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Rick Perry, Ex-Governor of Texas, Is Trump’s Pick as Energy Secretary

Mac77 said:
All of the costs attributed to fossil fuels are subjective and very punitive

I can see removing the oil depletion allowance and any other tax subsides to any energy producer both fossil and green

For instance stop the solar panel 30% tax break to homeowners

Make them pay 100% of the cost

Then the market is truely deciding
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I agree with eliminating all subsidies but first tax carbon for all of the costs it costs society. That is being market fair. Its not fair to renewables to have no carbon tax, as carbon has a ton of hidden costs not reflected by their market price. Costs taxpayers and non tax payers pay for as well as future generations. I favored solar subsidies as smart policy in allowing the industry to mature as it is in the best interest of society for them to develop, but I think the time has come to eliminate all subsidies, especially on carbon based fuels that have been sucking off taxpayers for years and correcting the real market price for their products. I favor doing the same with junk food, etc.

It's smart policy to tax negative externalities first, before you tax positive externalities, if you have to on the latter. that is why I favor 0% corporate tax on positive externality companies as job creation and wealth creation are positive externalities.
 
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Praxas said:
And a man who couldn't even remember the name of the agency, yet wanted it eliminated.
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In his mind it may have already been gone. :2razz:

But there is a certain amount of undeniable irony here....
 
longview said:
Rick Perry proved to be a very effective leader in the different state positions he has held.
I see no reason to think he would be less effective as energy secretary.
There is quite a bit of room for a person with vision to optimize the operation,
Perry will have at his disposal the best and brightest minds in the energy industry.
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And you modestly didn't mention that Texas is a fairly successful energy state. ;)
 
laska said:
I agree with eliminating all subsidies but first tax carbon for all of the costs it costs society. That is being market fair. Its not fair to renewables to have no carbon tax, as carbon has a ton of hidden costs not reflected by their market price. Costs taxpayers and non tax payers pay for as well as future generations. I favored solar subsidies as smart policy in allowing the industry to mature as it is in the best interest of society for them to develop, but I think the time has come to eliminate all subsidies, especially on carbon based fuels that have been sucking off taxpayers for years and correcting the real market price for their products. I favor doing the same with junk food, etc.

It's smart policy to tax negative externalities first, before you tax positive externalities, if you have to on the latter. that is why I favor 0% corporate tax on positive externality companies as job creation and wealth creation are positive externalities.
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How about we let real market forces dictate which energy people choose,
rather than artificially adding to the cost of goods sold of one of the choices.
Fossil oil's time is over, but the next stage is likely to still be a hydrocarbon fuel, just a carbon neutral one.
This future is possible, and the transition could happen quickly, unless someone actually
passes laws to pick winners and looser artificially, and thereby closes possible alternate paths.
How about the supply of oil reserves falls quickly, because fracked wells have short lifetimes,
the price of oil increases to about $90 a barrel.
At roughly that price, the refinery operators will find greater profits in exploiting the new man made fuel technologies.
The same distribution infrastructure will supply the existing vehicles, Jets, and ships, with carbon neutral fuels.
(They are carbon neutral because they extract the carbon from atmospheric CO2.)
The would preclude a new government funding stream, which might delay broad acceptance.
Demonstrating the effectiveness of this type of industrial grade production, would encourage others to follow.
 
longview said:
How about we let real market forces dictate which energy people choose,
rather than artificially adding to the cost of goods sold of one of the choices.
Fossil oil's time is over, but the next stage is likely to still be a hydrocarbon fuel, just a carbon neutral one.
This future is possible, and the transition could happen quickly, unless someone actually
passes laws to pick winners and looser artificially, and thereby closes possible alternate paths.
How about the supply of oil reserves falls quickly, because fracked wells have short lifetimes,
the price of oil increases to about $90 a barrel.
At roughly that price, the refinery operators will find greater profits in exploiting the new man made fuel technologies.
The same distribution infrastructure will supply the existing vehicles, Jets, and ships, with carbon neutral fuels.
(They are carbon neutral because they extract the carbon from atmospheric CO2.)
The would preclude a new government funding stream, which might delay broad acceptance.
Demonstrating the effectiveness of this type of industrial grade production, would encourage others to follow.
Click to expand...

I am letting the market decide. i am just reflecting the true price to the market. Not accounting for true costs is an artificial market. If I was selling a products that makes me a million a year but it has harmful effects to where government ends up paying a billion dollars because of that product, my price is artificial and doesn't reflect the true cost of the product.

Electrification is the obvious next step in transportation.
 
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Well, sure, it's not as if the governor of the world's second-largest oil producer and home of the largest nuclear maintenance facility in the country would have reason to know a thing about energy or energy policy.
 
laska said:
I am letting the market decide. i am just reflecting the true price to the market. Not accounting for true costs is an artificial market. If I was selling a products that makes me a million a year but it has harmful effects to where government ends up paying a billion dollars because of that product, my price is artificial and doesn't reflect the true cost of the product.

Electrification is the obvious next step in transportation.
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There is no way to accurately quantify the supposed added cost of using fossil fuels, or even if they have harmful effects.
Human use of fossil fuels certainly have an identifiable benefit.
As to the next step, Electrification is not so obvious, and would take much longer than what I am suggesting.
It will be many decades before a commercial jet is powered by batteries, the energy density is simply not there.
The obvious steps, would be carbon neutral fuels, in existing turbofan engines,
then fuel cells with hydrogen steam reformers, powering electrical turbofan engines.
Dropping the Carnot efficiency requirement with the fuel cells could almost double the range of existing jets.
One again the energy container, is the same as nature selected...Hydrocarbon!
 
Praxas said:
So you claim that the "best" guy to fix an agency is the guy who wanted to eliminate it since he thinks it is unnecessary?
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In its current form, it is unnecessary. Cut it to the bone.
 
DaveFagan said:
I've always thought of Rick Perry as the maximum dumbass and he reminds me of GWBush. Same thing goes for Fiorina. She damn near bankrupted Hewlett Packard. Worst CEO ever. OTOH, maybe Perry can eliminate the Energy Dept. It's just a bunch of good ol' boys protecting the status quo of Big Energy.
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It also funds a helluva lot of research facilities. One of the big ones (ORNL - Oak Ridge National Laboratory) is near me and I know a bunch of folks who work/worked there or in the many private firms that do related work. They have nothing to do with protecting any status quo - they are some of the best scientists on any payroll anywhere in the world, across a bunch of fields. A bunch of the other facilities in Oak Ridge are doing military work but it's under DOE instead of Defense for whatever reason - pretty much everything to do with nuclear weapons pre or post deployment of them in the field is DOE, or DOE plays a huge role.

I have a feeling all over Oak Ridge there is a collective, "what the f'ing f? Rick Perry?"

No doubt it could be reformed by someone serious but it's hard to even conceive of an argument why Rick Perry is the best man for that job.
 
shrubnose said:
How will he have time to do that if he's busy getting Texas out of the USA and eliminating same-sex marriage?

Fill us in.

:lol:

It looks to me like he already has more on his plate than he'll ever get done.
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He could show up, fart, and fall down, and he'll accomplish more than that lame department has done in 20 years.
 
laska said:
I agree with eliminating all subsidies but first tax carbon for all of the costs it costs society. That is being market fair. Its not fair to renewables to have no carbon tax, as carbon has a ton of hidden costs not reflected by their market price. Costs taxpayers and non tax payers pay for as well as future generations. I favored solar subsidies as smart policy in allowing the industry to mature as it is in the best interest of society for them to develop, but I think the time has come to eliminate all subsidies, especially on carbon based fuels that have been sucking off taxpayers for years and correcting the real market price for their products. I favor doing the same with junk food, etc.

It's smart policy to tax negative externalities first, before you tax positive externalities, if you have to on the latter. that is why I favor 0% corporate tax on positive externality companies as job creation and wealth creation are positive externalities.
Click to expand...

If you are going to pull numbers out of the air to use against oil then be fair and give it credit for all the good oil has done and still does

Let me put a number on that



Remove all the subsidies from oil and alternative energy and tax them about the same or slightly less and let the free market decide if it prefers coal or nuclear or fossil fuel or wind/solar.

My guess is the public will choose all of them over time depending on cost
 
Erod said:
He could show up, fart, and fall down, and he'll accomplish more than that lame department has done in 20 years.
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That's right, a fart contributes about as much to society as the Humane Genome project

I don't think you have any clue what DOE actually does. Has very little to do with "energy" in the common usage of that word, except for pretty much ALL the basic research that makes nuclear energy possible anywhere on the globe, and perhaps nuclear energy used to power our ships and subs. It's a lot more of a hard sciences research department across a bunch of emerging fields than it is an "energy" department.
 
Fox, meet henhouse.
 
Erod said:
Or, maybe, such a guy is the best way to fix a backwards department so that it serves a real purpose?
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Fix it or eliminate it?
 
Erod said:
He could show up, fart, and fall down, and he'll accomplish more than that lame department has done in 20 years.
Click to expand...

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say you're not a fan of the Department Of Energy.
 
JasperL said:
That's right, a fart contributes about as much to society as the Humane Genome project

I don't think you have any clue what DOE actually does. Has very little to do with "energy" in the common usage of that word, except for pretty much ALL the basic research that makes nuclear energy possible anywhere on the globe, and perhaps nuclear energy used to power our ships and subs. It's a lot more of a hard sciences research department across a bunch of emerging fields than it is an "energy" department.
Click to expand...

You are correct, and that is just scratching the surface. Perry isn't fit for that gig.
 
JasperL said:
It also funds a helluva lot of research facilities. One of the big ones (ORNL - Oak Ridge National Laboratory) is near me and I know a bunch of folks who work/worked there or in the many private firms that do related work. They have nothing to do with protecting any status quo - they are some of the best scientists on any payroll anywhere in the world, across a bunch of fields. A bunch of the other facilities in Oak Ridge are doing military work but it's under DOE instead of Defense for whatever reason - pretty much everything to do with nuclear weapons pre or post deployment of them in the field is DOE, or DOE plays a huge role.

I have a feeling all over Oak Ridge there is a collective, "what the f'ing f? Rick Perry?"

No doubt it could be reformed by someone serious but it's hard to even conceive of an argument why Rick Perry is the best man for that job.
Click to expand...

Seems that you're right: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Energy

The current and previous SoE are PhD physicists (one with a Nobel Prize), and the previous under Bush had a PhD in chemical engineering from MIT. I don't see Perry as remotely qualified for this job, considering its highly technical and research-oriented focus.
 
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