{"id":127827,"date":"2022-07-14T15:24:09","date_gmt":"2022-07-14T19:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=127827"},"modified":"2022-07-14T15:27:20","modified_gmt":"2022-07-14T19:27:20","slug":"aftermath-of-the-good-idea-fairy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=127827","title":{"rendered":"Aftermath of the Good Idea Fairy"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Two glaring examples of how good intentions can be ruined or subverted by reality surfaced today:<\/p>\n

In California, a failing beer can recycyling program is hindering beer can production. One manufacturer is limiting can orders to 5-truckload minimums, which is a pretty high barrier for smaller brewers. Where is a micro-brewery on a shoe-string budget with limited storage going to store that many till useage? For that matter, paying all at once for a year’s supply is crippling. In a nutshell, the problem is that are apparently fewer recycling centers that there were a few years back, some places required by law to accept recycling (by government mandate) aren’t taking donations, and cans culled from trash pickups aren’t clean enough.<\/p>\n

Another reason: California\u2019s creaking recycling system can\u2019t collect enough cans, one consequence of a program that has been crippled by redemption center closures and out-of-date policies that have made it harder for people to recycle effectively. The chronic shortage highlights how an overlooked link in the supply chain \u2014 trash \u2014 can hamstring a beloved, and booming, industry.<\/p>\n

About 73% of an aluminum can comes from recycled scrap. As demand for canned beverages boomed in recent years, the state\u2019s patchwork of recycling centers and recovery facilities just couldn\u2019t keep pace.<\/p>\n

In the last five years, California\u2019s recycling rate for aluminum cans has fallen 20%, from 91% in 2016 to 73% in 2021, according to data from the California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery, or CalRecycle.<\/p>\n

The overall can recycling rate in the U.S. is 45%, meaning that more than half of the cans wind up in landfills.<\/p>\n

In California, the situation has deteriorated precipitously. In 2016, according to the state\u2019s data, slightly more than 766 million aluminum cans wound up in landfills or never got recycled. Last year, the number was 2.8 billion. That\u2019s enough cans to fill about 31,000 backyard swimming pools.<\/p>\n

Experts said the beer business could come to a standstill without a steady supply of cans, and smaller businesses are the most vulnerable.<\/p>\n

In 2015, there were 2,245 buyback centers, or places where consumers could go to claim their nickel deposit on a bottle or can in the California Refund Value program. Those centers make their money by selling aluminum \u2014 as well as paper, glass and some plastic \u2014 on the scrap market. The price of scrap metals caved that year, falling 30.8%, and the centers began to close en masse.<\/p>\n

When there are no redemption centers nearby, California\u2019s \u201cBottle Bill,\u201d AB 2020, requires that grocery stores and supermarkets step in and offer customers a nickel for every can they turn in. But few retailers are willing to accept them, and enforcement is lax.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

LA Times<\/a><\/p>\n

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Meanwhile, in Texas, the regional power authority which did such a good job during the Big Freeze, was drawing praise from the eco-hippy types for their ever-increasing availability of wind power. Nowadays, however, during peak high-temperature demand they are finding that one of the drawbacks of having a high-pressure zone parked over the state for weeks is that the wind also parks itself. No wind, no power.<\/p>\n

(Bloomberg) — Wind power — a key source of electricity in Texas — is being sidelined just when the Lone Star State needs it most, with turbines generating less than a 10th of what they\u2019re capable of.<\/p>\n

A scorching heat wave is pushing the Texas grid to the brink. Power demand is surging as people crank up air conditioners. But meanwhile, wind speeds have fallen to extremely low levels, and that means the state\u2019s fleet of turbines is at just 8% of their potential output.<\/p>\n

Depressed wind power during heat waves isn\u2019t a new phenomenon. Powerful high-pressure systems that cause intense heat often squelch wind production — just when more power is needed to meet higher electricity demand. The mass of air overhead stifles wind near the surface, until the mass moves elsewhere.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Bloomberg via Yahoo Finance<\/a><\/p>\n

Sounds like a Texas-sized “oopsie” to me. We won’t go into how generator blades aren’t recyclable, how generators which run hot and burn are too big to dismantle so they just stay there, bird strikes, or any of the other pitfalls of mass wind power.<\/p>\n

Bottom line, if you implement a 20 year program with plenty of pitfalls, just fund for five years of no problems, and turn a blind eye to any potential issues: you’re gonna get burned.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two glaring examples of how good intentions can be ruined or subverted by reality surfaced today: … Aftermath of the Good Idea Fairy<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":668,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[478],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-127827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-none"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/668"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=127827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127827\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=127827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=127827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=127827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}