Comments PJD has made

  • broken links

    I was interested in reading the Time article, but the link doesn't seem to lead to the content.  Perhaps that could be fixed.On Obama muses on the connection between energy/climate and our other problems posted 1 year, 1 month ago 7 Responses

  • Corporate Tax

    One of the main problems with Jon Rynn's suggestion to raise corporate taxes to reach a target portion of federal revenue is that with globalization it is far too easy for companies to shift revenue around to countries with lower tax rates.  This is especially true for industries where the value of intellectual property is hard to determine.

    A company like Microsoft can sell intellectual property to it's Irish subsidiary which does some ill-defined adding of value and then books a lot of revenue with tax going to the Irish government which is willing to take a smaller cut.

    I support the progressive individual income tax.  If high paid individuals want to actually live in countries with far lower individual income tax rates, so be it.  But having a corporate tax rate higher than other countries simply leads to offshoring of business and jobs.

    Highly profitable companies are good for everyone, especially considering that so much equity is owned by everyday middle class people through pensions and retirement accounts.

    Maybe progressives should consider lowering corporate tax rates to be competitive with countries like Ireland and then raise dividend and capital gains tax rates.On Busted: Majority of emissions cuts can come from public spending posted 1 year, 4 months ago 6 Responses

  • Annual kWh?

    Could you explain what an annual kWh is.  They were not yet teaching this concept when I got my electrical engineering degree.  It seems an odd unit of measure since it involves squaring time.On We can do more than he calls for, but I would settle for Gore's objective posted 1 year, 4 months ago 8 Responses

  • Left me Guessing

    Biodiversivist,

    Wish you had repeated for a fourth time.  Now you've left me guessing.

    Perhaps electrified public transportation?  Maybe... yes?On I read a letter to the editor, the other day, I opened, and read it, it said they was suckas posted 1 year, 6 months ago 22 Responses

  • Granted

    Granted it's a spokesperson for an industry, but...

    As pointed out, even without nuclear power reactors the world is still dependent on nuclear technology, such as widespread use in medicine, food safety, research, etc.

    What is the better solution to deal with this waste...

    1) Aggregate the waste from around the world to a few countries where facilities can be built as safe as possible and permanently staffed (or until such time as governments collapse and we forget where the site is).

    or

    2)Have waste collect all around the world in small quantities, either stored permanently in temporary storage or disappear through unmonitored means likely ending up in the environment.

    It often seems to me as if some anti-nuke folks accept (promote) the very unsafe storage of existing waste because they believe (hope) that by preventing dealing with it, future waste will not be generated.  In my opinion this ignores two factors.

    1. We already have lots of waste that really should be dealt with.

    2. Even without civilian power reactors (which will likely be built overseas even if not here), we have military nuclear waste and we have industrial nuclear waste.
    On Should we take Italian nuclear waste? posted 1 year, 6 months ago 6 Responses

  • Common Ground

    It seems like the debate boils down to one of "this is what is possible" versus "but it's not what's happening."  It's not too hard to see that both may be partially or wholly true.

    It seems like the common ground could be in recognizing that a food crisis is becoming a reality and that there are ample opportunities to support sustainable agriculture that would help alleviate this problem, particularly in Africa.  Investment and education could go a long way to increasing productivity of farmland without deforestation.

    Supporting family farmers in the developing world would seem to be both entrepreneurial and socially responsible enough to satisfy both ends of the debate spectrum.  Providing education, seeds and farm equipment to those needing it would seem an obvious first step.On I read a letter to the editor, the other day, I opened, and read it, it said they was suckas posted 1 year, 6 months ago 22 Responses

  • Solar and Geo Thermal

    While I'm a huge proponent of both solar thermal and geothermal... the uprating of capacity for our existing nuclear plants has undoubtedly added far more capacity over the past ten years than either of these renewables.

    Some very promising, large contracts have been signed for solar thermal, but I don't see how one can say production bottlenecks don't exist when they are only just now beginning to construct the production scale factories for the hardware here in the U.S.  No bottlenecks in the production because there isn't any production yet.  It's very promising, but I wouldn't expect solar thermal to grow at a faster pace than solar PV did.  You can't build factories and train workers simply by wishing for exponential growth.

    As for geothermal, there's a shortage of drilling equipment and trained operators and is a market which competes for both with the oil/gas exploration sector.

    Find me the most optimistic projections from the solar thermal and geothermal companies themselves for how quickly they will grow.  I hope they succeed at those ambitious goals.  I'm sure they would still not come close to adding up to the rate of capacity additions needed to seriously start decarbonizing our supply in the near term.

    One can talk about some grand command driven "WWII" style effort.  But it's simply not the case that the government is going to storm in and seize the blue prints from a company like Ausra and then force GM to retool their factories to start churning them out.  Companies like Ausra are constrained by how fast they can hire, train and build.

    Global warming scares me far more than underground storage of nuclear waste.On McCain touts gas-tax holiday as well as 'long-term solutions' posted 1 year, 6 months ago 45 Responses

  • Other things to consider

    I'll first state that given the urgency of addressing climate change, and the uncertainty of exactly how urgent... I tend to err on the side of wanting to phase out fossil fuels as quickly as possible.  Given that nuclear engineers and companies can't just switch overnight to producing PV cells it would seem logical that they could contribute to speeding up the phase out by producing more of what they produce.  Solar and wind are being built about as fast as possible.  Not building nuclear plants can't solve the bottlenecks in those industries.

    As for the waste issue... it's not going away if we don't build new nuclear electric plants.  We have huge amounts of waste already and more being generated by the military... the nuclear Navy and weapons.  A storage solution needs to be settled at the political level and it needs ongoing funding.  A civilian nuclear program means more and better trained nuclear engineers and means more funding for the ongoing care of stored waste.  In all likelihood it would also mean the reprocessing of much of the waste at some point, as the cost of mining uranium increases.  Is having one central, well managed facility with more waste than we have now really less safe than having it stored the way it currently is?
    On McCain touts gas-tax holiday as well as 'long-term solutions' posted 1 year, 6 months ago 45 Responses

  • Addendum... Tax rebate money

    So when everyone gets their stimulus tax rebate money, instead of rushing out to buy the latest cell phone that you really don't need, sign up for a cooking class or commission a local artist to produce a work of stained glass... or go to photo.net/photos/pjduncan and see if you like my photography.

    Spending money on goods produced overseas is less stimulative than spending money where more of the added value is domestic, plus it helps the environment.On New report on massive growth of renewables last year posted 1 year, 8 months ago 5 Responses

  • Economic growth not inherently energy growth

    Capster,

    I'd say it's far from a rule of economics that there is some immutable constant that links the increase in economic output to the use of energy.  There are of course efficiency gains that could make a substantial difference, though eventually one hits some upper limit on the efficiencies of large segments of our industrial needs... presumably.  But the more fundamental delinkage between growth and energy is that economic growth can be centered around services rather than goods.

    Granted this would apply much more to countries like the U.S. than one's still addressing basic needs.  Here in the U.S. our economy has for decades been driven by two trends... growth in population and a huge increase in consumption beyond basic needs.  The latter has included some service consumption, but an awful lot of material consumption/collection.  Bigger houses, bigger cars, more cars, more furniture, more toys, more gadgets, more TVs, more stuff.

    One could envision an economy that still grew in dollar value but that centered more on services.  Instead of buying "stuff" to gratify ourselves and show our generosity to others we would spend money more for nights out at restaurants, live theater, taking extension classes at the local university or culinary school, downloaded music... anything where more of the value we are paying for is the contribution of another person rather than the raw materials and embodied energy of an object.  It's not even a black or white thing, but rather an issue of dramatically shifting the balance.  For instance giving someone a $300 oil painting produced by a local artist is still giving an object, but far less of the $300 is represented by embodied energy than if it had been a $300 DVD player or kitchen appliance.  So the question is after our basic needs are met, what are we going to seek from our fellow human beings to enhance our enjoyment of life.

    There probably is also an argument to be made that such a shift would help promote the progressive agenda of diminishing income imbalances... though that does fly in the face of the common wisdom that manufacturing jobs are higher wage than service jobs.  I believe the latter merely reflects the current emphasis by most people on quantity of objects as their measure of life satisfaction.On New report on massive growth of renewables last year posted 1 year, 8 months ago 5 Responses

  • Hmmm

    Interesting that the researchers that study one highly interconnected complex non-linear feedback system, climate science, are rightly praised for having achieved some degree of predictive capability and yet the researchers of another such system, the world economy, are belittled by those same people for lack of perfection.

    In both systems there are chaotic local and/or short term phenomena.  One can try to deal with them in analysis, but just as prediction of localized weather is a very different problem than predicting long term climate, so too is predicting short term market moves a very different problem than predicting long term macro-economics.

    As for not issuing warnings... I think the problem is more often that no one listens.  I remember reading a rather long article in The Economist probably at least two years ago about the growing trade in complex credit derivatives.  Some economists were quoted stating strong concerns about the lack of understanding of the systemic risks and the inherent opacity of how the system was developing.  Others rightly pointed out that it was spreading risk, which "could" be a good thing.  Now we've learned both sides were accurate, the risk was spread, but unfortunately with the lack of regulation typical of a less than fully competent administration the shared risks were allowed to pile up until the entire system was in danger of collapsing from massive ripples generated from a point source.

    The primary difference between the two systems is that while people are rightly reluctant to task climate scientists with altering the system (Geoengineering), we demand of our economists that they precisely control the system they study.  The latter being complicated by the fact that today's global economy has made the control system far more of a distributed one than it has been in past generations.On What behavioral economics has to offer posted 1 year, 8 months ago 8 Responses

  • Another Study

    Perhaps these researchers need to do a study to figure out why so many people that claim to derive pleasure from using their money pro-socially (and I don't doubt many are being truthful) will still derive great pain from their money being used pro-socially merely by associating the simple word "tax" to the process.

     On Interesting research findings on wealth and happiness posted 1 year, 8 months ago 5 Responses

  • Which Auction

    Gar...

    There are a lot of different ways of doing auctions... ones like they use for airwave spectrum in the U.S. in multiple rounds, or Dutch auctions, or ?  Business studies have been done showing some tend to yield more revenue for the seller whereas others tend to favor the buyer.

    Under certain auction regimes one could certainly imagine a lot of trading going on after the auction.

    A "Dutch" auction would seem possibly to lead to less trading and less opportunity for "traders" to profit from the system without contributing anything useful... though it might lower the revenue collected.

    I've always been skeptical of 100% auctioning.

    Are there some of the proponents of 100% auction that could speak to which auction scheme they like and why?  Which scheme for the auction and what restrictions on the participants if any?On Australia's pivotal Garnaut climate report to back 100 percent permit auctions posted 1 year, 8 months ago 5 Responses

  • Fallacy of Domestic Energy

    This points out one of the fallacies of the "energy security" of domestic sources such as coal... and domestic oil.  Unless the government intervenes in the market, which mainstream politicians of either party are unlikely to do, Americans are exposed to world shortages via higher prices.

    This is not to say that domestic sources aren't better from a trade deficit standpoint, but the notion often implied by politicians that domestic oil or coal will be cheaper for consumers is simply false... those two items are transportable and fungible and even if produced domestically will be sold to the highest bidder.On As coal prices rise, U.S. coal exports boom posted 1 year, 8 months ago 4 Responses

  • to bigTom

    You forget potential benefit #3 for relaxed drilling restrictions...

    3) If we insist upon not reducing oil consumption rapidly enough, it might be more environmentally friendly (pollution, forest destruction and GHG) to drill in currently restricted areas such as Gulf of Mexico waters for conventional oil than to support the environmental disaster of Canadian tar sands that is now unfolding to meet the demand.On On oil and the dollar, Bush and McCain acknowledge their own cluelessness posted 1 year, 8 months ago 8 Responses

  • And Don't Forget

    Don't forget the inflationary pressures that are caused by deficit spending to fight wars.

    Wars inherently involve lots of infusion of money into producing goods and services (military) that don't service the needs of the general population.  Thus you have more money sloshing around and fewer goods.  The military spending of WWII happened to coincide with a time when the inflationary pressures actually helped counter the deflation of the Depression.

    We are certainly not now in a period where extra inflationary pressure is benign or welcomed.  Further, it looks very questionable at best as to whether the goals accomplished in Iraq, to the extent that one believes there were any valid ones, have strengthened the U.S. in any way sufficient to justify the economic damage... much less the horrendous loss of military and civilian lives.On On oil and the dollar, Bush and McCain acknowledge their own cluelessness posted 1 year, 8 months ago 8 Responses

  • Magnitude Comparison vs Reality

    "4. Just the $600 billion that Congress has allocated for military operations in Iraq to date could have built over 9000 wind farms (at 50 MW capacity each)"

    While very informative in showing the magnitude of the horrible financial consequences of the war and qualitatively showing the lost opportunity cost, this is the type of statement that I believe also can create some unrealistic ideas in the public mind.

    There is simply no way that the wind industry could have ramped up quickly enough to have produced this many turbines by now.  Already turbine prices are rising because of multiple constraints starting with the raw materials used in turbines and continuing clear through the production and installation industries.

    So it would be much more accurate to say "could build" rather than "could have built".  Too many well meaning environmentalists have the mistaken impression that an arbitrarily large amount of money can be thrown at something like PV or  windmills and the capacity will magically appear almost overnight.  Especially if there is a lack of long term planning and commitment, rapid increases in outlays of subsidies for a technology can simply lead to inflated prices and bigger profits for the industry... without necessarily implying the stable profits that would entice new competitors into the market.On The money we've spent on the five-year Iraq War could have shifted the world to renewables posted 1 year, 8 months ago 13 Responses

  • Curious

    It is interesting how people that will staunchly defend the expertise and understanding of scientists when it comes to warning about AGW, will then act like some of these same scientists are naive or ignorant when they suggest that these types of intervention might be necessary and viable.

    GreyFlcn... you forgot

    5) It does work, costs far less than dealing with the effects of what would have been worse warming and gives time for the restructuring of the world's economy to a decarbonized future, saving many species from extinction in the process.

    Ocean water aerosols, ocean iron seeding, even stratospheric aerosols are all processes that occur in the natural world and have been studied by scientists.On Geo-engineering: cooking up solutions just like nature used to make posted 1 year, 8 months ago 9 Responses

  • Query

    Does anyone know of a source for curriculum material about climate science and global warming?  Possibly more up to date than Inconvenient and more oriented actually to a science classroom.

    While I certainly believe the denier club to be, almost to the person, a pack of paid shills... I also wonder whether the presentation of global warming as often encountered, arguing a case for action, is the best format for teaching science.  Teaching science really should be more investigatory... should acknowledge what we don't understand as well as what we do.  Maybe the best way of defanging the deniers is to really teach the scientific process... show the importance of probabilities rather than proofs and the role of peer review.  Encourage kids to be critical of mainstream media coverage of science... critical in a way where sensationalized anecdotal stories on either side don't interfere with developing an understanding of an issue.

    OK... I guess I am asking for a lot.

    But I would be interested if someone knows of a really good source of curriculum material that might come close to this.On Monday linkfest posted 1 year, 8 months ago 1 Response

  • Another Solution

    The Catholic Church already has some creative ways of dealing with such problems... not the replicative creation of Jesus, but more the power to create their own definitions.

    from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capibara

    "During the Christian celebration of Lent, capybara meat is especially popular as the Catholic church, in a special dispensation, classified the animal as a fish in the 16th century."

    They're kinda cute for a big rodent... and they do swim.  Ok, a fury fish is a bit of a stretch... but you can't question the Pope.

    wiscidea... yeah, I'm pretty sure a whale would have to qualify as a fish.  Heck, if you could teach a cow to swim, Outback might be able to get some sort of dispensation for prime rib.On Would Jesus eat fish during Lent? posted 1 year, 8 months ago 34 Responses

  • Request for info

    Jason,

    Can you provide some links to the analysis of some of these economists.  Ones that address the issues I've brought up in this thread would be especially appreciated.  I understand some of the motivations for auctions whether it be progressives wanting revenue that could go to offset hardship on lower classes or conservatives that would love to kill income tax entirely.  So I've got the motivation parts of the equation.  I'm interested in whoever has addressed the issue of economic dislocations, whether they be by industry or by geography and the extent to which the auction price could be expected to be stable and how fast it would increase.On The core progressive issue in the fight over climate legislation posted 1 year, 8 months ago 25 Responses

  • Emissions Permits

    In the ongoing debate over how to allocate emissions permits, I certainly would support the notion that any coal power plant that hadn't received it's construction permits prior to Dec 11, 1997 (Kyoto agreement) should not be allocated any free permits... or at least only permits equaling what an efficient gas combined cycle would have required.

    Any company, cooperative or municipal utility deciding to build coal plants after it was obvious caps would happen should have to sleep in the bed they made.On AEC chooses renewables and efficiency over coal posted 1 year, 8 months ago 2 Responses

  • Traditional Farm Perspective

    If this study is primarily focusing on the economics of existing farms, it may be missing part of the picture.  I'm not weighing in on one side or the other, but there are many aspects of biomass that don't seem to be addressed.  Here is a link to the government report estimating that a billion tons of biomass could be available annually in the U.S. without negatively impacting food supply.  I think it was one of the primary drivers for all the excitement over cellulose.  Again, I'm not supporting that assertion... but here's the link.

    http://www1.eere.energy.gov/biomass/pdfs/final_billionton ...

    It would be interesting for someone with the time and knowledge to compare this new Iowa State study to see how it actually stacks up against this government study.  Is it outright contradicting anything, or just making some economic assumptions that make the monetary viability of the scenario look questionable.  It would seem to be a good thing if switching food acreage to cellulosic acreage would require such a large subsidy... don't give the subsidy and the fuel doesn't displace food.

    One should also consider that there have been some studies since that government report considering something called Low Input High Diversity (LIHD, or was it HDLI) that proposes mixed grasses and plant species as being potentially better than monoculture switchgrass.

    Here is the glossy corporate interpretation of that government report.

    http://coskata.com/EthanolFeedstockPotential.aspOn New study from mainstream ag economists at Iowa State posted 1 year, 8 months ago 46 Responses

  • Far more than academic

    "I think we are down in a morass of academic details."

    "Ergo, talk of economic pain from CO2 reduction is a tad misplaced."

    These are two statements that make me very worried about supporting legislative opinions of those claiming to be progressive environmentalists.  These statements would appear to show no concern for those vulnerable people that the "progressive" movement professes to be concerned about.

    I assure you that for many people the economic fallout of CO2 abatement is going to be anything but academic.  It will cause price increases, it will cause job loss (churn if you wish), it will cause real, rather than academic, problems for people.  If a retired person that is dependent on some old industry company for their pension and health care has that company go bankrupt, they're not going to be able to go out and start climbing up wind turbines as a maintenance man.  Saying don't worry it all averages out and someone will benefit for each person that suffers is little solace to the one suffering... not to mention that quite often the extra suffering ends up landing on the ones already shouldering an unfair burden of suffering.
    On The core progressive issue in the fight over climate legislation posted 1 year, 8 months ago 25 Responses

  • Number of permits

    Ark,

    I suppose I can see the point that if the current baseline emissions have somehow been grossly inflated then auctioning might result in cuts even greater than would happen under a distributed scheme.  This could be addressed by auctioning some sufficient amount to take care of any level of fudging that has occurred in historic numbers... such as distributing 90% and auctioning 10%.  Though how will the system function at all if the assumption is that the current reporting system is not to be trusted?

    Under a progressive cap system the motivation to change is that the permits given each year will diminish... no matter how they are apportioned.  I'm not sure I understand why you would question that aspect of it.  One could argue that an auction system might end up with even faster change if all the available permits were not purchased.  Both systems put a progressively reducing cap in place and would force the change.  If you're asking working people to accept more job insecurity for the potential that CO2 abatement progress might happen even faster than mandated... at least state that as the position.

    Unfortunately... I've been around long enough to know that there will be corruption, accusations of favoritism, and so on... no matter what is done.  I'm just trying to figure out how I, my family and people like me can make it through the transition with as little suffering as possible.On The core progressive issue in the fight over climate legislation posted 1 year, 8 months ago 25 Responses

  • comments on comments

    In the belly... I certainly wouldn't shed any kind of tears for the oil executives.  Indeed they may be disingenuous if they claim to have true concern about their employees (I'd have no way of knowing).  For arguments sake, lets assume that every single oil exec is a purely selfish, greedy person and that they all have been purposely misleading the public about climate change for their self serving greedy purposes... does that diminish the fact that there are many working class people who are dependent upon these old industries for their jobs, pensions and retirement savings?  The execs are not going to suffer no matter what happens.

    Ark... what part of the information presented did you find most compelling to convince you "auctions are 100% the way to go"?  Is there something that convinced you that the jobs, pensions, retirement issues such as the ones I raised will not be problematic?  I consider myself a pretty smart person and yet it seems very hard to predict the economic fallout from the various options... how are you so confident?On The core progressive issue in the fight over climate legislation posted 1 year, 8 months ago 25 Responses

  • Agreement... and not

    I do agree that in the long term solving the climate problem with renewables will be good overall for domestic job growth... assuming the rest of the world is doing the same.

    But I think many in the working and middle classes are already feeling incredibly insecure.  The Bush administration's economic, energy and "war" policies have been horribly inflationary.  Worse, the energy and military expenditures are inflationary without necessarily having corresponding economic growth effect... hence recent rebirth of discussions about the dreaded stagflation.  This hits middle, working, unemployed and retired the hardest.

    With this scenario, some degree of predictability in an emissions abatement program is probably very important... at least from my perspective being one of the vulnerable.

    Even accepting that there will be job churn, there are less destructive ways churn can happen and more destructive.  It worries me that many environmentalists would seem to not have merely the objective of removing emissions from industries, but seem to feel "polluters" need to be punished or put out of business.  If someone's job, pension or retirement savings are tied up in these old industries, it is far better for that person if those industries somehow get the support to transition into viable businesses with decarbonization.

    To give a concrete example, I just found an article I read last week.

    http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bal-te.md.mill29fe ...

    It talks about a paper mill... a pretty CO2 intensive industry.  It would seem to me if they were allocated CO2 permits that reduced by a few percent each year, they could figure out what they might be able to offset with efficiency and have long term plans for how they transition the company... perhaps into higher value specialty products, or worst case just having a road map so that employees have some idea how long their jobs might last.  It also would seem to give more time for such a company to persist through the period when they will be faced with overseas competition from China that doesn't have the cost of permits.  If they have to buy all permits immediately (and at an unknown and potentially volatile price), they likely would not be competitive with imported paper and would likely have to shut down sooner rather than later.On The core progressive issue in the fight over climate legislation posted 1 year, 8 months ago 25 Responses

  • Info on job vulnerability

    David,

    What amongst all of the references you have discusses the job impact issue?  Is there some estimate for a number of years out as to what price permits would likely cost under an auction scheme, such as with a 90% confidence interval or some such analysis?  Then look at what industries would likely be unable to bear that burden and result in job losses.

    Would the "progressive" environmentalists be willing to accept some sort of a relief valve cap on the auction price so that the economic effects and job loss would at least be more predictable?

    Most of Europe has a much better safety net than the U.S. for dealing with displaced jobs and also health and retirement.  While advocating for the working and middle class, please don't forgot that many work for and have their health and retirement benefits dependent upon "polluting" industries.  Often times when someone sticks "the man" it really is those working for him that suffer.  I seriously doubt that a CEO from a polluting industry is going to forgo their salary or large bonuses to pay for auctioned permits.  From what I've seen in corporate America, executives give themselves performance bonuses in good times and retention bonuses when they lose money... in the latter case shipping jobs overseas as the cost cutting measure.

    Being part of the working/middle/lower class, I would be more concerned with the jobs issue than the electricity issue.  At least with electricity here where I live, there is a state regulatory body that approves prices and usually has some provisions for mitigating effects on those most vulnerable.  Is that not true for most states?  Without a job, one can't afford any electricity for very long.On The core progressive issue in the fight over climate legislation posted 1 year, 8 months ago 25 Responses

  • Bird in the hand

    I fully agree that in the long run weaning the U.S. off fossil fuels could be good for the job situation.  For many, however, the prospect of potentially losing their current job mid life and having to compete with younger workers to get one of these new jobs, which may or may not be created locally, is discomforting.  As they say, a job in the hand is worth far more than a potential job.

    Starting a cap system with all permits auctioned immediately puts a very high strain on many industries.  A further complication is that most people, at least environmentalists, believe that the developed countries must move first with caps before expecting developing countries to do the same.  Many companies simply would not be able to survive if they have to purchase all their permits and yet have to compete with companies in places like China that would not have this added expense.On Green advocates urged to be reasonable posted 1 year, 8 months ago 16 Responses

  • Two responses

    Setb,

    I'm not sure if you were intending to address my question.  If so, or even if not, I'd reiterate that one of the real concerns of working and middle class people is job security.  It will do little good to have part of the increase in energy costs offset if the increased expenses for businesses has caused me to lose my job.

    Yes, there are certain industries such as websites that may be low energy intensity and unlikely to have to cut expenses drastically to afford auctioned permits.  Yes, there will be some new jobs created in installing solar panels and retrofitting insulation in houses.  However, for someone middle aged and above that happens to be in a vulnerable industry, it often is extremely difficult to get these new jobs that usually go to younger workers.

    I have not seen Peter Barnes' plan... do you know if he has addressed this concern?  I would hope that would be one thing you would want to know before endorsing a plan as "the best way forward".  It would seem that a pure permit auction scheme would have the greatest unpredictability for businesses versus either a distributed permit cap and trade or a simple carbon tax.

    And to biodiversivist... As for the 40-hour work week... I'm not sure I see the economic similarities to this issue.  Not only that, I'm unaware of any regulation that stipulates a 40-hour week... I certainly have worked much longer hours on jobs.  Though I would certainly appreciate more explanation if there is some relevant historical experience that would shed light on the economic considerations of structuring a carbon abatement mechanism.On Green advocates urged to be reasonable posted 1 year, 8 months ago 16 Responses

  • Clarification

    My question above about the economic effects of auctioning emissions permits under a cap system concerns Mr. Roberts rather strong assertion that working and middle class people will be far better off under an auction than under a system that distributes the available permits to companies.

    Trust me, I'm 100% behind the need for a cap.  I am not at all convinced that the working and middle class would be better off with a pure auction system for the permits.

    I have heard proposals for a blended system that would start by auctioning a small percentage of each year's permits and gradually increase that number over some period of time to help mitigate the economic disruptions.  That seems like a perfectly reasonable proposal to me.  I am genuinely curious how someone can be so confident about the right solution, when the economic consequences are so complicated.  We perhaps know that Europe's system of cap and trade can be improved upon, but jumping to a pure auction system would seem to have risks.  I would hope that those advocating for it have considered those risks.On Green advocates urged to be reasonable posted 1 year, 9 months ago 16 Responses

  • Question

    David,

    From where does your conviction come that auctioning all permits will benefit the working and middle class?  I come from this demographic that you say you wish to protect.  We know that emissions cuts will be more costly for some industries than others. What assurance can you give a typical working or middle class citizen that the cost of auctioned permits will not force the company they work for to lay them off, or that massive equity losses will not occur in the pension funds they are dependent upon for retirement?  Most working class people are far more susceptible to economic disruptions than their better off peers.

    Are these not reasonable concerns for a working class person to have?  Are they unfounded?On Green advocates urged to be reasonable posted 1 year, 9 months ago 16 Responses

  • MP Nader

    Sadly, the perpetual supporters of needing a third party don't seem to understand the difference between our political system and the parliamentary system.  With the possible exception of a case where the two party nominees diverge to be extreme leftist and extreme rightist, leaving open a spot for a centrist independent... a third party candidate is going to be a spoiler to one side or the other and possibly hurt the very causes they claim promote.

    Maybe the parliamentary system is better... but it's not the one we have.  The U.S. system is based on selling oneself in the primaries to one of the two established parties.On Notable quotable posted 1 year, 9 months ago 20 Responses

  • Clarification

    How does this bill undermine prospects for an international per capita solution?

    Perhaps Bill or someone else could explain it in layman's terms.  Is there part of this bill that prevents the U.S. from joining a comprehensive international cap and trade system?On A safety valve in Lieberman-Warner is senseless posted 1 year, 9 months ago 24 Responses

  • One environmentalist's view

    drx,

    One little problem I have with relying too heavily on this concept of subsidies or feed-ins for individuals is that I happen to be one of the people that the system would seem to provide no financial benefit and potentially harm.  The German system for instance is basically rewarding those who put up solar with an ability to make a nice return on the investment.  That cost is spread out among all the rest of the rate payers.  As the percentage of people taking advantage of this goes up, it certainly raises the price that has to be charged to the remainder.

    So then there is the question of those that rent, have condos, or houses that simply are not suitable for solar.  I'm willing to pay some extra to subsidize others' home solar, especially if it's in climate zones where the panels are maximizing the amount of CO2 free power produced... but I do have constraints as to how much I can help subsidize something I cannot take advantage of myself.

    I live in CA and pay about $0.095/kWh and CA is approaching 50% CO2 free power... so to me the current big utility model seems to be working reasonably well.  I do consider myself a serious environmentalist, but I'm forced by the constraints of my own life to at least ask questions about the financial impact of differing approaches to address climate change.

    Not that I have any vested interest to support something because it would enrich the bottom line of lobbyists and traders... the fact that they might benefit is also simply not a concern for me.  I'm only interested in 1) the environmental necessity and 2) experiencing the least personal suffering that adequately addresses 1).

    I'm posting these comments not to simply to be contradictory, but to point out the view of people like myself, which may make up a larger portion of the environmental support base than you figure.  I'm fully open to hearing the rationale of why I should support a scheme other than cap and trade... which has until now been what I support.On A safety valve in Lieberman-Warner is senseless posted 1 year, 9 months ago 24 Responses

  • Why Anyways?

    Banking... and borrowing... might be another way of addressing the same concerns.  Though if I read the legislation right, the borrowing seems to have an interest rate that is rather prohibitive.

    What is the analysis on which the conclusion is drawn that a particular regime for banking and borrowing would be better than a safety valve... I truly am interested if you have some info on a comparative analysis. It is not at all going to be easy to get a consensus that will rise to the challenge with which we are faced.  My personal belief is that everyone is going to have to be as creative and flexible as possible if we have any hope of turning this thing around.

    BTW... I hope you weren't thinking I am an elephant? On A safety valve in Lieberman-Warner is senseless posted 1 year, 9 months ago 24 Responses

  • Why not?

    "It is favored among people who simply don't get how dire the situation is. You know, maybe 10 or 15 years ago we could have given a safety valve a chance, but you just can't ignore scientists for three decades and then think it is going to be peaches and cream. We need the full dose of anti-biotics now, not some watered down dosage that allows the fever to fester."

    I'll have to admit that sounds a bit more like a desire for ideological punishment rather than a scientific point of view.

    As I understand it... regulation, technology, money, whatever it takes, aimed at methane reduction in the early years would have the greatest impact in lessoning catastrophic dangers.  That and possibly addressing black soot.  The effects of CO2 itself are much longer lived and more an issue of long term trends.  Cutting X tons evenly over 5 years versus having it somewhat back loaded isn't nearly as big an issue as the shorter lived gases... right?

    Are the climate scientists weighing in on this and saying a relief valve is unworkable.  I'm sure a relief price would have to rise a lot quicker than 5%... but isn't acknowledging price stability concerns for the economy important?  I guarantee making the capital investments necessary to address global warming will be a lot harder if the economy becomes destabilized.

    I'm about as true blue believer in the serious dangers of climate change as anyone.  I for one believe the end target of this cap is probably not low enough.  But I think you're misjudging the change that would be brought by a new administration and some turnover in Congress.  I think some concessions to address economic concerns will still be on the table because I think a lot of mainstream Americans that believe something needs to be done, also believe it's not unreasonable to try to mitigate economic pain.

    Why not accept a relief valve (30% yearly increase anyone) and use the proceeds in the first few years to implement agricultural and other programs to target methane and other high impact, short lived sources?  Isn't there some flexibility that would still be consistent with the science?On A safety valve in Lieberman-Warner is senseless posted 1 year, 9 months ago 24 Responses

  • Different take

    Re: "Monitoring Part Deaux"

    Unlike other pollutants, with CO2 we're talking pretty big numbers that don't change a heck of a lot due to slight process variations.  A gas turbine electric plant for instance can have it's CO2 calculated pretty precisely just by looking at it's consumption of gas... no need really to do any stack monitoring.  Coal might be a bit trickier due to more variation in coal types, but the simplest approach would just be to routinely characterize batches of coal from particular mines and then charge electric plants or other facilities based on the amount of coal consumption using the appropriate carbon factor.  It's not absolutely perfect, but tracking fuel use would come pretty close to the same as measuring actual CO2 emissions.

    Sam... what would be the drawback to doing it this way?On Delay makes environmental catastrophe more likely posted 1 year, 9 months ago 25 Responses

  • On the other hand.

    If I were a shareholder or employee at GM I might be concerned about a company so dependent on technology development being run by someone without a grasp of science... or someone that doesn't realize stating that it's a "crock of shit" and then characterizing one's stance as being "a skeptic, not a denier" in the same talk seems bumbling at best.  Saying certain scientific conclusions are a "crock of shit" is rejecting them in about the strongest terms possible.  If he doesn't realize that, he's got a poor grasp of communication... not good for corporate leadership.On GM exec defends calling climate change a 'crock of shit' posted 1 year, 9 months ago 26 Responses

  • What carbon cost would work?

    If $2/gal rise in gas hasn't had a significant impact on consumption, how would even $80/t translated into $0.78/gal have made a significant difference?  It seems this would imply over $200/t would have been required if it had been done before oil production constraints started kicking in.

    Gar, I know someone that works for one of the big banks selling those card type programs to government... he'll love your idea, it's very profitable for them.On Gas pricing, Big Oil, and carbon pricing posted 1 year, 9 months ago 13 Responses

  • UCG

    Anyone wish to weigh in with an opinion on Underground Coal Gassification.  Could this be the route to cost effective coal use with carbon sequestration?On China kicks off the coal-to-liquids rush posted 1 year, 9 months ago 8 Responses

  • Two Issues

    These EJ groups should come up with some better concrete examples of the problems, such as co-pollutants, that they are trying to raise.  The example of 11 power plants to be built in LA, at least to my level of understanding, would not be a very compelling issue.  There hasn't been a coal plant approved in CA in eons, so these are undoubtedly gas facilities... some of which are probably peaker plants operated intermittently.  One can see these in rather affluent neighborhoods around LA.  Further, people burn a lot of gas right in their homes for cooking, dryers, etc.  Seems a bit of a stretch that people would have more health problems from outdoor gas combustion products than they would from those trapped in their own homes... or if there is such a problem these organizations need to clarify the issue so that reasonably intelligent people can understand it.

    Here in my neighborhood, middle class, I'd imagine a gas turbine plant's pollution would be a drop in the bucket compared to the cars, yard equipment and wood fireplaces.

    Examples do matter to people.  If there is a problem, please concretely demonstrate it.

    On another note, the people advocating a simple tax or subsidies haven't addressed the issue that neither of these mechanisms provide an assured level of progress on emissions reductions.  With scientists such as Hansen now saying we've likely already passed the "safe" level for atmospheric CO2 and must reduce emissions far quicker than previously thought, it seems unlikely setting a tax and then progressively adjusting to try to achieve the desired result will meet the challenge.On Cali EJ groups reject cap-and-trade in strong terms posted 1 year, 9 months ago 28 Responses

  • Worst time for broken windows

    Not only is there the general applicability of Bastiat's broken window fallacy, but this also is arguably the worst time for this sort of military drain on resources.  Wars always tend to have an inflationary pressure.  This might be just what the doctor ordered if you're in a deflationary period such as the great depression.  But when the U.S. is potentially facing the dreaded stagflation, this is adding greatly to the problem.

    Printing money to build things, blow things up and pay people to do things that don't contribute to the rest of the economy, causes upward pricing pressure on all other goods and services.  The money ends up in the economy but the products are stuck, destroyed or used in a war zone.  So at home you have more money chasing after fewer goods... inflation.

    Hopefully McCain, who admits he doesn't know anything about economics, won't plan on asking Bush for tutoring help.On Notable quotable posted 1 year, 9 months ago 7 Responses

  • List of Signers

    Does someone know of a source that lists the signers of this declaration, including their affiliation?  The press release seems to only list country.

    I have seen a list of the 100 or so deniers with affiliations and I think it would be useful to the lay person to be able to compare that against the similar affiliations of the above mentioned declaration.On At least 215 climate scientists sign declaration urging action on climate change posted 1 year, 11 months ago 1 Response