AUDIO:

TOPICS:  REGISTER TO VOTE; APPLY FOR MAIL-IN BALLOT; Last day to register is the end of April 6^th; Car payments are $1,000 for a lot of consumers. Here’s why.; PSA: Building Credit; Montgomery County needs $1.35M to purchase land for forensic center built on airport grounds; Pearland Police Department to receive new breaching equipment; Texas House budgets $545 million for prison air conditioning. The Senate hasn’t offered anything.; Can Renewable Energy Save America’s Coal Communities?; Can Big Oil Scale Geothermal?; Moscow is trying to play it cool, but its military moves hint at growing concern over NATO’s newest member; More.

Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig (@ThinkwingRadio) is now on Wednesdays at 11AM (CT) on KPFT FM-HD2, Houston’s Community Station. You can also hear the show:

1. Live online at KPFT.org (from anywhere in the world!)
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Welcome to Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig where we discuss local, state, national, and international stories. My co-host and show editor is Andrew Ferguson.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/EwrSlzZC31w

1. Make sure you are registered to vote! VoteTexas.GOV – Texas Voter Information
   1. It’s time to snail-mail (no emails or faxes) in your application for mail-ballots, IF you qualify TEXAS SoS VOTE-BY-MAIL BALLOT APPLICATION (ALL TEXAS COUNTIES) HarrisVotes.com­ – Countywide Voting Centers, (Election Information Line (713) 755-6965), Harris County Clerk
   2. Obtain a Voter Registration Application (HarrisVotes.com)
   3. Harris County “Vote-By-Mail’ Application for 2022
   4. Fort bend County Elections/Voter Registration Machine takes you to the proper link
   5. GalvestonVotes.org (Galveston County, TX)
   6. Liberty County Elections (Liberty County, TX)
   7. Montgomery County (TX) Elections
   8. Brazoria County (TX) Clerk Election Information
   9. Waller County (TX) Elections
   10. Chambers County (TX) Elections
   11. For personalized, nonpartisan voter guides and information, Consider visiting Vote.ORG.   Ballotpedia.com and Texas League of Women Voters are also good places to get election info.
   12. If you are denied your right to vote any place at any time at any polling place for any reason, ask for (or demand) a provisional ballot rather than lose your vote.
   13. HarrisVotes.com – Countywide Voting Centers, HARRIS COUNTY – IDENTIFICATION REQUIRED FOR VOTING: Do not possess and cannot reasonably obtain one of these IDs?
       1. Fill out a declaration at the polls describing a reasonable impediment to obtaining it, and show a copy or original of one of the following supporting forms of ID:
       2. A government document that shows your name and an address, including your voter registration certificate
       3. Current utility bill
       4. Bank statement
       5. Government check
       6. Paycheck
       7. A certified domestic (from a U.S. state or territory) birth certificate or (b) a document confirming birth admissible in a court of law which establishes your identity (which may include a foreign birth document)
       8. You may vote early by-mail if:You are registered to vote and meet one of the following criteria:
          1. Away from the county of residence on Election Day and during the early voting period;
          2. Sick or disabled;
          3. 65 years of age or older on Election Day; or
          4. Confined in jail, but eligible to vote.
          5. Make sure you are registered:
          6. Ann Harris Bennett, Tax Assessor-Collector & Voter Registrar
          7. CHECK REGISTRATION STATUS HERE
          8. CLICK How to register to vote in Texas
          9. Outside Texas, try Vote.org.
2. BE REGISTERED TO VOTE, and if eligible, REMEMBER TO FILL OUT AND MAIL NEW MAIL-IN BALLOT APPLICATIONS FOR 2023.
   1. FYI: The next elections according to HarrisVotes.com are May 9^th. Last day to register for the May election was April 6^th.
   2. There may or not be an election in your particular election precinct, so you may have to go to your local elections clerk website or go to http://www.VOTETEXAS.GOV
   3. EARLY VOTING BEGINS April 24^th.
   4. Just be registered and apply for your mail-in ballot if you may qualify.
   5. Obtain a Voter Registration Application (HarrisVotes.com). You must register to vote in the county in which you reside.
   6. You can track your Mail Ballot Activity from our website with direct link provided here https://www.harrisvotes.com/Tracking
3. We will be talking about local, State, and other news after this story, but I consider this kind of a PSA not just about car buying, but about credit building more generally.
4. Car payments are $1,000 for a lot of consumers. Here’s why.; High vehicle prices coupled with rising car loan rates are pushing consumers to the edge of affordability. Advice by Michelle Singletary, Columnist | WASHINGTONPOST.COM | April 5, 2023 at 7:00 a.m. ED
   1. [T]he average price of a new vehicle [is] $47,680, [and the cost of financing … has gotten considerably higher because of the Federal Reserve’s fight to beat back inflation.
   2. The average interest rate for a new vehicle was 7 percent in the first quarter, compared with 4.4 percent a year earlier. That’s the highest level since 2008, according to new data from Edmunds, a car shopping website. For used vehicles, the average jumped from 7.8 percent to 11.1 percent.
   3. How does that translate to monthly payments?
   4. It’s shockingly high.
   5. There were lots of new highs in the Edmunds data, which is based on aggregated information from hundreds of thousands of transactions each month at dealerships across the country.
   6. The average monthly payment for a new vehicle hit a record $730 in the first quarter, up from $656 in 2022. And 8 percent, or about 1 in 6 of them, are paying $1,000 or more a month — also a new all-time high.
   7. If that weren’t bad enough, a lot of car buyers are rolling old loans into new car financing deals.
   8. In February, 44.2 percent of new vehicles purchased had a trade-in, and 18 percent of those trade-ins had negative equity, meaning they owed more on the car than it was worth.
   9. “Most Americans, let’s be honest, don’t pay cash any longer,” said Jessica Caldwell, Edmunds’s executive director of insights. “They take out loans, and that has made car buying very expensive.”
   10. Here are five money-saving tips if you’re in the market for a vehicle. [More detailed explanations are in the article itself]:
   11. Shop around for financing — Comparison shopping for financing is critical. Don’t settle for what a dealer may offer. Check with your bank or credit union. Line up financing before setting foot on a car lot. If the dealer can match what you’ve secured elsewhere, fine. But at least you know if what they are offering is competitive. …
   12. Go for a shorter-term loan — The average loan term for a new car in the first quarter was about 70 months, according to Edmunds. [A] rule of thumb when it comes to auto loans: If you can’t afford the monthly payment with 48-month financing, you’re buying above your means. …
   13. . Look for financing deals — With rates rising, Edmunds has seen an increase in lower-cost financing offers from automakers.
   14. Instead of offering cash back for a particular vehicle, the dealer might have a financing promotion.
   15. “Automakers are going to start subsidizing these loans because they need to move the metal,” Caldwell said. “So you may see an offer for 3.9 percent or something a bit lower. I would encourage people to look for those types of programs. Last year, it was a desert in terms of incentives.”
   16. But those deals are often reserved for consumers with excellent credit histories.
   17. Improve your credit score — You may want to hold on to your older car while you work on boosting your credit score, which will put you in a better position to snag the best financing. The best way to increase your credit score is to pay your bills on time and reduce the amount of debt you’re carrying.
   18. Buy a cheaper car — Be flexible. Maybe you just can’t afford a new car, or the exact make and model you’ve had your heart set on purchasing.
   19. With vehicle inventory still catching up to consumer demand, it’s harder to negotiate the price of a new or used car. Couple that with rising interest rates on auto loans, and the best way to cut costs is to expand your search to a more affordable vehicle.
   20. MIKE: There’s some really good information in this article, and if you’re shopping for a car or ever intend to shop for a car, I suggest you read it by clicking on the link I provide in this blog post at ThinkwingRadio.com.
   21. MIKE: Also, as an older person with some perspective on this, I’d like to add some thoughts.
   22. MIKE: First, when I was growing up, a 36-month car loan was common, and was actually the longest loan you could get on a car. When it went to 48-months, I thought that was crazy. It blew my mind when car loans went to 72-months, and they weren’t even low monthly payments.
   23. MIKE: This can easily and obviously be explained by the increases in the cost of cars, especially with so many new technologies and features standard. But I would also argue that the problem is that wage growth in this same period has been suppressed, leading to cars becoming relatively much more expensive compared to wages.
   24. MIKE: When it comes to borrowing money to buy a car (or anything else, for that matter), a car loan payment is comprised mostly of principle and interest, otherwise known as P&I. A shorter loan increases the monthly payment but decreases the final cost. A longer loan decreases the monthly payment but significantly increases the final cost.
   25. MIKE: Every buyer has their monthly-payment “sweet spot”, but when I’ve done the math for mortgages, I found that after a certain point, a longer loan doesn’t significantly decrease your monthly payment but can dramatically affect your final cost.
   26. MIKE: I strongly recommend that you get a good app to help you with this or find someone who can, but not your dealer!
   27. MIKE: When it comes to improving your credit score, or first starting to build credit, I would offer a few tips. Consider using them in whatever order applies to you.
   28. MIKE: OPEN A CHECKING ACCOUNT — This does not have to be expensive. There are many online banks that will allow you to open a checking account with a low or even no minimum balance, and without monthly fees for maintaining a minimum balance. Another advantage of these accounts is that you pay bills online without postage cost, service fees, or even physical checks. It can be a real money-saver for the underbanked, and just requires the knowledge and will to do so.
   29. MIKE: APPLY FOR YOUR FIRST CREDIT CARD — The two easiest credit cards to get (and I’m not referring to debit cards or prepaid cards) are either from the bank where you have a checking account or a store or gas card. Your initial credit limit may be as low as $250, but it’s a start.
   30. MIKE: USE YOUR NEW CARD, BUT NEVER REVOLVE A CHARGE — Pay your card debt in full each month, and on time. Your card is exactly like money. If you can’t afford a purchase out of savings, don’t buy it on a credit card.
   31. MIKE: A COMMON MISCONCEPTION IS TO REVOLVE DEBT — Don’t Do That! Revolving debt won’t make the credit card company ‘like’ you better and give you a better rating or more credit. It’s just the reverse. If you revolve a charge, the credit card company assumes that you’re stretching yourself beyond your immediate resources. It also adds interest at a very high rate, usually in the 25+% range per year. If you can’t pay a card in full in a given month, pay as much as you can; not just the minimum payment. You want to discharge this debt as quickly as possible.
   32. MIKE: BE CAREFUL OF NO-INTEREST FIXED-TIME LOANS — This can be extremely tempting and even helpful when buying large purchases like bedding or furniture, but there’s are catches. If the loan is not paid in full and by the end of the free period, ALL INTEREST YOU WOULD HAVE PAID IS BACK-CHARGED TO THE PURCHASE DATE AT THE NORMAL CARD RATE! This can be a catastrophic result, resulting in a long-term debt trap. Even one or two late payments may result in late fees, plus interest being back-charged and also charged going forward. It might even result in your loan balance being called in; another potentially catastrophic result. It would also be horrible for your credit score, which raises your interest on loans, and may deny you the ability to borrow at all.
   33. MIKE: If you have one of these “no-interest” loans, calculate the number of months without interest and divide that into the loan balance. This will give you the amount you must pay each month to complete the loan on time, and will likely be much more than the minimum payment required on your monthly bill. Planning to pay off these loans a month in advance is the best strategy and allows for some calculation error. It will also be good for your credit score.
   34. MIKE: Andrew, have I left out anything important?
   35. ANDREW: You’ve covered most of it. but I have a tip for folks building or rebuilding their credit score. If you’re going to make a small purchase that you know you have the money to cover, put it on your credit card instead of your debit card and pay that single charge off immediately. If the same bank manages both cards, this can be as simple as transferring money from your checking account straight to your credit card. This helps because your credit score is a representation of BOTH how often you use your credit AND how responsible you are with it. Small purchases that are always paid on-time contribute to both frequency and responsibility.
   36. MIKE: There is some value to making small purchases on your credit card and immediately paying them with a transfer versus using a debit card. With a debit, you can accidentally overdraw your account and get hit with fees. Using a credit card and then immediately transferring money to pay it not only makes the card more like cash, it also avoids any fees.
5. Montgomery County needs $1.35M to purchase land for forensic center built on airport grounds; By Jessica Shorten | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 4:34 PM Apr 11, 2023 CDT, Updated 4:34 PM Apr 11, 2023 CDT
   1. Montgomery County Commissioners Court must find a way to pay $1.35 million for the land on which its new forensic center was built after the property was mistakenly identified as county property instead of Conroe-North Houston Airport property, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
   2. “It should be knowledge to somebody in the county that when we are constructing a facility that is not aviation use on airport grounds that we need approval to do so prior to, and there’s a fee involved for doing so. We have to buy the land at fair market,” Precinct 3 Commissioner James Noack said at an April 11 Commissioners Court meeting. …
   3. According to James Brown, the director of the Conroe-North Houston Airport, the property on which the $13 million new forensic center was built at 9900 Carl Pickering Drive was thought to be county property, but it was later identified as airport property by the FAA and the Texas Department of Transportation.
   4. “I think it’s challenging, too, because the land—if you were to go out there prior to being built—the land is separated by public roads, but it is designated as airport property. There was an airspace check done; TxDOT and the FAA said, ‘Hey, wait, that’s not aviation. You need to release it,’” Brown said.
   5. The money will not go to the FAA, but to the Conroe-North Houston Airport budget, according to Brown. …
   6. The item was ultimately tabled by the court to allow the Montgomery County attorney’s office to figure out possible solutions to the land ownership issue and have more discussions with the FAA regarding possible alternate release agreements for the land.
   7. The 22,000-square-foot forensic center was initially approved in 2020 after severe backlog in the previous forensic center led to delays in investigations and returns to relatives. The facility opened last October.
   8. MIKE: I seem to recall that this is the same facility we discussed a few months ago where they were discussing whether the extra portable mortuary facilities should go in the front or the back of the forensic center, based on existing wiring or aesthetics. Apparently, there were bigger issues to address, like who owned the land the facility was built on. I know this isn’t funny, but it feels funny.
   9. ANDREW: Oh, it’s funny, it’s just also extremely concerning. How does a county government not check if it owns the land it wants to build on before it starts building? How does nobody check while the building process is going on? This is a very large mistake, and I suspect any new build in Montgomery County will be met with “whose land is it anyway” jokes for years to come.
6. Pearland Police Department to receive new breaching equipment; By Rachel Leland | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 3:17 PM Apr 11, 2023 CDT, Updated 3:17 PM Apr 11, 2023 CDT
   1. The Pearland Police Department will soon have new breaching equipment to better equip them to effectively respond to active shooter situations, not only at schools, but also at other potential targets.
   2. On April 10, Pearland City Council voted unanimously to award a supply contract to purchase breaching tools for every marked Pearland Police Department patrol vehicle from supply store Dana Safety Supply. The $53,480 contract will be used to purchase 120 crowbars and 80 sledgehammers.
   3. Following the May 2022 shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, the department conducted several self-assessments of their planned response for active shooter attacks.
   4. As part of the assessments, a six-person committee of current and former SWAT members identified equipment that allows for fast and effective response to an active shooter beyond the standard equipment issued to officers, according to agenda documents. …
   5. The breaching tools are effective in that they not only are able to be carried by a single officer, but with proper training would enable officers to gain entry into the majority of barricade scenarios, according to the documents. …
   6. MIKE: I’m not in a position to contradict former SWAT officers, but I’m trying to envision a scenario where an active shooter will politely wait while an officer pries open a door with a crowbar. Now, a sledgehammer, of sufficient weight and adequately wielded, may be effective in this kind of crisis, but I hope the officers get plenty of practice beforehand with this kind of forced entry, because I suspect it’s harder than it seems.
   7. ANDREW: I agree that there was probably a better use for the money spent on those crowbars. Non-police spending is the first thing that comes to my mind, but setting that aside: I thought the main takeaway from the Uvalde shooting was that the police were too afraid of a shooter that they outnumbered and outgunned to go stop him. Now, I understand that fear can make people freeze up. But I would think that professional emergency responders would have training to act despite that fear.
   8. ANDREW: Maybe Pearland police are perfectly fine on that front, but has anyone checked? I’m sure a refresher training course wouldn’t do any harm. Or de-escalation training, that could come in handy in all sorts of situations.
7. Texas House budgets $545 million for prison air conditioning. The Senate hasn’t offered anything.; Sweltering heat has killed inmates, driven away prison workers and cost taxpayers millions in lawsuits. The House budget would provide air conditioning for 46 prisons, but it’s unclear if the Senate will sign on. by Jolie McCullough | TEXASTRIBUNE.ORG | April 11, 2023, 21 hours ago
   1. The Texas House last week committed to spend $545 million to install air conditioning in many of the state’s dangerously hot prisons.
   2. It’s a historic win for prison rights’ advocates, who have long fought to cool prisons in a state where the relentless Texas heat has baked prisoners to death, likely contributed to severe staff shortages and cost taxpayers millions of dollars in wrongful death and civil rights lawsuits. More than two-thirds of Texas’ 100 prisons don’t have air conditioning in most living areas, forcing thousands of prison officers and tens of thousands of prisoners to work and live in stifling temperatures.
   3. But getting the funds included in the final House budget proposal is only half the battle. On the other side of the state Capitol, the more conservative Senate has not set aside any money to install prison air conditioning from the staggering $32.7 billion in extra funds the Legislature has to work with this year.
   4. A Senate bill that would require prisons be kept between 65 and 85 degrees, which is already law for local jails, has not yet had a hearing. An identical bill in the Republican-led House was voted out of committee unanimously.
   5. “It’s unfortunate that this battle is this difficult,” said state Rep. Terry Canales, an Edinburg Democrat who is leading the House bill and whose measure to cool prisons passed out of the House in 2021 without a hearing in the Senate. “It’s inhumane what we’re doing.”
   6. Canales said he planned to talk to senators this week seeking compromise. He placed the responsibility for the funding’s final outcome squarely on the shoulders of Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, the leader of the Senate, who alone decides if and when to move legislation in his chamber. …
   7. Patrick did not respond to questions about the proposed funding. Nor did state Sen. Joan Huffman, the Republican chair of the powerful Senate Finance Committee.
   8. Every summer, as temperatures regularly soar well into triple digits, prisoners and officers are cramped inside concrete and steel buildings without ventilation, save windows broken out of desperation and fans that blow the hot air. Before recently, it wasn’t uncommon for prisoners to drop dead, with at least 10 Texas prisoners dying of heat stroke during the sweltering summer of 2011, according to court records.
   9. Facing a handful of wrongful death challenges and an expensive class-action lawsuit at a geriatric prison, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice took action. After years of court battles, the prison agency agreed to install air conditioning at the geriatric prison and shuffled men and women around to put many of its sick or elderly prisoners into cooler housing. …
   10. [MIKE NOTE: The article doesn’t mention the year that agreement was made.]
   11. [TDCJ ] heat deaths are likely undercounted, as scientists have found extreme heat is often overlooked as a cause of death. And with climate change expected to bring even hotter temperatures, prisoners, prison rights advocates and officer unions have desperately called the state to action for years.
   12. “This bill is not just about inmates. It’s about the hard-working men and women and staff, many of whom work 16 to 24 hours a day, six days a week,” said Clifton Buchanan, a former corrections officer and deputy director of Texas Correctional Employees Council, at a legislative hearing on Canales’ bill last month. …
   13. This year, with a large surplus in the Legislature’s checkbook, the House responded to the advocates’ call. In its two main budget bills, funding current projects and those for the next two years, state representatives would put $545 million into cooling 46 out of 73 prisons that don’t yet have air conditioning in all prisoner housing areas.
   14. The House said it intended to funnel more money in additional legislative sessions to follow a four-phase plan that would cool all prisons by 2031. The plan was developed by TDCJ after House Speaker Dade Phelan asked his appropriations committee in 2021 to make funding recommendations for an incremental installation of air conditioning in prisons.
   15. The first and second phases are included in the current House budget proposals. Phase one would cool 16 facilities by 2025, focusing on transfer facilities, which hold newly sentenced prisoners, and those with large special needs populations. Phase two would put air conditioning in another 30 facilities by 2027, focusing on larger prisons built in the 1980s and 1990s. … The two final phases, which are not included in the House funding this legislative session, would cool the remaining 27 prisons. …
   16. MIKE: I’ve commented on this being an intolerable imprisonment environment before. This story made me think of a torture execution device called the brazen bull. “[T]he brazen bull was designed in the form and size of an actual bull … . The condemned were locked inside the device, and a fire was set under it, heating the metal until the person inside was roasted to death.”
   17. MIKE: Un-air conditioned prisons, which in any case are not designed for great air circulation, are just another form of torture in a modern society. That, even if the Texas Senate passes this bill this session, it will take until 2031 — optimistically! — to complete the job is in itself inexcusable.
   18. MIKE: What also upsets me is that Tx-15 Sen. John Whitmire [D] said in 2011 that Texas can’t afford to air condition Texas prisons and that we don’t want to. The audio of this comment was played on HBO’s “Last Week Tonight” in June 2021. I found that comment to be immensely disappointing. I’ve linked to the clip. As a footnote, John Whitmire is currently running for Houston Mayor.
   19. ANDREW: There’s a $32 billion surplus, and the legislature can’t commit to spending even a billion of that– maybe less– to install AC in all (according to the article) 73 prisons that don’t have it? That’s ridiculous, but it’s par for the course for Republicans. They only want to spend money if it somehow dehumanizes someone. And I agree with you, Mike, that John Whitmire’s response is shameful. I think if he hasn’t taken it back since he said it in 2011, he has no business being trusted to do things he “doesn’t want to do” as the mayor of the fourth largest city in the US.
   20. MIKE: And what I don’t know is if Whitmire has changed his mind or retracted that statement since he said that.
   21. REFERENCE: Brazen bull — From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. “The brazen bull, also known as the bronze bull, Sicilian bull, or bull of Phalaris, was a torture and execution device designed in ancient Greece.^[1] According to Diodorus Siculus, recounting the story in Bibliotheca historica, Perilaus (or Perillus) of Athens invented and proposed it to Phalaris, the tyrant of Akragas, Sicily, as a new means of executing criminals.^[2] The bull was said to be hollow and made entirely out of bronze with a door in one side.^[3] According to legends, the brazen bull was designed in the form and size of an actual bull and had an acoustic apparatus that converted screams into the sound of a bull. The condemned were locked inside the device, and a fire was set under it, heating the metal until the person inside was roasted to death. …”
   22. REFERENCE: Prison Heat: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) June 2021 — TX Sen. John Whitmire’s comment appears at 4:26 to 4:56.
8. Can Renewable Energy Save America’s Coal Communities?; By Felicity Bradstock | OILPRICE.COM | Apr 06, 2023, 3:00 PM CDT
   1. As the [world moves] away from fossil fuels …, communities that have long relied on coal, oil, and natural gas are becoming increasingly concerned about their [future] job prospects and revenue … . … [I]n the U.S., President Biden is hopeful … this won’t happen if the right preparations for growth are made [and he is] planning to bring wealth and green energy to coal communities to ensure they don’t get left [behind]. 
   2. The federal government plans to pump hundreds of millions of dollars into coal-rich regions to turn them into green energy hubs thanks to recent legislation. The Department of Energy (DoE) will manage the allocation of $450 million in funds from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), designated for clean energy projects on former coal mine sites. Most of the funds will come from recent climate policies such as the BIL, Chips and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). 
   3. The IRA introduced a 30 percent tax credit for wind, solar and other green energy projects, as well as an extra 10 percent to boost “energy communities”. …
   4. Much of the funding is expected to support populations, such as those in the coal-heavy Appalachian region, that have been devastated in recent decades due to coal mine closures. The U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary, Wally Adeyemo, said“[Coal communities] have the knowledge, infrastructure, resources and know-how to play a leading role in the move to a clean energy economy.”
   5. The U.S. Energy Secretary, Jennifer Granholm, statedof the move, “[These projects could] prove out the potential to reactivate or repurpose existing infrastructure like transmission lines and substations, and these projects could spur new economic development in these communities.”
   6. Many of these investments will be allocated using results from [an interagency working group study] on revitalising coal-power communities through federal investments … . The group identified 25 priority areas from West Virginia to Wyoming in 2021… . To date, the working group has invested more than $14.1 billion in state funds for coal communities[, helping] to attract $7.4 billion in private funding. 
   7. The green energy development will include projects such as solar farms, metals and minerals mining, battery factories, green hydrogen projects and carbon capture and storage operations. The move is expected to support the U.S. goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 and achieving net zero by 2050, as well as supporting communities that could be left behind in the transition unless action is taken now. 
   8. Some successes [include] the transformation of the Massachusetts Brayton Point coal power plant into an offshore wind manufacturing facility. …
   9. Companies investing in coal communities will be expected to hire locally and train workers in the skills needed to run green energy facilities. Energy firms will also be made to pay prevailing wages to ensure that workers are not losing out from the change. The White House emphasised the need to“ensure the creation of good-paying jobs that provide a choice to join a union, remediate mining and drilling lands and plant sites to address environmental degradation, and secure the benefits workers have earned.” 
   10. One of the first projects to be launched is the study of ways to extract critical minerals such as lithium, copper, and nickel from coal mine waste streams. The DoE is providing $16 million in funding to West Virginia University and the University of North Dakota to conduct the research, which will support future developments at former coal sites. The U.S. is steadily building its domestic mineral industry, as well as looking regionally for the other high-demand resources needed to support the green transition. Metals and minerals such as copper and lithium are vital components in electric vehicles, as well as solar and wind farms. New climate policies and investments in the mining and manufacturing industries will help the U.S. to shift its reliance away from China for these resources and strengthen its energy security. …
   11. As the U.S. undergoes a green transition, … there is a major concern amongst coal communities that they could be left behind. But recent climate policies and a move by President Biden to establish “energy communities” – prior mining regions that can be transformed into clean energy hubs — could be the answer. Developing green energy projects in these regions could provide vital work opportunities as fossil fuel operations close down, as well as bringing in revenue and maintaining the energy and economic security of the communities. 
   12. ANDREW: Coal, oil, and gas workers are an important part of every serious plan to fight global warming. For example, the Green New Deal (the original plan from the Green Party) includes skills training, public sector jobs, and income and benefits assistance for displaced workers. Helping these workers is both the right thing to do and makes a major economic shift like this possible by keeping these experienced, qualified workers in the labor force for new green jobs. I’m glad to see that the Democrats’ imitation plan understands this as well.
   13. ANDREW: I think a key investment missing from the article is research into more efficient recycling. Lithium, copper and nickel will definitely be important for new renewable electricity infrastructure, but mining them will have a much worse environmental impact than recycling old products for them. Extracting these metals from coal mine waste streams is a great idea, but the government should also fund research into better methods of recycling solar panels, wind turbines, and batteries, and use that new technology in publicly-owned recycling centers.
   14. MIKE: I agree that better recycling technology for all kinds of things, including cars, batteries, clothing, and plastics would be great. In some cases, the tech exists, but is more expensive than using virgin raw materials.
   15. MIKE: Something like Value Added Taxes might be applied toward this purpose of encouraging “recycling into design”. That would be a way of “recycling” the Value Added Taxes back into the businesses paying them.
   16. MIKE: It would also be nice if there was some public funding to encourage recycling to be designed into products. Europe has encouraged manufacturers toward this ethos.
9. Can Big Oil Scale Geothermal?; By Tsvetana Paraskova | OILPRICE.COM | Apr 08, 2023, 6:00 PM CDT
   1. The oil and gas industry is exploring the potential of geothermal energy to provide more clean electricity and heating. While geothermal has the advantage of not being dependent on weather like other green energy sources, this form of energy has higher development costs and longer lead times than solar and wind power.   Geothermal could, in theory, be a perfect fit for the oil and gas industry and drilling service providers — it involves subsurface resource mapping, exploration, and drilling. …
   2. But major hurdles remain. Expensive drilling and development, subsurface drilling risks, the availability of drilling services which often depends on the oil industry cycle, and weaker returns than in oil and gas have all played a role in holding back geothermal energy development despite the fact that there are many areas in the world with high potential.
   3. Geothermal energy is a renewable energy source because heat is continuously produced inside the earth. Unlike with solar and wind, geothermal does not depend on whether the sun shines or the wind blows. 
   4. Still, despite decades of development, geothermal isn’t that popular. 
   5. As of the end of 2021, geothermal power generation stations accounted for 0.5% of the total installed renewable power generation capacity worldwide …
   6. The share of geothermal in the United States is similarly low, although the U.S. boasts the world’s largest geothermal installed capacity at 3.7 GWe. 
   7. Geothermal power plants, [use] steam turbines to generate electricity …
   8. Some major names in the oil and gas industry have recently increased efforts to tap that potential and study advanced technologies for doing so. 
   9. For example, U.S. oil and gas supermajor Chevron announced in September a joint collaboration agreement with Japan’s Mitsui Oil Exploration Co., Ltd (MOECO) to explore the technical and commercial feasibility of advanced geothermal power generation in Japan. The collaboration will study geothermal resource potential across Japan and will evaluate the effectiveness of Advanced Closed Loop (ACL) technology for a future joint pilot project in Japan. …
   10. At the end of last year, Chevron … announced a joint venture with Baseload Capital to develop geothermal projects in the United States. …
   11. Baker Hughes launched the geothermal energy consortium Wells2Watts, which aims to transform dry non-productive geothermal wells and non-productive oil and gas wells into geothermal wells capable of generating renewable electrical power. …
   12. Baker Hughes [and SLB, formerly Schlumberger], have been drilling geothermal wells for decades. SLB … says that it has been a part of 80% of the world’s geothermal projects. …
   13. [A] recent study of researchers at five Texas universities showed [that], “The oil and gas industry could play a particularly important role in advancing new, more globally scalable applications that could expand the resource base of geothermal energy.” … 
   14. [International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA)] warns that geothermal power generation projects have, on average, relatively high capital costs compared to hydropower, solar PV, and onshore wind, due to the high development costs and very different risk profiles compared to other renewable power generation technologies, in terms of both project development and operation. …
   15. The oil and gas industry could play a role in breakthroughs in advanced geothermal technology, but high costs and low returns may continue to be hurdles to mainstream geothermal energy generation. 
   16. ANDREW: The biggest obstacle to averting global warming has always been profit. Private industry won’t save humanity from climate change, because they only do what’s profitable in money or control. If climate action was profitable, they’d have taken it by now. Only non-profit, publicly-owned, and worker-controlled organizations will do the things necessary to shift the world away from fossil fuels, regardless of whether the organizations benefit or not. I’m sure private industry could greatly help if they’d share their research and make necessary economic changes, but I don’t think they will unless forced to by law, and I think the only parties interested in those laws are the Greens and other socialists. New public efforts seem much more politically viable.
   17. MIKE: I’m not quite as anti-capitalist as Andrew, nor am I quite as socialist, but I would certainly agree that unbridled capitalism is very bad for everyone except the successful capitalists. I believe that a mixed social-capitalist system is best, depending on the balance. I certainly believe that companies must be what I call “right-regulated”, both for their own benefit and for the public’s. There is growing evidence that the oil companies knew about global warming caused by their products going back to at least the 1980s. That’s just about the time that Ronald Regan had Jimmy Carter’s solar panels removed from the White House.
   18. MIKE: Ironically, if there is an industry with the financial and physical resources to bring us to a green energy age. It’s the oil and gas companies. But it will take the right regulation and profit incentives to enlist their help in a serious way.

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