If you pay more taxes, you get more back. Progressive journalists only see the latter. First it was Civil War statues, then the Founders, now it's the .. birds? Lastly, what's a virtual power plant?
Missing from Progressive Reporter Jesse A Paul's rundown on the failure of Prop HH?
Yes, with its failure, people that earn more will get bigger refunds. See the screenshot attached from the link at bottom.
But, the folks that earn more also pay more in taxes! In fact, if you look at the row I highlighted in red, many of those folks don't pay any income tax at all.
Thus the nature of percentages; if you get back the same percentage amount that means you may get more or less in absolute terms.
Maybe Mr. Paul was absent that day in math class.
A fair table, a complete table, one that doesn't tilt the reporting would have had a column for tax paid.
https://coloradosun.com/2023/11/08/proposition-hh-failure-impact-colorado-taxes-tabor/
First it was Civil War statues. Then the Founders. Now it’s the … birds?
One big issue I have with cancel culture is where does it end? At what point can we dust our hands off and say that we have scrubbed all the bad people from renown? When can we go to our rest secure in the knowledge that no one, ever, now and going forward, need be offended?
That dynamic played out when I saw the link below and my jaw hit the floor noting that we'll now be renaming birds to sanitize their English names.
After picking up my jaw, I decided to not let this one slip by.
I like birds. I like watching them. I want to protect them.
American Ornithological Society will not see a single red cent of mine, however.
As I have written to you in the past, if you decide to either pull your membership or to not donate to a group, I think you should close the loop and write the organization to tell them why. They need that feedback.
I did so and attached a screenshot of the message I sent them shortly after reading the article below. If you are a member of this group and find their actions offensive (or if you want to let them know you do not intend to give them money, I invite you to do the same).
What is a Virtual Power Plant (VPP)?
I read a fair bit about energy and saw a new term recently. I usually figure that if something is new to me it will likely be new to many of you so I wanted to share.
Have you heard the term Virtual Power Plant?
It comes up often in discussions I've seen about renewable energy and you can think of it as a center that manages several different dispersed electrical power generation sources.* This is the graphic I put at the top (from the first link below).
If you sit and think about it, power plants have more to do than just "make" electrical power. They, along with other authorities are responsible for managing their output and meeting changing demands on our electrical grid.
For example, getting ready for people waking up and starting their day on a Monday morning, plant operators may need to work in concert with a plant across the state to make sure enough turbines are online for a 6 AM rush.
Who fills this function if we have more and more energy being generated by things like wind farms and solar farms? Even more to the point, who manages this sort of thing when we start adding in thousands of individual houses, each with their own mini solar farm on the roof?
Now add in the complexity of (eventually--we're still a ways away from this particular technology at scale) shunting energy to batteries to store up for later.
Enter the VPP. I've seen different versions of how this is described, so I'll give you a couple which you can mix and "average" in your brain. See screenshot 1. By the way, the "DER" I highlighted is "distributed energy resources", part A comes from the first link below, and part B comes from the second.
Can you tell that the second definition comes from a government site?
It might seem like a VPP is just a way to aggregate power from various sources and manage that, but there is more.
Many people envision a VPP (at least in the references I use and in the ones I've read) as having a role not just in supply management, but also in DEMAND management. See screenshot 2, the indexing on the quotes is as above.
Again, put this in contrast to the way things run now (at least the way they run if you don't have a smart meter or, say, Xcel Energy-controlled thermostat): VPP's will work in the middle of both supply and demand to manage power output, use, and demand on the grid.
Right now (see esp Screenshot 2 quote B toward the end) it seems that participation in a VPP is voluntary and could come with some benefits. That is, if you let the VPP manage your solar output, your EV charger, and heat pump you stand to benefit with discounts and etc. Revisit the graphic from the top of the post in light of this. Do you see now how VPP's are envisioned to either charge or draw down, say, a plugged-in EV? To manage demand from industry?
I wonder, however, whether or not this will always be the case. In particular, I am concerned about demand management. Up until now, I've gotten along fine managing my own demand and I do not want Xcel or anyone else controlling my usage.
I'm also wondering exactly how good a job a VPP can do at trying to manage supply and demand while "maintaining customer comfort and productivity." (quote from screenshot 1B). If you've read my writings often enough you will likely not be surprised to hear that I'm skeptical.
I think computer technology and Artificial Intelligence** will be able to manage things decently. Current technology already does with baseline generation and well-established consumption patterns.
But the idea that so much more complexity (including demand management and big fluctuations due to weather if invest more heavily in renewables and get rid of our baseline generation) could be managed strikes me as a reach. Esp if this is to all happen in about 10 years, a number I hear bandied about.
Think too about your consumer satisfaction. How will AI weigh the satisfaction you'd get by deciding you want to do your laundry at 4 AM on Wednesday because you want clean clothes for a party on Friday (Saturday being your normal wash day) against the fact that Joe across the state wants to charge up his EV or the fact that a factory downtown needs to ramp up production for the holidays.
As of right now, what I'm mainly seeing for VPP's is the very beginnings and the financing to set them up (more on this can be seen in the right hand margin of the second link below--those are follow up blog posts by the gov't secretary in charge). It's thus not too big a worry now, but it will be interesting to see if and how things develop.
*Another term you'll often see with regard to renewables and VPP's is distributed generation, electrical power that comes from several sources instead of one large plant.
**As an aside, is it just me or do you start hearing AI used in the same sense that the internet was in the early days of the internet. So much promise for what the internet could/would do. I wonder if AI will turn out the same way. I have a feeling it will. Not a miracle. Not always a benefit. Not a scourge either.
https://rmi.org/clean-energy-101-virtual-power-plants/
https://www.energy.gov/lpo/articles/introducing-vppieces-bite-sized-blogs-about-virtual-power-plants