Paul, I am not sure how you find the time to write a tome such as this, but it is needed and most welcome. As somebody who depended on Pell Grants for my undergraduate degree(s) and that launched me to grad school and later Chief Economist of the world’s largest power market (PJM) think about the massive talent pool we are damning to desperation and frustration?! Absent that kind of help, I would not have had the opportunities I have! The same goes for the New Deal of FDR or the Great Society programs of LBJ. Hell, even Nixon signed the EPA and Pell Grants into law!
And now, my father who in his 40s fell into hard luck and never recovered but paid into SSI and Medicare/Medicaid is a recipient of these programs. Prior to those those kinds of costs would fall into families who then had to make a choice…help the young provide a springboard to something better or help the elderly who had nothing? What a cruel decision to have to make?
I know I am preaching to the choir, but kudos to you for the blunt and direct message!
Paul, I am duly grateful for your kind words. Yes, my veteran parents went to college on the Korean War version of the GI Bill. My father, the first to do so from his side of the family. Had it not been for New Deal social safety networks provided by FDR, their plight and tens of millions of Americans would have been far worse. Thank goodness your father benefitted from all that he paid into the SSI system. I bet PJM, was very grateful that you had access to Pell Grant opportunities as well.
As for having the time, I actually don’t but realize that if my grandchildren are to have a free republic, I must make time to write. I don’t recall the nun’s name, but her quote has always inspired me and I paraphrase, “if a person has a talent or knowledge to benefit humanity, it’s a sin to not wield it in service to mankind.” I’m not Catholic but take inspiration from the wisdom of a widely diverse group of wise folks. In my family, public service in addition to daily toils, is a family tradition. I imagine in yours the same.
We are of similar background. My grandparents of farming, autoworker, butchers in Indiana. My father who paid his way through tech school to contribute to the Apollo program in the 1960s despite losing his mother to cancer at a young age. Later he helped in the manufacture of advanced avionics for military aircraft in the early 1980s. The value of hard work is ingrained. The lessons of history passed down from FDR to the evils of the KKK who ran Indiana in the 1920s.
We all benefited from the New Deal (Mr Roosevelt gonna save us all!) and the lessons of the depression and tyranny at home.
My mentors who also benefitted from that…first set of Pell Grants or Air Force Academy grads who paid it forward like I have tried to do in my life and career.
To see all of it being destroyed is heartbreaking which is why we must fight on the battle ground we find ourselves. Yours is of your choosing it seems. Mine is at the intersection of power systems, energy, and now load growth due to data centers. I see so much hype and grift anda false narrative that I have become the guy who is simply the naysayer. Not just because, but I know history…I have seen this movie play out before. I started as a historian and now do power systems.
The problem is nobody wants to see what is in front of their face. You bring that to the fore and I try to bring that in my corner of the world. Thank you for being that beacon of light in a dark time and giving the rest of us courage to fight on!
Paul, thank you kindly for sharing your kind words and your story and yes, we do have similar backgrounds. I was raised next door in Ohio and drove across Indiana several times a year with my parents, to visit the farms of my mother's side of the family in NE Missouri. My dad's side, hard-working folks including farmers and a wide variety of other jobs, from the peak of their profession in DC to the everyday jobs that we find in rural communities across our nation. I like to say, "a salt of the earth family, on both sides." How could I be more fortunate?
Your experiences in what so many call, "flyover county," I consider the foundation of American strength. Hard-working Americans going to work everyday, but being taken advantage of by corporate oligarchy with their stagnant wages and the need for so many to supplement their income with government programs, to keep themselves and their families safe, healthy, fed and housed. As an historian, you well know that this is NOT, what our founders intended.
I'm honored that another, "naysayer" like you, focuses on truth and has the courage to speak up with it, contributes wisdom and truth to these posts. I don't know about you, but I believe this dignity resides in the overwhelming majority of Americans that are just too polite to speak out publicly. As you know, this is a common trait in the Midwest. Even so many Republican voters feel the same but suffer from exposure to 30 years of FOX and similar programming that has redefined patriotism and Christianity (to name but two items) to suit their propagandists, not actual honest American or Christian values.
As a Texan, always on the verge of having our grid fail us at the worst possible time, I too am painfully concerned about the power required for all of the newly required server farms. Perhaps one day, you may be interested in contributing a guest essay on this or related topics.
Paul, I am honored to be invited to write a guest essay on energy matters as they relate to our current national crisis of governance and corruption. I unfortunately know too well what Texas and ERCOT have gone through. I worked for ERCOT supporting them post Uri. The truth of the matter is that blame on renewable resources by politicians was misplaced. And the failure of gas resources was not about the generation units, it was more about intrastate gas pipelines E&P failing upstream. Also, because ERCOT is a completely separate interconnection not AC connected to the eastern on western systems, it is not Federally jurisdictional and they cannot get help from outside when they are short resources nor can they export when long. It is literally an electrical island.
Paul, wonderful news regarding your interest in writing. I'm honored. Yes, as a Texan who lived through our "big freeze," I am painfully aware of the disastrous and fragile system called our "grid." You probably also recall that during a similar event in 2011, the recommended changes never occurred and the special, sweetheart deal between gas providers and users ended up costing some users as much as 20,000 dollars, for 48-60 hours of electrical service. Sometimes it feels as if our infrastructure has been so ignored for so long, that I simply don't know how we'll ever be up to speed.
Feel free please to correct any of this, as that it was over four years ago and my agitation with our leadership in Austin may be distorting my memory. Any sensible person in Texas these days, has a generator. When all of those sweetheart deals with Musk and Amazon putting up server farms, I have no idea how we'll keep up without significant investment. That means... Texans pay for the negligence of the Texas Republican Party.
Paul, I am not sure how you find the time to write a tome such as this, but it is needed and most welcome. As somebody who depended on Pell Grants for my undergraduate degree(s) and that launched me to grad school and later Chief Economist of the world’s largest power market (PJM) think about the massive talent pool we are damning to desperation and frustration?! Absent that kind of help, I would not have had the opportunities I have! The same goes for the New Deal of FDR or the Great Society programs of LBJ. Hell, even Nixon signed the EPA and Pell Grants into law!
And now, my father who in his 40s fell into hard luck and never recovered but paid into SSI and Medicare/Medicaid is a recipient of these programs. Prior to those those kinds of costs would fall into families who then had to make a choice…help the young provide a springboard to something better or help the elderly who had nothing? What a cruel decision to have to make?
I know I am preaching to the choir, but kudos to you for the blunt and direct message!
Paul, I am duly grateful for your kind words. Yes, my veteran parents went to college on the Korean War version of the GI Bill. My father, the first to do so from his side of the family. Had it not been for New Deal social safety networks provided by FDR, their plight and tens of millions of Americans would have been far worse. Thank goodness your father benefitted from all that he paid into the SSI system. I bet PJM, was very grateful that you had access to Pell Grant opportunities as well.
As for having the time, I actually don’t but realize that if my grandchildren are to have a free republic, I must make time to write. I don’t recall the nun’s name, but her quote has always inspired me and I paraphrase, “if a person has a talent or knowledge to benefit humanity, it’s a sin to not wield it in service to mankind.” I’m not Catholic but take inspiration from the wisdom of a widely diverse group of wise folks. In my family, public service in addition to daily toils, is a family tradition. I imagine in yours the same.
My best
We are of similar background. My grandparents of farming, autoworker, butchers in Indiana. My father who paid his way through tech school to contribute to the Apollo program in the 1960s despite losing his mother to cancer at a young age. Later he helped in the manufacture of advanced avionics for military aircraft in the early 1980s. The value of hard work is ingrained. The lessons of history passed down from FDR to the evils of the KKK who ran Indiana in the 1920s.
We all benefited from the New Deal (Mr Roosevelt gonna save us all!) and the lessons of the depression and tyranny at home.
My mentors who also benefitted from that…first set of Pell Grants or Air Force Academy grads who paid it forward like I have tried to do in my life and career.
To see all of it being destroyed is heartbreaking which is why we must fight on the battle ground we find ourselves. Yours is of your choosing it seems. Mine is at the intersection of power systems, energy, and now load growth due to data centers. I see so much hype and grift anda false narrative that I have become the guy who is simply the naysayer. Not just because, but I know history…I have seen this movie play out before. I started as a historian and now do power systems.
The problem is nobody wants to see what is in front of their face. You bring that to the fore and I try to bring that in my corner of the world. Thank you for being that beacon of light in a dark time and giving the rest of us courage to fight on!
Paul, thank you kindly for sharing your kind words and your story and yes, we do have similar backgrounds. I was raised next door in Ohio and drove across Indiana several times a year with my parents, to visit the farms of my mother's side of the family in NE Missouri. My dad's side, hard-working folks including farmers and a wide variety of other jobs, from the peak of their profession in DC to the everyday jobs that we find in rural communities across our nation. I like to say, "a salt of the earth family, on both sides." How could I be more fortunate?
Your experiences in what so many call, "flyover county," I consider the foundation of American strength. Hard-working Americans going to work everyday, but being taken advantage of by corporate oligarchy with their stagnant wages and the need for so many to supplement their income with government programs, to keep themselves and their families safe, healthy, fed and housed. As an historian, you well know that this is NOT, what our founders intended.
I'm honored that another, "naysayer" like you, focuses on truth and has the courage to speak up with it, contributes wisdom and truth to these posts. I don't know about you, but I believe this dignity resides in the overwhelming majority of Americans that are just too polite to speak out publicly. As you know, this is a common trait in the Midwest. Even so many Republican voters feel the same but suffer from exposure to 30 years of FOX and similar programming that has redefined patriotism and Christianity (to name but two items) to suit their propagandists, not actual honest American or Christian values.
As a Texan, always on the verge of having our grid fail us at the worst possible time, I too am painfully concerned about the power required for all of the newly required server farms. Perhaps one day, you may be interested in contributing a guest essay on this or related topics.
Kind regards
Paul, I am honored to be invited to write a guest essay on energy matters as they relate to our current national crisis of governance and corruption. I unfortunately know too well what Texas and ERCOT have gone through. I worked for ERCOT supporting them post Uri. The truth of the matter is that blame on renewable resources by politicians was misplaced. And the failure of gas resources was not about the generation units, it was more about intrastate gas pipelines E&P failing upstream. Also, because ERCOT is a completely separate interconnection not AC connected to the eastern on western systems, it is not Federally jurisdictional and they cannot get help from outside when they are short resources nor can they export when long. It is literally an electrical island.
Paul, wonderful news regarding your interest in writing. I'm honored. Yes, as a Texan who lived through our "big freeze," I am painfully aware of the disastrous and fragile system called our "grid." You probably also recall that during a similar event in 2011, the recommended changes never occurred and the special, sweetheart deal between gas providers and users ended up costing some users as much as 20,000 dollars, for 48-60 hours of electrical service. Sometimes it feels as if our infrastructure has been so ignored for so long, that I simply don't know how we'll ever be up to speed.
Feel free please to correct any of this, as that it was over four years ago and my agitation with our leadership in Austin may be distorting my memory. Any sensible person in Texas these days, has a generator. When all of those sweetheart deals with Musk and Amazon putting up server farms, I have no idea how we'll keep up without significant investment. That means... Texans pay for the negligence of the Texas Republican Party.
All best