The government, local, state, or federal, should have the opportunity to nationalize unused infrastructure like this. Give Chevron an opportunity to tear it down or turn it on, but otherwise pay a market rate just like with eminent domain and let the turbines spin.
I'm guessing this was just some greenwashing by Chevron to avoid being forced to actually cleanup their nuclear waste.
altairprime 59 seconds ago [-]
[delayed]
wbl 45 seconds ago [-]
The same government that is prohibiting construction of the transmission lines to move that power to where it would be used?
impossiblefork 10 minutes ago [-]
Maybe one could even say that this is a kind of blight and a reason to use eminent domain, so that it could be done without any changes in law.
salynchnew 38 minutes ago [-]
"Don't trust an oil company to disrupt their own business model with renewables" seems to be the lesson here.
anon291 36 minutes ago [-]
Why? They're all energy companies, not oil companies. Companies pivot all the time. As long as there's profit to be made, they'll even engage in both.
schmichael 18 minutes ago [-]
Chevron is an oil and natural gas company, not an electricity production company. Directly producing green energy is a bit like Apple selling Windows PCs.
jonas21 14 minutes ago [-]
Apple was a computer company and now their biggest business is selling mobile phones.
Tostino 11 minutes ago [-]
Which are what if not computers?
burnte 33 minutes ago [-]
Logically, yes, but it doesn't always happen. Ballmer forgot MS was a software company, thought it was only a Windows company, and wasted a decade. Oil execs look at the cost of change, and decide they're not energy companies, only oil because that's what they know.
giwook 34 minutes ago [-]
Except probably 99% of their profits come from oil. 99% of their infrastructure is setup for oil which has been honed and put into place over decades.
Can you imagine the cost of revamping all of that? And then they have to explain to their shareholders why their profits are a fraction of what they normally are, otherwise their stock price will sink which will affect the company in myriad ways.
There's so much to this space that I'm ignorant of, but I know enough to know that it's really not that simple.
treflop 18 minutes ago [-]
There is a reason why newer companies and younger people tend to make bigger changes…
It’s not a conspiracy. It’s not because they can’t.
It’s because all that they have built up from hard work has resulted in responsibilities to a lot of people that also now hold them back.
50 minutes ago [-]
xenadu02 43 minutes ago [-]
tl;dr: Chevron owns the turbines. They originally signed an agreement with PacifiCorp to buy the power generated. When the agreement was up Chevron decided not to renew it and instead pursue registering as a generator to sell the power directly to buyers on the Western Interconnect.
As a result they have nowhere to send the power right now for the same reason you can't install a 50MWh generator on your property, toss some wires up, and start pumping electricity into the grid - even if you wanted to do it for free.
This is a great example of garbage journalism. The story reports "the facts" but completely fails to put anything in context. The story completely misses this point and acts like the government is at fault for approving the permit to install the turbines and that the nay-sayers and NIMBYs were correct because it turns out wind turbines are just a boondoggle after all.
The actual story is Chevron made incompetent business decisions by failing to sign up as a generator earlier and failing to temporarily renew their PacifiCorp power purchase agreement, thus forcing them to idle an expensive asset while they fix their mistake.
happosai 49 seconds ago [-]
Wind power is not their core business, so they don't even seem to be trying. Someone decided that doing some wind power would be good publicity, and then did a token effort with this farm. Someone's friend who needed a job but couldn't be trusted to run anything serious in Chevron was then hired to run wind business with predictable results.
scblock 13 minutes ago [-]
Chevron did everything wrong on this wind farm even before they built it. This is not a wind issue, this is not a government issue, and this is not a PacifiCorp issue.
This is Chevron being garbage, which should surprise no one.
gwbas1c 21 minutes ago [-]
> The actual story is...
Is that connecting renewables to the grid is time consuming, and shouldn't be. A few years ago, I determined that they payoff of grid-scale batteries is extremely fast, BUT, connecting to the grid is so frustrating that I decided I didn't want to peruse the opportunity.
I don't know if I'd use the word "incompetent."
margalabargala 17 minutes ago [-]
I would expect a company whose business is building and operating power plants, to be more adept at navigating the red tape surrounding the grid that they operate than you are.
scblock 15 minutes ago [-]
No, they have an interconnection agreement. They're already connected to the grid.
chiffre01 10 minutes ago [-]
This is Cowboy State Daily, one of the few news sources from Wyoming.They publish a lot of stories with a significant amount of bad faith, particularly concerning energy and environmental issues.
wyofile.com is a better source for energy and environmental reporting.
1 hours ago [-]
1 hours ago [-]
PreInternet01 31 minutes ago [-]
[flagged]
Rendered at 19:59:55 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
I'm guessing this was just some greenwashing by Chevron to avoid being forced to actually cleanup their nuclear waste.
Can you imagine the cost of revamping all of that? And then they have to explain to their shareholders why their profits are a fraction of what they normally are, otherwise their stock price will sink which will affect the company in myriad ways.
There's so much to this space that I'm ignorant of, but I know enough to know that it's really not that simple.
It’s not a conspiracy. It’s not because they can’t.
It’s because all that they have built up from hard work has resulted in responsibilities to a lot of people that also now hold them back.
As a result they have nowhere to send the power right now for the same reason you can't install a 50MWh generator on your property, toss some wires up, and start pumping electricity into the grid - even if you wanted to do it for free.
This is a great example of garbage journalism. The story reports "the facts" but completely fails to put anything in context. The story completely misses this point and acts like the government is at fault for approving the permit to install the turbines and that the nay-sayers and NIMBYs were correct because it turns out wind turbines are just a boondoggle after all.
The actual story is Chevron made incompetent business decisions by failing to sign up as a generator earlier and failing to temporarily renew their PacifiCorp power purchase agreement, thus forcing them to idle an expensive asset while they fix their mistake.
This is Chevron being garbage, which should surprise no one.
Is that connecting renewables to the grid is time consuming, and shouldn't be. A few years ago, I determined that they payoff of grid-scale batteries is extremely fast, BUT, connecting to the grid is so frustrating that I decided I didn't want to peruse the opportunity.
I don't know if I'd use the word "incompetent."
wyofile.com is a better source for energy and environmental reporting.