. 

Ron, I think you are missing the point.  US LNG gas cannot be brought to Boston at any price.  It has to be purchased and transported from the other side of the globe, at least 3,00 miles away, more likely 7,000 miles,  and that is where your costs will lie.  The USA has no ships to do that LNG transport from Louisiana to Boston, and foreign ships are banned,due to the old Jones Act.  The transport of gas is barred by a hundred-year-old law that has no meaning. 

Why is that law still around?  Because the US Congress all wants to look like it is "supporting something," in this case US shipbuilding, although the truth is that those types of ships are simply not built in the USA.  Americans are good at building aircraft carriers, submarines, and destroyers up in the Bath Iron Works shipyard in Maine.  For the rest, you have some tugboats. You want a serious LNG carrier?  Cannot be built at any US yard, they have no experience in that and do not know how to do it. 

If you could do it from Louisiana, then it might add four bucks to your retail cost.  Entirely survivable, given the vast surplus of gas coming out of the Permian. 

[Red + 252]

1 hour ago, Marina Schwarz said:

Yes, really. 

A definition of mere belief does not help your cause as it, of itself, was not the issue.  

You need to mount a valid argument against the concept.  

[ronwagn + 6,290]

9 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

Ron, I think you are missing the point.  US LNG gas cannot be brought to Boston at any price.  It has to be purchased and transported from the other side of the globe, at least 3,00 miles away, more likely 7,000 miles,  and that is where your costs will lie.  The USA has no ships to do that LNG transport from Louisiana to Boston, and foreign ships are banned,due to the old Jones Act.  The transport of gas is barred by a hundred-year-old law that has no meaning. 

Why is that law still around?  Because the US Congress all wants to look like it is "supporting something," in this case US shipbuilding, although the truth is that those types of ships are simply not built in the USA.  Americans are good at building aircraft carriers, submarines, and destroyers up in the Bath Iron Works shipyard in Maine.  For the rest, you have some tugboats. You want a serious LNG carrier?  Cannot be built at any US yard, they have no experience in that and do not know how to do it. 

If you could do it from Louisiana, then it might add four bucks to your retail cost.  Entirely survivable, given the vast surplus of gas coming out of the Permian. 

Thanks for the answer Jan. How about tugs pulling barges up through the intercoastal waterway or at sea? There are large LNG tanks available. 

If New Englanders were made aware of the stupidity maybe they could wake up their politicians. 

Trucks can also be used and some individual factories in New England have LNG delivered via truck. 

https://marcellusdrilling.com/2018/02/can-virtual-pipelines-rescue-new-england-from-russian-lng

New info on Philadelphia https://www.pgworks.com/residential/about-us/newsroom/blog/philadelphia-gas-works-seeks-approval-for-p3-project-to-unlock-lng-revenue

Edited December 20, 2018 by ronwagn

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

2 minutes ago, ronwagn said:

Thanks for the answer Jan. How about tugs pulling barges up through the intercoastal waterway or at sea? There are large LNG tanks available. 

If New Englanders were made aware of the stupidity maybe they could wake up their politicians. 

Trucks can also be used and some individual factories in New England have LNG delivered via truck. 

Hauling barges is not cost-effective.  The reason is that a barge tow is very slow.  LNG is a time-sensitive product as you have this boil-off effect ongoing, thus eating away your stock and your profits. An LNG tanker has a scavenging system that takes the boil-off and feeds it into the main engine, so it is not just wasted. 

The other problem is that LNG has to be kept very cold, at about -167 degrees, something like that. So the way this is accomplished is to keep the surface area small relative to the stored volume, and that implies a large sphere.  The larger the sphere, the (relatively) less surface area to volume.  So a seriously big boat loses less product to boil-off than a small one. 

Using trucks works for shorter distances, but if you start hauling volumes from Louisiana to Boston then you are creating a road hazard. 

New Englanders are consumed with ideas of personal purity, so the lunatic fringe of Greenies hold sway.  They want to abolish everything and go back to whale oil and animal fat.  Not kidding.  They are seriously nuts. 

[ronwagn + 6,290]

12 minutes ago, Jan van Eck said:

Hauling barges is not cost-effective.  The reason is that a barge tow is very slow.  LNG is a time-sensitive product as you have this boil-off effect ongoing, thus eating away your stock and your profits. An LNG tanker has a scavenging system that takes the boil-off and feeds it into the main engine, so it is not just wasted. 

The other problem is that LNG has to be kept very cold, at about -167 degrees, something like that. So the way this is accomplished is to keep the surface area small relative to the stored volume, and that implies a large sphere.  The larger the sphere, the (relatively) less surface area to volume.  So a seriously big boat loses less product to boil-off than a small one. 

Using trucks works for shorter distances, but if you start hauling volumes from Louisiana to Boston then you are creating a road hazard. 

New Englanders are consumed with ideas of personal purity, so the lunatic fringe of Greenies hold sway.  They want to abolish everything and go back to whale oil and animal fat.  Not kidding.  They are seriously nuts. 

Jan, were you aware of the Dominion Plant in Maryland now reportedly exporting? http://www.somdnews.com/recorder/spotlight/dominion-s-export-facility-begins-producing-lng/article_549ac90e-5be7-5a14-88a0-b50ec7fbeb4c.html

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

4 minutes ago, ronwagn said:

Jan, were you aware of the Dominion Plant in Maryland now reportedly exporting? http://www.somdnews.com/recorder/spotlight/dominion-s-export-facility-begins-producing-lng/article_549ac90e-5be7-5a14-88a0-b50ec7fbeb4c.html

Yes.  I have not followed the developments there, but was under the impression that they were shipping out.  Don't know where to. 

Again, none of the gas would go to Boston as there are no LNG tankers built in the USA.  so it ends up in say India, or even Japan, who knows?   There have been several loads from Louisiana into the new terminal in Poland, right on the Poland-Germany border in the Baltic. 

[Boat + 1,315]

On 12/19/2018 at 12:58 AM, Marina Schwarz said:

Anti-pipeline activism isn't generating more investment in renewable energy

On a scale of Oh, really? to Climate denialist fake news, where do you place yourself? I may regret asking this but I'm not going back.

 

[Boat + 1,315]

Did you know net Canada imports are over 3 mbp? Total US imports needed are around 1.5. Seems to me not only are no additional pipelines needed from Canada but much of the trucking could be shut down as well. All those imports from other foreign countries are not needed either. Let's clean up some Texas air and free up some traffic congestion.

 

[Marina Schwarz + 1,576]

So why are they buying new oil trains if there's no need?