Technology Review
A carbon-emissions limit will raise energy prices unevenly.
President Obama's budget numbers depend heavily on revenues from a proposed cap-and-trade program for reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Under the plan, these revenues will come at the cost of higher energy prices, with some states being affected far more than others.
The cap-and-trade program does not yet exist: it will need to be established in future legislation. But the inclusion of future revenues in the budget, and a promise to pursue necessary legislation, is the strongest commitment yet that the administration will follow through with one of Obama's campaign promises and establish a cap-and-trade system for carbon dioxide emissions.
Under such a system, the government sets an annual cap on carbon dioxide emissions--the budget calls for a cap of 14 percent below 2005 emissions levels by 2020, and 83 percent below 2005 levels by 2050. The government then issues a set number of credits for the total emissions allowed under that cap. Under Obama's plan, those credits won't be given away, as they were in the initial version of a cap-and-trade system employed in Europe. Instead, the credits will be auctioned off, and that money will be the source of government revenue. Polluters will be required to buy enough credits at the initial auction to cover their carbon dioxide emissions, or acquire more by trading with others at a later stage. Alternatively, they can reduce their emissions by investing in more efficient technologies. Either way, these costs will result in higher energy prices.
The budget includes $78.7 billion in projected revenues from the cap-and-trade system in its first year, 2012, and $525.7 billion total by 2019. According to Point Carbon, an energy-market analysis firm based in Olso, Norway, these numbers are based on the assumption that credits for a ton of carbon dioxide will sell for $13.70 in 2012 and $16.50 by 2020. These estimates are in line with carbon credits issued in Europe, says Veronique Bugnion, a managing director at Point Carbon. The 2012 price for carbon dioxide emissions will increase gasoline prices by 6 percent compared to current prices, she says. Average electricity prices will increase by 6.8 percent--perhaps more. According to calculations by Gilbert Metcalf, an economist at Tufts University, the average electricity price increase would be 9.7 percent by 2012 and 11.7 percent by 2020.
What's more, the impact of the cap-and-trade system will vary by state. Electricity prices will rise more in states that rely heavily on coal, such as North Dakota, than in states that rely on sources of electricity that produce little carbon dioxide. According to Bugnion, prices could increase by 19.2 percent in North Dakota by 2012 but only 2.6 percent in Washington State, which relies heavily on hydroelectric power, over the same period.
To offset some of these price increases, the budget includes provisions to use some of the auction revenue for tax relief. From 2012 to 2019, $15 billion a year from the carbon-emissions program will be used to pay for "vital investments in a clean energy future"--funding for clean energy technology. The remaining money from the auction is expected to be just enough to pay for a tax credit that is an extension of the "Making Work Pay" credit--a $400-a-person credit included in the recently passed stimulus bill.
Advanced technology won't be enough for the industry to meet its own greenhouse-gas targets.
If the United States wants to build a market-based approach to reducing carbon dioxide emissions, it should learn from Europe's failures.
David Victor explains why emissions trading alone won't be adequate to address global warming.
In other words, a breathing tax. This should be from a Mel Brooks comedy, not actualy government. With more and more scientists coming out AGAINST blaming CO2 as a pollutant or villain, here come the politicos figuring to tax us on something we exhale. Clearly they fail to know that we are short on money ourselves, the taxpayers, and this will only hurt business and industry. Make no mistake, this is just another way to tax us.
Now what I would like to see is a tax on all those activists who are causing the rest of us to pay more for unfounded complaints.
kitk, any chance you could post some links to these scientific reports you're referring to?
costs will increase?
yes and no.
yes they will increase, but just because today noboday pays for polluting air: much easier, isn't it?
costs will likely increase: that's what happens when you "internalize" in the economic system externalities, previously not considered by anyone
Coal power plant emissions are the major source of atmospheric CO2. A technology to produce energy cheaper than from coal will provide all the economic incentives needed to check these emissions, not just in the US and Europe, but in China, India, and other developing nations that will never accept carbon taxes nor cap and trade restrictions on their economic growth ambitions.
A tutorial introduction to the liquid fluoride thorium reactor is at
http://rethinkingnuclearpower.googlepages.com/aimhigh
Considering that there hasn't been any warming in ten years, that some forecasts show a cooling trend for at least the next decade, that Europe's cap and trade scheme did not reduce C02 and has instead seriously impacted there competitiveness in the world market and most importantly unless India and China sign on nothing that we do will affect global warming in the slightest, the proposed plan by Obama will just be a huge tax on all of us for no good reason.
i. "Considering that there hasn't been any warming in ten years"
To tell the truth, it's exactly the opposite.
http://epa.gov/climatechange/science/recenttc.html
" * Since the mid 1970s, the average surface temperature has warmed about 1°F.
* The Earth’s surface is currently warming at a rate of about 0.32ºF/decade or 3.2°F/century.
* The eight warmest years on record (since 1850) have all occurred since 1998, with the warmest year being 2005."
ii. "that Europe's cap and trade scheme did not reduce C02"
it doesn't seem so:
http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/16/group-says-european-cap-and-trade-system-reduced-emissions/
"the largest cause of a reduction in emissions in the European Union last year was attributable to the trading system"
iii. "India and China sign on nothing that we do will affect global warming in the slightest"
China and India will follow, China is already following, take a look at what's happening in the renewable industry and in the electric car sector.
James:
Your reading hype and old data. For the real deal on the speal for the rest of the story visit:
www.icecap.us
The temps have been dropping along with sea levels. Sea ice has returned to 1979 levels. The IPCC bases it's predictions mostly on sexed-up climate models that don't mirror real conditions.
The climate gravy train is the real motivation behind this global warming hysteria along with eco-green fanaticism.
Obama is just another socialist Marxist with new packaging.
Energy cost or pollution cost?
Is this an argument of energy cost? or is it the cost of pollution and the fact that we have to start paying for it?, the fact is we have always focused on the cost of the energy we consume and have never for a moment calculated the cost of the pollution it causes, what ever happens we as a species have arrived at a time when we have to quantify the cost of pollution from energy consumption and include it in our economy and our lives, it probably will be the quickest way to drive energy consumption in a sensible direction (what ever that is)
Pollution? Emission a better word.
Referring to CO2 as "pollution" troubles me.
It strikes me as Orwellian think-speak.
An "emission" (by "emitters", rather than "polluters") seems a better word.
Otherwise, all non-plant life, specifically including we humans, are also CO2 "polluters".
Thus, long term, the word "pollution" could shift to come to mean something more like a necessary consequence of life, rather than as something noxious to be minimized / prevented / eliminated.
Re: Pollution? Emission a better word.
You point out an important distinction. CO2 derived from non-fossil carbon, namely the stuff we and all animals exhale, is merely the carbon in the biosphere being recycled on relatively short timescales. It's not a pollutant because it does not create a net change in the concentration of CO2 in the air. In contrast CO2 derived from *fossil* carbon, as when burning coal and petroleum, is pollution because it drives up the concentration in the atmosphere. Yes, the two are chemically identical (ignoring the small difference caused by carbon isotopes 12 and 14), but it's the concentration that makes the pollutant. We can easily distinguish sources of fossil carbon, and we need to start reducing them.
Most newspaper and magazine discussions about the separation, capture, compression, transport and storage of CO2, or carbon management, avoid numbers. But at the risk of offering a non-FDA approved sleeping potion, numbers are needed to define the issue and begin a dialogue on what are the possible, practicable and probable carbon management actions.
The Background Numbers
To simplify, only 6 states are considered: two western states and two each from the midwest and the Eastern United States. Table 1 shows the CO2 emissions for 2003 using US DOE Energy Information Agency (EIA) data reported in April 2007. Emissions for the US are also shown. The 6-states represent about one-quarter of total US CO2 emissions
Table 1: CO2 Emissions by Sector for 2003
(sorry about alignments, but the comment doesn't do tables very well)
Millions of Tons per Year of CO2
6-State Totals CA&AZ OH&IL PA&WV USA
Commercial 61 19 26 16 263
Electric Power 555 97 236 221 2,492
Residential 117 33 53 31 421
Industrial 232 84 81 67 1,120
Transportation 530 293 149 88 2,087
Total 1,495 526 545 424 6,383
Clearly, electric power and transportation are the primary sources of CO2. Let’s examine power generation to ponder the possible, practicable and probable actions for carbon management. US EPA and DOE power generation data is presented in Table 2 for the 15 top CO2 emitting power plants in each state, for a total of 90 power plants. California and Arizona have a mix of coal and gas plants: In the other four states the top 15 emitters are all coal plants.
Table 2: Top 15 Power Plant CO2 Sources per State
Plant Capacity & Emissions 6-State Totals USA
Coal Capacity, MWe 79,742 336,000
Natural Gas Capacity. MWe 25,235 443,000
TOTAL CAPACITY. MWe 104,977 779,000
Coal CO2 Emission 455 2,094
Natural Gas CO2 Emission 49 326
TOTAL CO2 EMISSION 504 2,420
Capacities are in MWe (megawatt electric), and emissions of CO2 are millions of tons per year in 2004. The 90 power plants represent less than 4% of the US total emissions but about 20% of the US electric power emissions.
Carbon Management Actions
Today’s technologies and those likely to be commercial in the next 5 - 10 years present two options for carbon management. The coal and natural power plants can be retrofit with post-combustion CO2 capture, or be replaced with new power plants. The new plants could be fossil power with carbon management, nuclear, or a mix with renewable energy.
Carbon management is most likely to be determined by economics. Using the 6-state plants as carbon management targets we can roughly estimate the capital costs. Assume that it costs $1000 per kilowatt electric (kWe) of plant capacity for coal-fired plants to retrofit a post-combustion CO2 capture process, treat the gas, transport and geologically store it. Similarly, allow $800 per kWe for the natural gas plants. Retrofitting power plants will derate their capacity, meaning that lost power generation will need to be regained with new capacity. This correction for derated capacity and replacing the existing plants with new plants costs $3,500 per kWe.
The total capital cost of retrofitting and regaining capacity for the 6-state plants is about $180 billion. Replacement of the same plants with new plants is roughly twice that or $370 billion. The costs include storing the CO2, or in the case of nuclear and renewables, not creating CO2. The values used here can be debated, but they are “in the ball park”. A more detailed discussion would need to consider expenditure timing and operations.
The 6-state gross domestic product GDP was about $3.6 trillion in 2006; similarly the US GDP was $13.1 trillion.
In 2006, the revenue of US investor-owned major electric utilities was $248 billion; their net income was about $30 billion.
If the 6-state CO2 emissions of about 500 million TPY are taxed at $20 per ton, total taxes will be $10 billion per year, presumably decreasing as new, low emitting plants come online. Coal taxes, broader energy (Btu) taxes, electricity taxes and so on could be envisioned, but as the general public will end up paying, it makes little difference except politically about how revenue is generated.
So what’s possible: the 6-states’ plants could be replaced at $3,500 per kWe over time. Budgeting $10 billion per year (less than 3% of the states’ GDP) will get the job done in about 40 years. In terms of the fossil (with carbon management) or nuclear replacement option, that means building 2 or 3 plants per year for 40 years.
What’s practical: it is unlikely that we have the labor and material resources to replicate the 2 or 3 plant construction schedule nationally. It would be more practical for the 6 states to build 1 fossil or nuclear plant each year, meaning less CO2 is eliminated but there is still a major impact. Conservation, renewables and other power generation carbon actions are encouraged, but realistically their impacts are smaller.
And what’s probable; the power industry will have to do its part to reduce CO2 once the people and their government decide to do that. In turn, we the public will pay for the changes. It will take 50 years or more, but market forces will decide the technologies and replace existing CO2 sources with carbon management options complemented with cost-driven efficiency improvements and conservation at the electrical demand points.
CO2 is down 93% from when animals started roaming the Earth. On a trendline it has been a fairly steady decline. From 7000ppm to 385ppm, Earth is approaching the end of the 3rd atmosphere. Will mankind help it along with sequestration? Agriculture has benefited about 30% because of the 35% increase of CO2 over the past 250 years. Are you willilng to give up those gains when evidence shows no direct correlation between temps and CO2? Are you willing to sacrifice the hundreds of millions of people to starvation if we were to reverse the 30% agricultural gains? CO2 is a finite resource critical to living plants, and the animals who rely upon them. Once CO2 gets down to about 150ppm, most plants starve to death. Had humans not come onto the scene, Earth may have had about 10 million years before enough additional carbon was sequested. But our actions in buring carbon fuels, may have ADDED 10 million years to Earth's flora.
First come economic collapse from high energy costs caused by ecopoliticians blocking access to petro reserves. Then comes societal chaos and riots from high unemployment, high food costs, and retribution. Then comes the rise of anti-technology groups such as radical Islam and back to nature survivalists (Bubba Effect). Then comes WAR between those parts of society who have resources and those who don't. Finally, in an Orwelling example, militaristic totalitarian regimes control all communications, and remove from society all nonconforming members. Obama's Cap and Trade is just an example of an Undeniable Truth, that one group will always try to force its will upon the rest.
CO2 is not causeing Global Warming
CO2 is not causing Global Warming; everyone needs to take the time to check the data themselves and stop listening to the propaganda coming from our government and their lackeys in the media. The whole thing is a complete scam to impose massive new energy taxes and to control the way we live. It is part of Obama's plan for redistribution of wealth worldwide; from those who produce to those who don't. Cap and Trade will cause more job losses for America as our cost of energy goes up while the rest of the world builds more coal fired power plants so their cost goes down. And for no Global benefit....Wakeup folks!
Re: CO2 is not causeing Global Warming
Global warming is fundamentally as simple as putting a lid on a pot of ice water on the stove: the temperature may not rise everywhere until all the ice is gone, but in the end it's going to boil faster.
Re: CO2 is not causeing Global Warming
dmillerfla: That's your argument, "because I say so?" Man, read the science. You are way behind the times. Start with the Union of Concerned Scientists and avoid the ATS forum. And spelling correctly might give you more credibility.
I find it disappointing that increases in energy costs are so lightly bandied about by proponents of these schemes. Using the numbers in the articles, it's important to consider that the cost of food, production and transportation is dramatically affected by these taxes. The only ways for companies to absorb these new costs of manufacture and transport is to 1) pass these costs along to the customer in higher prices, 2) cut costs of production (ie, layoff labor typically) or 3) accept lower profit expectations and earnings per share.
Of those three options, which do you think most companies will choose. You can bet it won't be #3. The reality is that when you tax energy, you slow the economy and in doing so accept higher unemployment and less economic growth. The result is stagnation and inevitably lower tax revenues as consumers earn less and have less to spend.
Increased energy costs are translated into higher costs for electricity and fuel, which in turn means higher prices for manufacture and transportation. In short, those increases of 7-8% or as much as 19% referenced in the article will translate almost 100% into an increased cost of living for everyone, rich or poor. Who do you think is hit hardest by that? When was the last time you received a pay bump to match that kind of cost of living increase?
1) The legislation to create a cap and trade system on greenhouse gas emissions for production of energy does not yet exist. The Obama administration is proposing goals and timelines for reduction of greenhouse gases, primarily carbon dioxide. Will it be a simple matter to get the legislation passed by the Congress? If legislation is enacted, will it meet the proposed goals and timelines?
2) Currently, more than half the electricity generated in the US involves burning fossil fuels, mostly from coal, some by natural gas or other petroleum products. There is a large investment not only in the utility plants themselves, but in the associated production and transportation of these fossil fuels. In the case of coal, mining companies and significant portions of transportation by rail and barge.
3) Electricity generation from fossil fuels is not evenly distributed among the states, nor are associated economic activities including coal mining and transportation.
4) The impact of a cap-and-trade system to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, and/or retrofitting or elimination of coal-fired generation plants, will have the greatest impact on utility rates in states that depend most heavily on electricity from fossil-fuels, as well as on economic activities in those states that produce fossil fuels for power generation.
5) Public and political concerns about economic impacts of major new federal legislative initiatives will be exacerbated during the present economic downturn.
I raise these points as relevant to an evaluation of the chances that the proposed cap-and-trade legislation can be enacted in the near future.
Even in the House of the US Congress, although there is a large Democratic majority, it's unlikely that all Democrats will vote for cap-and-trade legislation with the goals and timelines as described above. Many Democrat members of the House come from states that would have significant adverse economic impacts.
Although it is possible that such legislation might pass the House, it seems to me almost a foregone conclusion that it could not be passed as described in the Senate. A relatively small defection of Democrat Senators (and I suspect that the number of defectors would be significant) would block passage, unless the legislation were "watered down" so as to be almost meaningless in impacts on fossil fuel use, carbon dioxide emission reduction and economic impacts.
Indeed, I've seen several comparisons of the generation of greenhouse gases in the US by comparison to the EU. Although the EU is a signatory to the Kyoto Treaty and has in place a cap-and-trade system, the comparisons appear to show no significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in the EU, compared to the US. If anything, some comparisons come out in favor of the US.
I will predict that legislation containing noble statements about greenhouse gas emissions will be enacted by the Congress and signed by the President. I'm doubtful that it will be more substantive in effect than similar legislation in the EU, and will probably have less regulatory impact.
I was always intrigued by the statement of legislative intent in the US Clean Water Act, that all waters of the US were to become swimmable and fishable. A noble sentiment. But as a reality, it should not be achieved, as it would have very adverse effects in some ecological systems that are rich and productive of fish and wildlife.
Cap-and-trade (CT) will inevitably put money into the hands of Wall St. middle men. Where will that money come from? You guessed it: consumers.
By contrast, a carbon tax is simplicity itself: you create carbon, you pay the tax. Savvy businesses and consumers will reduce their carbon footprint, thus putting money into their pockets. "Carbon wastrels" will be automatically punished, and will have less money available to continue their planet-damaging lifestyles.
I think also that this (new) carbon tax should be offset by (old) tax reductions elsewhere, so that the whole package is revenue-neutral. That way, no one can complain that the government is just out to get more tax dollars. For example, double the personal exemption amount, then levy a carbon tax to compensate.
Cap and trade is a bad idea. It lacks transparency and the after market trading will inevitably bid up the price of credits. Traders will profit (not that they shouldn't because they are taking risk), but the higher cost of credits will ultimately be born by consumers through higher energy costs. Obama preaches about transparency, but he is afraid to go with a simple carbon tax because it is obviously just that, a tax. If we as citizens want to tax what is damaging to the environment in order to incentivize "clean" behavior, that is fine, but why single out carbon? There are many pollutants causing much more direct and immediate harm to mankind than CO2--particulates, NOX, SOX, mercury, arsenic and a long list of other nasties that are emitted every day by power plants and factories. A pollution tax makes sense. Get a blue-ribbon panel of health, science and engineering experts to hash out a pollution equivalency and tax it all. It can all be taxed as tons of CO2 equivalent if that is what we want to call it. The name is marketing, not substance. This notion that CO2 is what we should be most concerned about is absurd. But whatever we do, make it a simple tax, not a cap and trade scheme.
The Chinese and Indians must love watching the gyration which Europe and North America are going through as a result of this CO2 global warming hysteria. China and India, along with nearly every other developing country, have signed the Kyoto agreement only because it places ZERO restriction on the CO2 output allowed by developing countries.
Let's inject a wee bit of reality here. China already burns 2.7 times more coal than the U.S. or Europe. (Source of that is U.S. EIA) In the next 20 years, both China and India will burn more than twice as much coal as they now do. That's not just idle speculation. Combined China and India have 550 new coal powered electric plants scheduled to become operational in the next 5 years. That is an average of 2 a week. As the U.S. and Europe raise the cost of doing business at home, companies will simply move to countries which do not have CO2 taxes. In the long run, the impact on CO2 emissions will be negligible, but the impact on jobs will be significant. Mexico must be drooling over the prospect of a Crap and Trade bill in the U.S.. Cap and Trade in Europe thus far has only resulted in higher energy costs, it has not reduced CO2 emissions at all.
Without any cap and trade the U.S.-E.I.A. (The Env. Info. Agency is part of the D.O.E.) is predicting less than a 20% growth in the use of fossil fuels for Europe and North America combined during the next 20 years. Most of that is the result of population growth. More people = more cars, more homes and hopefully more industry. Consider the use of coal as an example. By 2030, EIA has forecast that the use of coal for Europe and North America combined, now at about 2.35 billion tons/yr, will increase by 450 million tons to about 2.8 billion tons. That is not insignificant, but it pales in comparison to developing Asia. During the same period of time, China and India alone will increase their use of coal by ***3.7 billion tons/yr**** from 3.3 Billion tons in 2008 to over 7 billion tons by 2030.
Now, a couple of facts which may surprise some readers. In Europe the Greens and other environmental groups have virtually killed nuclear energy. At this moment in time, there are only 2 new nuclear reactors being planned for developed Europe, one in Denmark and one in France. However, between now and 2020, Germany (as the result of a Green Party law) must decommission all 17 of its current nuclear reactors. The U.K. is also decommisioning several nuclear reactors by 2020. How is Europe going to replace that energy? Nat gas from Russia?? if you have European friends ask them how they now feel about the prospect of becoming dependant on Russia for energy. Windmills? Look at the wind maps. The only places in Europe with dependable wind are on the northern coast. That wind is now being exploited but in the long run the energy that can be obtained from wind in Europe is really quite small. Solar?? Maybe.. Spain and Southern Italy can exploit solar for a significant amount of energy, but most of Europe and almost all of the areas with heavy industry, are not at all sunny! Germany is trying like crazy to make solar work, but that is mostly because Germany has no other choice since Nuclear is now off the table, and since Germany has only the dirtiest brown coal left within its borders and Germans do not trust Russia for Nat. Gas.
Now here's a fact which surprises most people.. guess which country has the most nuclear reactors currently generating electricity. hmmm.... France - Right? No grasshopper, it is the good ole USA with 102 active nuclear power plants. France is but a distant second with 59, followed by Japan, Russia, South Korea and Germany.
The U.S. is now building two more of these enormously expensive power stations in Florida. The cost will be a staggering $17 billion, and the first will not become operational until 2016. It now takes 10 years from start to finish to build a nuclear power plant. Given that the U.S. has at least two hundred years worth of Nat Gas and Coal, this Florida boondogle is perhaps the dumbest energy move ever!
What will it take for the U.S. to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels? Just shrink the economy... that's all it will take. This is crazy. CO2 is not even an environmental problem.. at least that is what 31,000 U.S. scientists (9,000 PHDs) now believe to be what the real science is telling us. Check this out......... if you dare look the truth in the eye!
http://www.oism.org/pproject/
Those of you who can actually do math and understand real science need to start speaking out. We are about to wreck our economy for nothing!
In once again another lie, Cap and Trade is a large tax on the average US consumer. If you think energy bills were high this winter, wait until next when we all see about a 15% increase to cover the cost of this garbage program that stifles the an already recessed economy.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123629969453946717.html
"As for energy policy, the president's cap-and-trade plan for CO2 would ensnare a vast network of covered sources, opening up countless opportunities for political manipulation, bureaucracy, or worse. It would likely exacerbate volatility in energy prices, as permit prices soar in booms and collapse in busts. The European emissions trading system has been a dismal failure. A direct, transparent carbon tax would be far better."
And even the carbon tax would be a simply criminal act.
This is a good discussion, obviously politicians will try again to pass the cap & Trade bill.
Personally, I don't like taxing Americans when other large countries like China and India will polluting the same atmosphere at ridiculous rates. This will further help push manufacturing out of the US, to more pollution friendly countries, and place unfair buried on being an American company.
Also I guarantee countries like India and China will NOT follow our Lead, they will laugh at us!
Brian Glassman
Technology
Commercialization
Innovation Management
Everyone seems to have missed the point that Obama has based his budget on receiving billions from a program that doesn't exist and legislation that hasn't been written. Anyone remember "don't count your chickens..."? Seems as though the government doesn't. But what do they care, it isn't THEIR money in the first place! When was the last time something useful actually came out of DC? Don't expect it this time, either.
For decades the energy companies have externalized costs on to the taxpayer and internalized the profits. I see no problem with reversing this trend in favor of the taxpayer. It's called the free market, the only difference is the polluters will finally have to pay for damaging the publics air, water, and land. The problem in the past is that there has been no or little price put on the publics property, that is if your a multinational corporation with plenty of money to buy influence.
jmaximus9:
So you really believe that the cost of such a system will be borne by the energy companies? I am confident that this cost will be passed directly to the consumer in the form of higher costs for energy, which in turn means higher costs for anything which requires energy to be produced or transported, which means EVERYTHING.
If you think that energy producers will simply cut their profits to accommodate a carbon tax or cost of purchasing credits, then you're assuming that their shareholders will accept this. Since I'm certain that their shareholders won't, the company will pass the cost on to the customer or be forced out of business. The latter will further increase the cost of energy as the supply is decreased.
So either way, you're looking at a considerable adjustment upwards in the cost of living. That translates directly into a decrease in the quality of life for all consumers, most especially low income earners.
Cap and Trade is a bad solution for a problem which does not even exist!!!!
The current global CO2 hysteria is the silliest and saddest thing I have ever witnessed. Ths is Global hysteria over nothing. CO2 is "GOOD" not bad - plants love Co2. I am an Engineer, but the math necessary to see through this could be done by a 10th grader. I am not alone in my thoughts on this. 31,000 U.S. Scientists (9,000 PHDs) have signed the petition at this link. Basically it says "stop the nonsense.. "
http://www.oism.org/pproject/
There are similar activities now in other parts of the world like Japan and Australia.
Here's what we know...
1.The amount of CO2 "now" in the atmosphere is 385 ppm. To picture this, imagine our atmosphere being represented by a room filled with 10,000 tennis balls. Currently less than 4 of those 10,000 tennis balls would represent the Co2 now in the atmosphere. At least 3 of the tennis balls representing the CO2 in our room of 10,000 were put there by mother nature. Man has added, at most, the equivalent of 1 out of 10,000 tennis balls worth of CO2 in the past 150 years. If we keep going at this rate, we may add another 1 in the next 100 years. The plants of the earth are cheering us on because they absolutely love CO2. During the Triassic and Jurassic periods, perhaps the most lush period of time ever on planet earth, CO2 levels were 3 to 4 times greater than they are now.
2. Global warming (caused by solar activity) causes atmospheric CO2 to increase, not the other way around. This can be proven with the simplest of experiments. 93% of the CO2 on earth is locked up in water. In the oceans, CO2 exists as both compressed CO2(at the surface) and carbonic acid in the deeper ocean. Submarine vulcanization has been spewing CO2 in the ocean since the oceans begining billions of years ago. Warm water holds less of both types of CO2. As the water warms, CO2 is released baci into the atmosphere. Just fill a glass with cold tap water and measure the PH. Let it warm and measure the PH again. The PH will have gone up (less acidic) because CO2 has left the water which will have slightly reduced the amount of carbonic acid. FYI, carbonic acid is what makes soda pop fizz!
3. The earth has gotten colder every year since 1998, not warmer. The warming period which Al Gore likes to site for the past 150 years is simply a totally normal cycle which came about as we exited a colder period, following the little ice age, which followed the Midevel warming period. On a temperature chart of thee past 3,000 years, the earth is exactly at the normal point right now.
4. Plants love CO2. The more CO2 the more plants. More plants remove more CO2. The earth is a natural carbon sequestation system. The amount of CO2 exchanged between the atmosphere, the ocean and the land, absolutely dwarf the wee bit being added annually by mankind.
5. And as for the ocean rising.. it is.. and it has been rising at an average rate of about 2 ft per century for the past 18,000 years. Just 12,000 years ago, men and animals walked from mainland Europe to the British Isles. Scientists who measure these things, claim the ocean level has increased 120 Meter in the last 18,000 years. Our problem really is that we put most of our cities in the wrong places.
6. The correlation between solar activity and rising earth surface temperatures is almost perfect.
Some of the people who visit sites like this and who believe themselves to be objective and analytical need to do some real independant research. I've read every bit of the argument put forth by Al Gore's team and I have watche his video. However, I am yet to discuss this with anyone who believes this Al Gore junk science who has actually paid any attention to the arguments which hundreds of scientists make which prove that most of Al Gores junk science is but childish fantasy. FYI, I have absolutely nothing at all to do with any part of the energy industry. I am a Civil Engineer who builds roads. But, facts are facts. Those who do just a wee bit of research will discover that scientists througout the world are now starting to speak out against the rampant environmental Nazism that is going on.
The entire CO2 hypothesis is but a myth which has been created by a junk science video. Just look at the recent ruling of the British High court about the nine gross misrepresentations in Al Gores video project!
Years ago the budget for atmospheric sciences was 180 million dollars per year. Today it's 2 billion dollars per year. Now I understand why the IPCC and the so called scientists build their models on the assumption that global warming is occurring. Just because Al Gore said so doesn't make it true. Unfortunately for these scientists, the models don't explain the data.
Too many are more concerned about capturing a piece of Obama's pie with proposals for reducing CO2 in our atmosphere rather than finding the real cause of climate change and determining whether or not it poses any real threat to our environment.
I’ve heard too much from Hollywood, the media, and Al Gore that changes in the CO2 concentration in our atmosphere is the cause of Global Warming.
Unfortunately, our government leaders are not scientists and are, more often than not, willing to distract us from the real issues at hand by suggesting there is greater doom elsewhere. This, in turn, further feeds the media to no good end.
CO2 levels never made any sense as the engine driving climate change. CO2 makes up about .038% of our Earth’s atmosphere and man’s contribution is something on the order of 3%. So, man’s contribution to the increase in the concentration of CO2 is 0.001%.
How can anyone believe that by eliminating 0.001% of a problem that it could have any measurable effect on the problem.
CO2 is not toxic, it is not an effective GHG, and it is necessary to support plant life on this planet. Higher concentrations of CO2 in our atmosphere is probably beneficial.
The amount of CO2 dissolved in the Earth's oceans depends on the ocean's temperature. The thermal time constant for the oceans is hundreds of years which explains the time lag between changes in atmospheric temperature and changes in the concentration of CO2. Al Gore’s time scale is so large when he tries to show a correlation between CO2 levels and atmospheric temperature that the hundreds of years time lag is difficult, if not impossible, to see. And yes, CO2 concentration LAGS atmospheric temperature. This one fact alone removes all support for Al Gore's theory of Global Warming.
Water vapor is more likely the culprit. It comprises 95% of Earth's greenhouse gasses and is an effective GHG. The only problem with it is that the people are not dumb enough to believe that a government could do anything about it. Maybe the next generation will buy into this nonsense.
Global Warming allowed the Vikings to grow tomatoes in northern Canada and the English to create a wine industry much to the dismay of the French. And the Earth cooled off on its own quite nicely without any help from government.
Before anyone charges off on some grandiose engineering project to reduce or eliminate net CO2 emissions at great expense of taxpayer dollars, more time should be spent on understanding the real reasons for climate change to begin with, especially by those who still believe CO2 is the culprit.
Al Gore wins the Nobel Prize. Big deal. So did the guy who invented the lobotomy.
The Man-made Global Warming Hoax (Part 1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpWa7VW-OME&feature=related
The Man-made Global Warming Hoax (Part 2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpX-Kae00s8&feature=related
The Man-made Global Warming Hoax (Part 3)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BJrdSRDVlQ&feature=related
The Man-made Global Warming Hoax (Part 4)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf6C0cMq3RU&feature=related
The Man-made Global Warming Hoax (Part 5)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkSmdaLkd60&feature=related
The Man-made Global Warming Hoax (Part 6)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlSSwErKWQs&feature=related
The Man-made Global Warming Hoax (Part 7)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efxToyX5cPw&feature=related
The Man-made Global Warming Hoax (Part 8)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGZ1bHo6jR0&feature=related
I realize that this will not be popular with some.
1. No one has asked the question "is global warming necessarily bad? Look at it this way, first the death rate in winter is 10 times the death rate in summers.
2. Man is more able to tolerate and adapt to 120 degrees than cold.
3. Benefits of global warming will open the perma frost to agriculture. (northern Canada and Siberia) but this will be the best from land in the world which could feed millions.
4.Can we really change Nature? is it not best to adapt, which is what the living creatures have been doing since the beginning of life?
5. Yes the costal areas will flood, and Florida will be a series of islands, etc, adapt, move inland.
6. Computer models are horribly inaccurate. For example, in 1987, computer models showed that within ten years, every hospital bed in the country would be occupied by an AIDS patient.
7. Maybe the western states will become an oasis, whose to say?
8. It's false to say that the short term drought that occurred in the last ten years in the west, is due to increased co2. Correlation does not imply causality. (medicine makes that mistake all the time.)
9. Computer models show that that we are due for an ice age. Hence, global warming will prevent half of Europe and Canada from being buried in ice.
10. We can't stop hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes… we can only adapt.
Yes, we are getting better in predicting, but to predict a tornado is much simpler than the unlimited variation influences computer models attempt to solve.
11. Governments invariably make poor decisions. Look at the ethanol mandate,… and if you are old enough, you will remember the Soviet five year programs, and China's great leapt forward.
The basic problem is that there are so many variables that computer models can be skewed by agenda driven beliefs. In Physics and Chemistry, controlling an experiment, is relatively simple compared to medicine with the very broad range of human variation. Most of the scientific articles in medicine, have serious flaws.
And even worse and more difficult to control is "social science:", which is like global warming almost impossible to control with our current knowledge. ( One can only control social experiments if one can controls the social and individual psychic of the individuals involved, thus, the results are meaningless and agenda driven, and darn right dangerous.)
Be careful what you wish for.
Lastly, This does not mean that I am against energy conservation… if the cost vs benefit calculations are feasible. Carbon caps would be prohibitive expensive, and counter productive at this point in time.
Ron Hansing
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Guest (neeil)
Hopelessly biased article
Of course it costs money to reduce pollution and carbon emissions. There's no free lunch.
But the article makes it sound as though this is a surprise. There's a price!! Man, there's always a price.
Virtually all economists agree that a cap-and-trade scheme costs us all less than simple caps to achieve the same results. The real cost of Obama's cap-and-trade plan is less than the cost of the alternatives. That's what the article should be saying.
Reply
colinnwn
88 Comments
Re: really biased?
I'm for cap and trade and I didn't think it was biased, it simply said prices will rise, as they should. Right now we are getting a free lunch because we can emit as much CO2 as we want and don't have to pay financially immediately for the negative consequences.
One leading Economist recently panned cap and trade, saying we instead should implement a carbon tax. Emit as much CO2 as you want, just pay the gov for the privilege who will later be responsible for managing all the negative implications. You can then year over year adjust the tax to get to the desired level of total CO2 emissions. I tend to think this would be a more efficient method also.
Reply
jamesnach
4 Comments
Re: really biased?
there are pros and cons for both solutions: you can take a look here (http://whatmatters.mckinseydigital.com/the_debate_zone/carbon-tax-vs-cap-and-trade) for a useful comparison
Reply
Siphon
152 Comments
Re: really biased?
I agree that carbon taxes are better suited for the job. The only real advantage for carbon trading is that it reduces the marginal abatement cost (by optimizing it) slightly better but it's a small benefit overall. The downside over a simple tax is huge: speculation. Creating a volatile carbon market on top of volatile fossil energy markets is seriously damaging for strategic investments in alternative energy, as well as efficiency and even conservation. Unfortunately, the political force is behind trading, rather than the more transparent and therefore less risky tax system. I think what's politically attractive about the trading system is that the cap is an ostensibly concrete target, so politicians can sell this as solid policy.
A tax is the simplest and most efficient approach in practice. CO2 has a societal cost. Tax the CO2 according to societal cost. = Pigouvian tax rate. Internalize externalities. It's all about giving the right price signal to markets, and then making sure that other market failures are also reduced (eg clearly defined property rights, improved information and transparency in markets etc). This isn't as easy as it sounds though, because estimates of the social costs of carbon (per ton carbon or CO2) vary greatly. IMHO, just pick a conservative lower end value to start with, and as scientific certainty increases, and more CO2 is emitted, the tax will naturally go up.
Sadly, it appears that the average joe doesn't read elementary environmental economics textbooks. But a carbon trading system is still better than doing nothing, so at least there's some progress.
Reply