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posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday April 04 2018, @04:09AM   Printer-friendly
from the dirty,-expensive,-obsolete-technology dept.

Common Dreams reports

FirstEnergy Solutions (FES)--together with its subsidiaries FirstEnergy Generation and FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company--announced its bankruptcy [April 1] after years of short-sighted business decisions and executive mismanagement that resisted investing in clean, renewable energy, and its workers. The company now has a serious obligation to protect its workers and their benefits from the bankruptcy process, as well as meet its environmental responsibilities--particularly if its coal and nuclear power plants are retired or sold.

FES has power plants in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Indiana.

In response, Mary Anne Hitt, Director of Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign, released the following statement:

"FirstEnergy Solutions' bankruptcy is a cautionary tale for utilities, investors, and public officials who think the coal and nuclear industries will somehow rebound in the coming years. They will not. America's 21st century energy market demands cheap, flexible energy resources that can rapidly shift with electricity demands and don't pollute local air and water. Coal and nuclear plants are too expensive and too dirty to compete in the modern market.

"FirstEnergy Solutions is in bankruptcy because it continually ignored America's shift to clean energy by investing in uneconomic coal and nuclear plants which have been losing money for years. Now it's time for the company to accept its mistakes and concentrate on protecting its workers and their benefits during the bankruptcy process, while also meeting its environmental obligations--particularly if its plants are decommissioned or sold. FES must do everything it can to help those being harmed by its negligent business practices and focus on transitioning them to new economic opportunities."


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 04 2018, @09:44PM (18 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 04 2018, @09:44PM (#662650)

    “And yet the environmental guys are way outspending the other side. Somethings not quite right with the narrative.”

    Addressing this separately. To me this makes sense.

    The companies get to hide behind “nothing is wrong” and that is cheap compared to the independent attempts to show that there is something going wrong in the environment.

    Before the lead issue in Flint, the republicans hid behind nothing is wrong. And even when it got so bad they couldn’t hide they still largely said “nothing to see here”. The studies to show there was something there had to be more costly than just “nothing to see here”.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 05 2018, @12:36AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 05 2018, @12:36AM (#662708)

    Lead pipes are a local issue, not a state issue. Flint has been run by democrats for decades. Neighboring cities replaced lead pipes at their own expense; why should Flint get this for free while those neighboring cities don't get reimbursed?

    The fact that a state-level republican was forced to appoint somebody to manage Flint's finances does not erase the prior decades of failure to act. Under democrat control, Flint had gotten to the point where the problem was about to be "solved" by shutting down the water service entirely: Flint couldn't pay for the higher-quality water they were using.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 05 2018, @01:44AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 05 2018, @01:44AM (#662723)

      This is a laughable retelling of the facts.

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday April 05 2018, @03:20AM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday April 05 2018, @03:20AM (#662762) Journal

      Neighboring cities replaced lead pipes at their own expense; why should Flint get this for free while those neighboring cities don't get reimbursed?

      Actually, there are a fair number [nytimes.com] of cities in Flint's situation.

      Although Congress banned lead water pipes 30 years ago, between 3.3 million and 10 million older ones remain, primed to leach lead into tap water by forces as simple as jostling during repairs or a change in water chemistry.

  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday April 05 2018, @02:18AM (14 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday April 05 2018, @02:18AM (#662736) Journal

    The companies get to hide behind “nothing is wrong” and that is cheap compared to the independent attempts to show that there is something going wrong in the environment.

    So why is this supposed to be a winning strategy?

    Before the lead issue in Flint, the republicans hid behind nothing is wrong. And even when it got so bad they couldn’t hide they still largely said “nothing to see here”. The studies to show there was something there had to be more costly than just “nothing to see here”.

    It didn't work for them and the cost of proving so was pretty cheap (basically a few thousand dollars for water testing and talking with local papers).

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 05 2018, @02:51AM (13 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 05 2018, @02:51AM (#662754)

      So why is this supposed to be a winning strategy?

      Keeps shareholders at bay. Nothing like a non-voter.

      “It didn't work for them and the cost of proving so was pretty cheap (basically a few thousand dollars for water testing and talking with local papers).”

      Pretty cheap? We will see after the midterms.

      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday April 05 2018, @03:05AM (12 children)

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday April 05 2018, @03:05AM (#662758) Journal

        Keeps shareholders at bay. Nothing like a non-voter.

        Shareholders have nothing to do with with environmental regulation or climate change research, for example.

        Pretty cheap? We will see after the midterms.

        You could have just read the history [wikipedia.org] of the Flint water scandal. The people in charge had corrupt regulators hiding unfavorable test results. The whole thing broke open when an EPA regulator did independent testing on a resident's water and detected high levels of lead. It didn't take long (less than a year) and the main cost was that of the tests.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 05 2018, @03:13AM (11 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 05 2018, @03:13AM (#662761)

          “Shareholders have nothing to do with with environmental regulation or climate change research, for example.”

          So when I invest in your company I shouldn’t look at any flaws. Especially not those you can’t address via fud.

          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday April 05 2018, @03:21AM (10 children)

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday April 05 2018, @03:21AM (#662763) Journal

            So when I invest in your company I shouldn’t look at any flaws. Especially not those you can’t address via fud.

            You are committing a non sequitur argument since the shareholder doesn't enforce the laws of the land.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 05 2018, @03:44AM (9 children)

              by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 05 2018, @03:44AM (#662770)

              Humorous since I never claimed that.

              The downfall of a fascist society is failure to monitor shareholders. They MUST be the only monitors. But Eventually you get one of thereddest states in the union seeing grassroots movements for better pay. Wait. Thought all boats were lifted.

              I will leave it to you to reason the downfall of a democratic society.

              • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday April 05 2018, @03:54AM (8 children)

                by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday April 05 2018, @03:54AM (#662773) Journal
                The earlier post was

                The companies get to hide behind “nothing is wrong” and that is cheap compared to the independent attempts to show that there is something going wrong in the environment.

                That argument doesn't hold water with regulators. Nor for that matter with the public (who doesn't hold a great deal of trust in businesses). And shareholders are likely to become non-shareholders (rather than merely disgruntled voters), if they think a company is blowing off a legitimate environmental concern that contains great risk for the company.

                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 05 2018, @04:08AM (7 children)

                  by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 05 2018, @04:08AM (#662775)

                  Oh yeah. I forgot. In your world view scams are brought out only via government employees. Not corporate shareholders (never ever). We can trust one subset of humans entirely and we can never trust the latter.

                  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday April 05 2018, @05:58AM (6 children)

                    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday April 05 2018, @05:58AM (#662792) Journal

                    Oh yeah. I forgot. In your world view scams are brought out only via government employees. Not corporate shareholders (never ever). We can trust one subset of humans entirely and we can never trust the latter.

                    I guess you're just not getting it. I never said that and this thread isn't about trusting shareholders. I merely disagreed with the bullshit claim that Big Oil and such were hiding (or even, for that matter, capable of hiding) the negative effects of fossil fuels like global warming (as well the more recent claim in the thread that "nothing is wrong" propaganda actually works effectively - the poster proposing that even gave an example, the Flint water crisis, where that wasn't true and simple, cheap water testing brought down a conspiracy).

                    There's no evidence for that. You ignore that the green side massively outspends Big Oil on the propaganda front - despite the fact that Big Oil can afford to hold its own yet doesn't bother to, and still can't get proportional traction among the public.

                    It's convenient to blame Big Oil cooties, but they aren't magically more adept at propaganda than their opponents, particularly by an order of magnitude. There's simpler explanations such as the widespread dishonesty and exaggeration of the climate change side and that there's no real new information coming in to change peoples' minds. Propaganda becomes very ineffective under those circumstances.

                    You need more than motive for the alleged Big Oil conspiracy. Show me the money!

                    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 05 2018, @03:12PM (5 children)

                      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 05 2018, @03:12PM (#662953)

                      There was just a story about an oil company CEO confessing to exactly what you claim they don't do. Dumbass khallow so stuck in propaganda.

                      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday April 05 2018, @06:39PM (4 children)

                        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday April 05 2018, @06:39PM (#663043) Journal

                        There was just a story about an oil company CEO confessing to exactly what you claim they don't do.

                        No, there wasn't. Such a thing would have been huge news. Instead, we have dishonest attack pieces like this [thinkprogress.org]

                        “Some of our employees are very upset at what they think is Mobil’s negative attitude on the Kyoto so-called climate agreement,” Noto [Lucio Noto, CEO Mobile 1994-1999] tells staff.

                        While the company recognizes that “climate change associated with the buildup of greenhouse gases” could be a “big issue,” he says, “we are also not prepared to admit that the science is a closed fact, and that we should take draconian steps tomorrow to reduce CO2 gases.”

                        He goes on to explain how the company plans to address these rising emissions. At the top of the list was creating an “inventory” of the greenhouse gases for which the company is responsible.

                        The story then concludes

                        These words represent an important admission by the company, legal experts argue.

                        The statement is an “implicit, and potentially explicit acknowledgement, that the biggest impact of an oil company on the climate comes from the use of its product,” Carroll Muffett, president and CEO of the Center for International Environmental Law, told ThinkProgress.

                        While Noto does shift most of the responsibility onto the customer, “in what he is saying is the acknowledgement that there are significant downstream climate impacts from the production of fossil fuels itself,” Muffett said.

                        “This is not Mobil Oil saying we’re responsible for 5 percent of all pollution,” he added. “What he’s saying is, of the hundred percent of global warming that our oil has contributed to, we’re only taking responsibility for 5 percent of that. And yet, he’s explicitly acknowledging that the other 95 percent is out there, and it’s a consequence of Mobil’s product.”

                        and

                        As has been well documented by journalists and researchers, the company funded climate science denial and misinformation for decades, despite its knowledge of the damaging impact of burning fossil fuels. Starting in 1998, when the two companies merged, up to 2016, ExxonMobil spent more than $33 million in donations to anti-climate groups, according to the company’s financial disclosures analyzed by DeSmogBlog.

                        Noto’s speech also coincided with rising public awareness and pressure on corporations regarding their contributions to global climate change. The year prior, for example, in 1997, BP’s chief executive Lord Browne made an historic public statement acknowledging the connection between human activity and rising global temperatures.

                        That in turn is very far from the accusation that this CEO was deliberately covering up climate change problems. And $33 million is nothing especially over two decades. They easily could have afforded three orders of magnitude more spending on that. And that's just one oil company.

                        You're wasting my time.

                        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 05 2018, @09:03PM (3 children)

                          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 05 2018, @09:03PM (#663107)

                          The last comment was not me.

                          My issue with your claim is simply that it is not unreasonable for those paying to research something as complex as climate change to spend much more than Han those who claim simply “nothing to se here”. But when I see greens attacking nuclear plants n all forms are they lose me since I find their anti nuke stance trite.

                          I don’t get why you accept the anti climate peeps face value. Just a simple nothing to see here and you are good.

                          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday April 05 2018, @10:28PM (2 children)

                            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday April 05 2018, @10:28PM (#663143) Journal

                            My issue with your claim is simply that it is not unreasonable for those paying to research something as complex as climate change to spend much more than Han those who claim simply “nothing to se here”. But when I see greens attacking nuclear plants n all forms are they lose me since I find their anti nuke stance trite.

                            There are two obvious rebuttals here. First, extraordinary claims (particularly complex claims like that of catastrophic climate change and the subsequent calls for urgent, dramatic action) require extraordinary evidence. Second, even if we were to grant the alleged fairness of your proposal above, the climate change mitigation advocates vastly outspend their rivals anyway. They should be trouncing the opposition handily. It's time to think about why that's not happening.

                            I don’t get why you accept the anti climate peeps face value.

                            I don't. I certainly don't take the "But it's snowing outside" crowd any more serious than I take the "blame everything on global warming" crowd. I'm a member of the "lukewarmists", namely, the idea that there is human-caused global warming and related problems, but these aren't bad enough that we need to address them right now. My view is that the lukewarmists have the only scientific (and economic!) argument in the batch.

                            First, we don't have the false certainty. In the hard sell for catastrophic climate change, do you ever hear them admitting that due to uncertainty in their observations that they could be off on climate change predictions by many decades or even centuries? The most important parameter in climatology, the long term temperature sensitivity of a doubling of CO2 is currently estimated [wikipedia.org] to be 1.5 C to 4.5 C per doubling. Since when have they discussed the implications of that? 4.5 C means that we're already looking at a huge increase in future temperature. At 1.5 C, it's centuries to get to significant levels of warming. There are similar huge bars in paleoclimate data, solar output before recent decades, the climate effects of weather, and climate change predictions (particularly those of economic harm from climate change).

                            Researchers hid adverse data. For example, the whole Climategate [wikipedia.org] thing happened in large part because numerous scientists would argue privately about various problems of their research while presenting a different public face because said problems would somehow aid critics. Saying one thing in private and another in public is a common sign of dishonesty. Another was attempts, also during that time frame to hide data from critics, a bit of which was illegal. Another hidden bit of data is related to the false certainty of the temperature sensitivity parameter above. They fail to mention that the simple 1-dimensional radiative model of climate change (which is relatively certain), only predicts roughly 1.5 C per doubling. The rest comes from net feedback of the whole system which hasn't been observed yet. So when they're claiming 1.5 C to 4.5 C per doubling as the range, what they aren't telling you is that this long term positive feedback, beyond that of the basic radiative model ranges from non-existent to 3 C per doubling on its own.

                            Every mistake is in favor of the catastrophic climate change model. The best known is the "Hockey Stick" graph [wikipedia.org] of 1999 which purported to show a flat global temperature graph over the past 1000 years until one gets to modern times. A few years later, a criticism of the paper showed that the statistical methods employed in the original paper would have resulted in a hockey stick shape due to the data massaging involved even if one started with random data.

                            The widespread employment of fallacies. Typical ones which weed out most mitigation arguments are confirmation bias, observation bias, argument from authority, Pascal's wager, and straw man arguments. We see X, therefore it must be due to "climate change" (even though it may have been happening for the past billion years!).

                            Prioritizing propaganda over science - "climate change" over "anthropogenic global warming" even though the latter is the accurate term, scientifically. Prioritizing climate change in turn over every other problem of mankind (such as announcing that we must not let the climate rise more than 1.5 C over preindustrial levels, even though we're doing a lot with the activity that generates the greenhouse gases).

                            Finally, the catastrophic climate change argument has all the hallmarks of a scam. We are being panicked into mitigation because supposedly a small rise in global temperature (currently at 1.5 C conveniently enough) is supposed to be the threshold of no return. There's hundreds of billions of dollars of public spending at stake, in energy, transportation, finance, etc and the only justification for it is FUD.