{"id":42777,"date":"2025-08-13T14:07:57","date_gmt":"2025-08-13T19:07:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=42777"},"modified":"2025-08-13T14:07:57","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T19:07:57","slug":"keeping-the-gold-mine-safe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2025\/08\/13\/keeping-the-gold-mine-safe\/","title":{"rendered":"Keeping The Gold Mine Safe"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Metaphorically, of course. &#8220;Burgum&#8221; is current Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum (R-ND), who was also Governor of North Dakota in a prior life.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"bluesky-embed\" data-bluesky-uri=\"at:\/\/did:plc:4llrhdclvdlmmynkwsmg5tdc\/app.bsky.feed.post\/3lvbarqhuvs2s\" data-bluesky-cid=\"bafyreigmysyik7wfazxdajahoom3okljiwwiv4aiq5uhnlqrdgyy5xnhtq\">\n<p lang=\"en\">Burgum: &#34;When the sun goes down, you have a catastrophic failure called sunset and there&#39;s no solar energy produced, and yet we&#39;re subsidizing these things that are intermittent, unreliable, and expensive. We&#39;ve gotta get back to base load.&#34;<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; <a href=\"https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/did:plc:4llrhdclvdlmmynkwsmg5tdc?ref_src=embed\">Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com)<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/did:plc:4llrhdclvdlmmynkwsmg5tdc\/post\/3lvbarqhuvs2s?ref_src=embed\">2025-07-31T13:33:22.168Z<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/embed.bsky.app\/static\/embed.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Burgum: &#8220;When the sun goes down, you have a catastrophic failure called sunset and there&#8217;s no solar energy produced, and yet we&#8217;re subsidizing these things that are intermittent, unreliable, and expensive. We&#8217;ve gotta get back to base load.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/PXL_20250717_173420719-scaled.jpg?ssl=1\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-42779 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/PXL_20250717_173420719-scaled.jpg?resize=186%2C248&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"186\" height=\"248\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/PXL_20250717_173420719-scaled.jpg?w=1920&amp;ssl=1 1920w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/PXL_20250717_173420719-scaled.jpg?resize=225%2C300&amp;ssl=1 225w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/PXL_20250717_173420719-scaled.jpg?resize=768%2C1024&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/PXL_20250717_173420719-scaled.jpg?resize=1152%2C1536&amp;ssl=1 1152w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/PXL_20250717_173420719-scaled.jpg?resize=1536%2C2048&amp;ssl=1 1536w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/PXL_20250717_173420719-scaled.jpg?resize=113%2C150&amp;ssl=1 113w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/PXL_20250717_173420719-scaled.jpg?w=1600&amp;ssl=1 1600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 186px) 100vw, 186px\" \/><\/a>And Burgum apparently hasn&#8217;t heard of batteries. Elon Musk, who once made a bet on supplying batteries to Australia, and quietly <a href=\"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2017\/09\/30\/market-opportunity\/\">supplied batteries<\/a> to Puerto Rico after a hurricane hit, must be steamed<sup><a href=\"#1\">[1]<\/a><\/sup>.<\/p>\n<p>So what&#8217;s going on? This is not just a bunch of old men &#8211; and women, heaven forbid &#8211; clinging to <em>the old ways<\/em>. The President may be, but not these folks. No, these folks have substantial investments in doing things the old way. They&#8217;ve built up financial structures in which fossil fuel companies play a critical role.<\/p>\n<p>And their self-importance requires that to remain true, even if it pushes the climate from salubrious humanity to hostile. It&#8217;s easier to cry <em>hoax!<\/em> than to modify that financial structure.<\/p>\n<p>And, in the end, we get bizarre statements like the above. Steve Benen has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/rachel-maddow-show\/maddowblog\/clean-energy-many-republicans-appear-forget-batteries-exist-rcna222485?icid=nextpost_bot\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">more<\/a>. I&#8217;m using bizarre <em>particularly<\/em>, because the left side of our lovely political spectrum, in the minds of many independents, has a tendency to spew bizarre statements as well, from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/future-perfect\/2019\/4\/16\/18251646\/modern-monetary-theory-new-moment-explained\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Modern Monetary Theory<\/strong><\/a> to <em>transgenderism<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Our political system is tired, worn out even, from the grifters and the undisciplined who&#8217;ve invaded, all in a hurry to use the system for their own ends.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><a name=\"1\"><\/a><sup>1<\/sup> Pun intended.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Metaphorically, of course. &#8220;Burgum&#8221; is current Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum (R-ND), who was also Governor of North Dakota in a prior life. Burgum: &#34;When the sun goes down, you have a catastrophic failure called sunset and there&#39;s no solar energy produced, and yet we&#39;re subsidizing these things that \u2026 <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2025\/08\/13\/keeping-the-gold-mine-safe\/\"> Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr; <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42777"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42777\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42780,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42777\/revisions\/42780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}