Charles Komanoff 
The Basics
- Name: Charles Komanoff
- Age: 61
Stuff I Like
Mountains, canyons, music, bicycling, books, humans, history, fiction, numbers
More About Me
Charles is an activist, energy-economist and policy-analyst. He "re-founded" NYC's bike-advocacy group Transportation Alternatives in the 1980s, helped found the Tri-State Transportation Campaign and Right Of Way in the 1990s, and co-founded the Carbon Tax Center in 2007. Charles's writings include books, journal articles, op-ed essays and landmark reports such as Subsidies for Traffic, Killed By Automobile, and the Kheel Plan on financing free transit in New York City. In the 1970s and 80s Charles gained prominence for deconstructing the spiraling costs of nuclear power as author-researcher and expert-witness for state and local governments and environmental groups such as NRDC and EDF. A math-and-economics graduate of Harvard, Charles lives with his wife and two sons in lower Manhattan. For more, click here.
Charles Komanoff’s Posts
To Unlock Wind Power, Put a Price on Carbon
Memo to North Dakota 0
Posted 5 hours, 33 minutes agoA stone marker in Rugby, North Dakota identifies the town as the "Geographic Center of the North American Continent." No marker identifies the state as one of America's top two or three in wind-power potential. Yet North Dakota's vast expanses and steady winds endow it with the capacity to generate more than half as much… Read More
Wanted: Cloudsplitter
Waxman-Markey: ‘80% less by 2050’ is too hard, let’s do 46% 3
Posted 5 months, 2 weeks agoThe "American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009" seems intent on postponing Americans' day of reckoning with climate-damaging fossil fuels.
Stand By Me
BC voters back carbon tax 1
Posted 5 months, 4 weeks agoCarbon emissions met its first big electoral test this week, as British Columbia voters rewarded BC premier Gordon Campbell, who last July instituted North America's first major carbon tax, with a third four-year term.
Give Fees A Chance
Pollution taxes work 1
Posted 6 months, 1 week agoPollution taxes have seldom been tried. But in the few cases where they've been tried, they've worked rather well.
Unchain Chu
Energy boss Steven Chu misses his bike 12
Posted 6 months, 2 weeks agoEnergy Secretary Steven Chu, an avid bicyclist, is now being driven to work by a security detail -- and it doesn't make him happy.
Charles Komanoff’s Recent Comments
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Terrific to see the comments thus far backing the protest actions and calling for defeat of the Waxman-Markey bill. Mahonia's comment pretty much says it all. I'll just add that it's not really a question of "compromise" vs. "no compromise." Waxman-Markey deserves to go down, not because it's imperfect but because it will accomplish little in terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions while using up precious time and political mindshare that could still go into more effective and equitable approaches such as a revenue-neutral carbon tax. I also agree that the article was shallow, yet I appreciate it and Grist for giving visibility to the actions.On ‘No compromise’ faction attacks climate bill posted 1 month ago 104 ResponsesClick here to view comment in original post
My take is different from Dave's and most commenters': I'm struck by how low the ELI subsidies figure is. Their 7-year figure of $70.2 billion for conventional fossil fuels equates to just 12 cents per million Btu! (I divided $70.2B by the 594 Quads of FF's consumed in the U.S. 2002-08.) By comparison, FF prices in that period averaged around $8 per million Btu for crude oil, $6 for natural gas (at wellheads) and $1.50 for coal delivered to power plants. Mash that together to $5 or more per million Btu and you see that the subsidies figure is a paltry 2-3% of FF prices. Dave's point that the ELI figure is too conservative is well taken, but even doubling it gets you to just 5% (that is, FF subsidies equate to just 5% of fossil prices). Fossil fuel subsidies are loathsome, stupid and wrong. But it's fantasy to think that eliminating them would make renewables and efficiency considerably more competitive.On Fossil fuel subsidies dwarf clean energy subsidies; Obama wants to eliminate them posted 1 month, 2 weeks ago 13 ResponsesClick here to view comment in original post
Dear Kate and other Gristers --
The good Senator has only dug his hole deeper.
He wants carbon cap-and-trade only for utilities. What about the 60% of U.S. CO2 emissions that aren't from electricity generation?
He disavows auctioning permits because "an auction can be used by opponents to caricature any and all cap-and-trade programs as 'cap-and-tax.'" That's exactly backwards. It's the cap that creates the scracity that hikes the prices and allows the 'tax' caricature. And it's the auction piece that could have created the revenue stream to cushion the price hikes, but which the Waxman-Markey bill largely eviscerated.
As for the senator's desire to "avoid anything that gives climate legislation opponents a chance to label it as 'cap and tax.'" On that score, he's a little late -- several months and thousands of opponents' blog posts late.
Indeed, wasn't it Sen. Wirth himself who, just three days ago, called Waxman-Markey "a cap-and-tax bill”?
On Former Sen. Tim Wirth stirs up controversy over cap-and-trade, tries to tamp it down posted 2 months, 2 weeks ago 3 ResponsesClick here to view comment in original post
Gee David. Sorry you're so dispirited. The American political system is indeed structurally biased toward right-wing paralysis -- a condition that Dan Lazare diagnosed a dozen years ago, and it's a bummer.
But when you write,
... explaining ... cap-and-trade, or offsets requires a patient campaign. And even then, it’s hard to work up passion for that kind of technocratic detail",
I have to say, "We told you so." We carbon-taxers have been saying for years that the sheer incomprehensibility of cap-and-trade alone would make it an extremely hard sell to the citizenry and Congress. If I recall correctly, the main response by the enviro establishment and Grist (you, Joe Romm, others) was either (i) ridicule or (ii) ignore.
When the so-called climate bill finally fails, perhaps we can have a serious conversation about trying to start over, around a revenue-neutral carbon tax.
On Netroots Nation frustration and the impediments to progressive change posted 2 months, 2 weeks ago 13 ResponsesClick here to view comment in original post
Right on, Raamster, re your tandem suggestion and your dissent from Protection-mania Americana. You have to wonder, if the U.K. opposition leader can cycle-commute (and have his bike swiped!), why can't a U.S. cabinet minister do the same? (Thanks to my cousin, BW, for the Tory leader tip.)
As for adjusting the Danish mortality figure for cycle fatalities, it's too little to bother, at least for this discourse. Plus, I like to keep a bit of numerical margin in my hip pocket, so to speak. but thanks for the suggestion.
On Energy boss Steven Chu misses his bike posted 6 months ago 12 Responses