Hacker News Reader

Comment by akira2501 | Hacker News Reader

Why not spend the money building better power plants? Wouldn't that be a better way to "push" decision makers into newer technologies? According to their own success stories, most of the agencies that "stopped" using coal were going to anyways. I'm not at all clear on how this money was used and why the amount spent was correct in any way.

It really looks like more "green washing" purely to the benefit of the "Bloomberg" brand.

View on HN

The development of better power technologies is ~necessary, but not sufficient, to eliminate coal (and other carbon-emitting energy sources). There are all sorts of friction effects which can delay a migration to clean power even when the economics are favorable, so direct efforts to push the decision forward are an important piece of the puzzle.

> The development of better power technologies is ~necessary, but not sufficient, to eliminate coal

Why? Are there not other plant technologies already in existence that can pick up the base load and produce less pollution?

> There are all sorts of friction effects which can delay a migration to clean power

Okay, so what are those? This article and it's backing material don't go into that at all. What did this money accomplish that would not have happened on it's own?

> so direct efforts to push the decision forward are an important piece of the puzzle.

As I stated, the backing material makes it clear these decisions were happening anyways. So, again, what is this money actually doing?

I get that there are issues, but I'm concerned that we're actually addressing them and not just green washing. Do you want to address that specific point?

> Why?

Loss and risk aversion in the communities where the plant’s workers live, inertia and stupidity.

> the backing material makes it clear these decisions were happening anyway

I’m in Wyoming. There is emotional resonance to saving coal jobs here that transcends the data.

Yes and: The psychology of "system justification" can keep people irrational for a loooong time.

> It really looks like more "green washing" purely to the benefit of the "Bloomberg" brand.

I have no doubt that Bloomberg is doing this, at least in part, to get credit for giving $500m away to help decarbonize the economy. And yet if that was his goal he could have accomplished this in many ways. You seem to be going further and accusing him of giving $500m away in a manner that’s explicitly designed to be ineffective. That doesn’t make a ton of sense to me.

I wouldn't go so far as to say "explicitly designed", but he is in fact spending the money in a way that's ineffective. His motivations I don't know. But the results can be seen - this is a waste of money.

I'm sure he's getting something out of it. Perhaps it's really more lobbying for Bloomberg. Perhaps it's tax related. Perhaps it's just a "pledge," which is non-binding.

> Perhaps it's tax related.

Like a deduction? I don't know why people talk about tax deductions so weirdly. If you give away a dollar, and through deductions avoid paying 25 cents of tax on the dollar, you still gave away that money. It's not some clever scheme to benefit you. At most you get to brag about a moderately higher number.

If you meant something else, I'm very curious.

I don't know all the tax loopholes billionaires use, I'm not an accountant. He's probably not giving $500M in cash or all cash, it could be old equipment valued higher, buildings, etc. If I donated an old beat up Chevy pickup, I could say it was worth $10,000 when it was really worth $200 in scrap, maybe. Do that with a fleet of 100 trucks and that's a million right there. You just pay an expert to value it higher if you need to, but you probably don't even need to do that. The IRS isn't in the business of valuing things, and it's hard to prove what the value of something is at any given time. He could be donating it to another company he owns, who knows. If there's one thing I know, billionaires don't pay much tax. You know how the art trick works for deductions?

> Why not spend the money building better power plants?

This is equivalent to the “build it and customers will come” fallacy of startups. You still have to convince humans that it’s all worth it.

The US could have had the nuclear industry of France (~70% of its electricity generation) if we had only gotten everyone to agree in the 80s. At the end of the day, you need money and marketing to convince people.

It is 100% greenwashing. He's doing nothing useful, he's just suing companies.

If he actually wanted to help he would simply invest new additional power installation, and sue governments that have zoning that prevents these installations.

But he doesn't want to help, he wants to be seen as helping.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com