Getting to CO2 reduction safely....
Today’s post: Wednesday, 5-13-2009
We need an 80% reduction in fossil fuel use by 2050 to avoid the worst global warming effects. And, practically speaking, we need to also double our electricity generation and double the useful work done per unit of electricity & other energy sources as well during that same time to have a decent economy.
It’s clear that if we want our economy to use less fossil fuel and release less CO2 we must both increase energy sources quickly that do not use fossil fuels and, best of all, that release no CO2, we must both lower the cost of building renewable energy sources and getting that energy to the people and businesses that use it AND increase the cost of using fossil fuels.
So, it does make sense to begin to charge fossil fuels some fees and costs that their use actually causes instead of allowing them to pretend that those costs don’t exist including the environmental damages caused by their extraction and use. It makes sense to begin to tax fossil fuels beyond that. And, it makes sense to discontinue tax breaks that enable fossil fuels to cost less so using fossil fuels will cost more and to increase tax breaks and other incentives for building and using renewable energy so that soon using fossil fuels will cost MORE than using renewable energy.
Once getting renewable energy and using it begins to cost LESS to the user than using fossil fuels, the market will begin switching us over to renewable sources much more quickly.
However, there are two extremely large problems now with those programs that make using fossil fuels cost more:
1. Since the overwhelming majority of our economy still runs on fossil fuels, if we make them cost a lot more before the renewable energy replacements are beginning to come online, we will slow our economy and make job growth much harder.
2. Since the overwhelming majority of our economy still runs on fossil fuels, the companies that provide them and use them and the localities where those companies are located and provide jobs, have a lot of lobbying money and political clout.
So the safest and most doable transition is to make increasing renewable energy the first priority and to make the increases on fossil fuel costs gradual and to some extent contingent on having the renewable energy successfully in place before some of the increases on fossil fuel costs begin to be added.
We cannot afford to allow fossil fuels to escape these added costs and have a prayer of stopping global warming; but we will actually replace fossil fuels faster, more certainly, more safely, & with more support from people and businesses if we can set up the increases in the way I’ve just described.
It won’t be easy to do at first. But increasing renewable energy with the kind of commitment the United States used in World War II is the key to making it work.
We need for progressive states to do more than the federal government mandates while moving decisions on building new power lines more into the federal government’s control so that non-progressive states do not prevent our effective build up of renewable energy. States and local governments should be able to influence the building of new power lines to minimize any harm that building them might do. But it is also clear that, “just saying no” can no longer be acceptable.
We must remember & not forget that preserving our ability to grow food and minimizing the weather and climate change driven disasters such as fires and coastal flooding depend on using less CO2 -- and to do that safely, we MUST have the transport system to get renewable energy from where it is best generated to where it is most needed.
Showing posts with label carbon taxes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label carbon taxes. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Economically safe ways to cut carbon use....
Today’s post: Wednesday, 3-11-2009
I. First the bad news.:
A. We may be running out of time to deal with C02 and other causes of man-made global warming.
One scientist said recently that we need to cut the current 385 ppm of CO2 to 350 ppm, which is a 10 % drop, to avoid severe economic dislocations due to unfavorable climate change within the lifetimes of many of the children being born today. Meanwhile we are actually still releasing MORE CO2 each year into the air than will allow this drop to happen though the rate of increase has slowed somewhat due to the global recession and some efforts to stop building coal-fired power plants and to install more renewable energy sources.
His take is that the only way likely to be effective to cut CO2 release fast enough is to immediately tax carbon that is burned for fuel.
B. Right now, most of our economies in the world get over 70 % of their energy from carbon fuels.
So adding to their cost now, while the world is trying to recover from a severe recession might prolong it or make it worse.
II. Clearly the have your cake and eat it too strategy is to initiate carbon taxes and cap and trade procedures now; but to minimize their near term economic costs in the near future AND to invest massive amounts of money adding renewable sources of energy, increasing our energy efficiency, and since it has political support and replaces carbon fuels, do our very best to build more nuclear plants that reuse their uranium input, so called breeder reactors, while making them as close to 100 % terrorist proof and radiation leak proof as possible.
This IS probably the wrong time for reversing the recession to add a dollar a gallon carbon tax to gasoline; and comparable taxes on burning diesel and jet fuels, coal, and natural gas –OR to initiate cap & trade rules that would incur similar costs.
However, we CAN:
a) Initiate feed-in tariffs to ALL utilities that generate electricity in the United States to support the building and financing of renewable energy sources of electricity.
That does increase costs slightly in the near term. But it increases cost moderately over the long term and very little in the first few years. That will create thousands of jobs as Germany’s use of feed-in tariffs proved already. And, while we are getting out of the current recession the increases in electricity cost will be low enough, there will be almost no drag on the economy.
b) Immediately create jobs doing inexpensive things like weatherizing homes to make them more energy efficient.
c) Where there ARE energy efficient choices already available, tax the less energy efficient choices enough to cause them to cost 10 % MORE than the energy efficient choices. That will cause little economic drag in the short term & will actually net out economic INCREASES within a year or two.
d) We can discontinue allowing companies to leave the real cost of their fuels unpaid -- such as by outlawing environmentally destructive coal mining practices and no longer allowing new coal fired plants to be built that allow ANY smoke or particulates to escape into the air.
e) Go ahead and set up carbon taxes and a cap and trade system NOW -- BUT make it contingent on the economy and the availability of renewable or nuclear substitutes in terms of when and how fast it kicks in.
They should kick in a tiny bit now to get people used to operating with them in existence and to build their payment infrastructure.
But, the base rate should be modified by the availability of noncarbon energy sources and the unemployment rate; and the base rate should go up very gradually at first.
For example, we may want and need to impose a combination carbon tax and cap & trade system to add $5 a gallon to the cost of burning gasoline or diesel fuels made from petroleum by the year 2039. But it clearly would a disaster to start with that now.
But we could add 5 cents a gallon now and likely do no harm. That would initiate these taxes.
Then, once commercial quantities of algae based biofuels are available in commercial quantities and plug in hybrids and electric cars are 40 % of all cars on the road and unemployment is again below 7 % nationally, it may make sense to start increasing the tax by 5 cents a month. Getting to those favorable conditions might take 5 to 10 years. But once we start this tax increase period, the taxes will reach a point where fossil fuels will cost MORE than the alternatives readily available with further tax increases on fossil fuels still to come. Even though that may take 15 to 20 years to completely happen, ramping these taxes up gradually in this way will make it economically safe to do. And by 25 years from now, CO2 levels in the world’s air will begin to actually go down.
Why pay $10 a gallon for gasoline when algae based fuel is $3 a gallon and running your car on solar generated electricity costs the equivalent of $1.50 a gallon? Once you can run your car on these sources, you won’t mind $10 a gallon gasoline as much as you would $4 a gallon gasoline now.
I think this IS doable.
My ideas sketched out here are not as clearly thought out as would be needed for actual legislation. But I think they contain the principles that will enable an economically safe transition that starts the taxes now but only allows them to begin to kick in fully as we bring alternatives online and our economy is recovering enough to overcome any of its short term negative effects.
Today’s post: Wednesday, 3-11-2009
I. First the bad news.:
A. We may be running out of time to deal with C02 and other causes of man-made global warming.
One scientist said recently that we need to cut the current 385 ppm of CO2 to 350 ppm, which is a 10 % drop, to avoid severe economic dislocations due to unfavorable climate change within the lifetimes of many of the children being born today. Meanwhile we are actually still releasing MORE CO2 each year into the air than will allow this drop to happen though the rate of increase has slowed somewhat due to the global recession and some efforts to stop building coal-fired power plants and to install more renewable energy sources.
His take is that the only way likely to be effective to cut CO2 release fast enough is to immediately tax carbon that is burned for fuel.
B. Right now, most of our economies in the world get over 70 % of their energy from carbon fuels.
So adding to their cost now, while the world is trying to recover from a severe recession might prolong it or make it worse.
II. Clearly the have your cake and eat it too strategy is to initiate carbon taxes and cap and trade procedures now; but to minimize their near term economic costs in the near future AND to invest massive amounts of money adding renewable sources of energy, increasing our energy efficiency, and since it has political support and replaces carbon fuels, do our very best to build more nuclear plants that reuse their uranium input, so called breeder reactors, while making them as close to 100 % terrorist proof and radiation leak proof as possible.
This IS probably the wrong time for reversing the recession to add a dollar a gallon carbon tax to gasoline; and comparable taxes on burning diesel and jet fuels, coal, and natural gas –OR to initiate cap & trade rules that would incur similar costs.
However, we CAN:
a) Initiate feed-in tariffs to ALL utilities that generate electricity in the United States to support the building and financing of renewable energy sources of electricity.
That does increase costs slightly in the near term. But it increases cost moderately over the long term and very little in the first few years. That will create thousands of jobs as Germany’s use of feed-in tariffs proved already. And, while we are getting out of the current recession the increases in electricity cost will be low enough, there will be almost no drag on the economy.
b) Immediately create jobs doing inexpensive things like weatherizing homes to make them more energy efficient.
c) Where there ARE energy efficient choices already available, tax the less energy efficient choices enough to cause them to cost 10 % MORE than the energy efficient choices. That will cause little economic drag in the short term & will actually net out economic INCREASES within a year or two.
d) We can discontinue allowing companies to leave the real cost of their fuels unpaid -- such as by outlawing environmentally destructive coal mining practices and no longer allowing new coal fired plants to be built that allow ANY smoke or particulates to escape into the air.
e) Go ahead and set up carbon taxes and a cap and trade system NOW -- BUT make it contingent on the economy and the availability of renewable or nuclear substitutes in terms of when and how fast it kicks in.
They should kick in a tiny bit now to get people used to operating with them in existence and to build their payment infrastructure.
But, the base rate should be modified by the availability of noncarbon energy sources and the unemployment rate; and the base rate should go up very gradually at first.
For example, we may want and need to impose a combination carbon tax and cap & trade system to add $5 a gallon to the cost of burning gasoline or diesel fuels made from petroleum by the year 2039. But it clearly would a disaster to start with that now.
But we could add 5 cents a gallon now and likely do no harm. That would initiate these taxes.
Then, once commercial quantities of algae based biofuels are available in commercial quantities and plug in hybrids and electric cars are 40 % of all cars on the road and unemployment is again below 7 % nationally, it may make sense to start increasing the tax by 5 cents a month. Getting to those favorable conditions might take 5 to 10 years. But once we start this tax increase period, the taxes will reach a point where fossil fuels will cost MORE than the alternatives readily available with further tax increases on fossil fuels still to come. Even though that may take 15 to 20 years to completely happen, ramping these taxes up gradually in this way will make it economically safe to do. And by 25 years from now, CO2 levels in the world’s air will begin to actually go down.
Why pay $10 a gallon for gasoline when algae based fuel is $3 a gallon and running your car on solar generated electricity costs the equivalent of $1.50 a gallon? Once you can run your car on these sources, you won’t mind $10 a gallon gasoline as much as you would $4 a gallon gasoline now.
I think this IS doable.
My ideas sketched out here are not as clearly thought out as would be needed for actual legislation. But I think they contain the principles that will enable an economically safe transition that starts the taxes now but only allows them to begin to kick in fully as we bring alternatives online and our economy is recovering enough to overcome any of its short term negative effects.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Energy change subsidies that work......
Today’s post: Wednesday, 12-31-2008
The Obama administration will do a good deal more than previous ones on installing more renewable energy generation.
Candidate Obama already said he would do so and has said so even more emphatically now that he is President-elect.
And, he has already suggested adding a massive energy conservation and weather stripping campaign for homes as a way to get people involved and to provide needed jobs right away.
Further, the Congress finally passed and President Bush signed an extension of the solar and wind energy incentives.
These steps will help us build more renewable energy sources. And, there is already some support for building large scale wind, solar thermal, and solar photovoltaic electricity generating plants in good locations and adding the new transmission lines needed to get this new electricity to the business and homes that will use it.
However, some thought needs to be given to making further subsidies help create self-sustaining renewable energy and energy efficiency businesses that do not need subsidies.
We close today’s post with some ideas on how to do that.
And, it is very important NOT to give subsidies to renewable energy methods that cause clearing of forests or taking over agricultural land or which require as much fossil fuel input as the renewable energy output achieved.
The subsidies for corn derived ethanol seem to have done all of the above—most unfortunately.
Subsidies WOULD make sense for research into biofuels that do the reverse of these things by using cellulosic ethanol from existing agricultural waste etc or by using algae tanks that can be located on land NOT used for farms & NOT on land which now has forest. And, funding for venture capital firms to help commercialize such efforts that turn out to work and be cost competitive.
(There ARE already companies and researchers working on such biofuels.)
By adding the biofuels from the successful efforts of this kind to some petroleum based fuels and some fuels made with pollution free conversion from coal while learning how to substitute electricity and/or energy efficiency for some fuel, we can continue having liquid fuels as needed while dramatically decreasing our oil use and eliminating the burning of coal to generate electricity.
Here’s how we can get to a renewable energy economy that is self-sustaining without the need for further subsidies.:
A. Renewable energy is already almost cost competitive or is so IF the capital cost of installing it can be covered and there are some current incentives in place we can make progress toward the massive installations of renewable energy we need.
We have the incentives in place. And, where needed they can be extended in the short term.
But some kind of Renewable Energy Funding group that could be set up (similar to that set up for FHA Real Estate financing to allow more people to become homeowners or like the SBA loan guarantees we have now that help businesses start or expand) that would act as a catalyst to homeowners, businesses, and utility companies installing new renewable energy sources.
This kind of financial entity for building the new transmission lines and for helping utilities add large scale renewable energy sources will be very important to do. Many states are already asking utilities to add such renewable energy generation and should require more. BUT, without the financing available, it won’t happen and cannot happen. So this government funding source is one kind of subsidy I think is critically important.
Also, a very critical policy is to require that all utility companies in the United States buy back renewable energy in excess of current demand by homeowners or businesses that are on its grid at market rates. In many areas now, you can zero out your utility bill in many months of the year if you have wind or solar generation; but your utility gets any excess renewable energy you produce beyond that free. This is a DIS-incentive to build and install renewable energy sources that should be immediately and permanently halted everywhere.
B. Then once we get started building more renewable energy it will gradually become clear how to incentivize the continued expansion of the renewable energy we need even more in ways that make sense. Providing capital to venture firms to expand renewable energy companies that are cost competitive with fossil fuels and profitable while continuing to catalyze the building of renewable energy with a federal financing arm for it will probably make sense.
C. We should begin to lightly tax all fossil fuels while their cost is temporarily low AND to give back the people and businesses taxed most of those funds to enable them to use less fossil fuels by taking energy efficiency steps or by building renewable energy sources as substitutes.
D. THEN, once all this is in place and there is an expanding base of energy efficiency actions and renewable energy sources, we should start adding restrictions and taxes on fossil fuels until their market cost is at least equal to the true overall lifetime cost of using them.
Roughly speaking that means that the delivered cost for natural gas would at least double; the delivered cost of fuels based on petroleum would go up four times; and the delivered cost of coal to be burned directly would go up ten times; and it would be gradually discontinued to be allowed at all.
The good news is that even in the initial stages, as the taxes increase the cost of fossil fuels and the new technologies and economies of scale begin to make renewable energy cheaper to use than fossil fuels, we will begin to get the massive expansion of renewable sources we need. The renewable sources will cost less and make the providers profits with no further subsidies needed.
Since we now rely on these fossil fuel sources for a huge amount of our transport, heating, and electricity generation and a huge part of our economy and existing jobs is connected to them, it’s also important that we may a huge and growing start with renewable sources and energy efficiency FIRST-- AND make these tax increases and restriction gradually to protect our economy.
That said, I think the process should be set up to be done in no more than 30 years. The taxes can be light until renewable energy costs less; and then moved gradually to very high as renewable replacements are brought online.
If all of the above steps or something very like them are taken, I think we can not only transition to an energy efficient and renewable energy economy and phase out of most use of fossil fuels but also do it with little harm our economy at first and a MUCH stronger and sustainable economy later.
Today’s post: Wednesday, 12-31-2008
The Obama administration will do a good deal more than previous ones on installing more renewable energy generation.
Candidate Obama already said he would do so and has said so even more emphatically now that he is President-elect.
And, he has already suggested adding a massive energy conservation and weather stripping campaign for homes as a way to get people involved and to provide needed jobs right away.
Further, the Congress finally passed and President Bush signed an extension of the solar and wind energy incentives.
These steps will help us build more renewable energy sources. And, there is already some support for building large scale wind, solar thermal, and solar photovoltaic electricity generating plants in good locations and adding the new transmission lines needed to get this new electricity to the business and homes that will use it.
However, some thought needs to be given to making further subsidies help create self-sustaining renewable energy and energy efficiency businesses that do not need subsidies.
We close today’s post with some ideas on how to do that.
And, it is very important NOT to give subsidies to renewable energy methods that cause clearing of forests or taking over agricultural land or which require as much fossil fuel input as the renewable energy output achieved.
The subsidies for corn derived ethanol seem to have done all of the above—most unfortunately.
Subsidies WOULD make sense for research into biofuels that do the reverse of these things by using cellulosic ethanol from existing agricultural waste etc or by using algae tanks that can be located on land NOT used for farms & NOT on land which now has forest. And, funding for venture capital firms to help commercialize such efforts that turn out to work and be cost competitive.
(There ARE already companies and researchers working on such biofuels.)
By adding the biofuels from the successful efforts of this kind to some petroleum based fuels and some fuels made with pollution free conversion from coal while learning how to substitute electricity and/or energy efficiency for some fuel, we can continue having liquid fuels as needed while dramatically decreasing our oil use and eliminating the burning of coal to generate electricity.
Here’s how we can get to a renewable energy economy that is self-sustaining without the need for further subsidies.:
A. Renewable energy is already almost cost competitive or is so IF the capital cost of installing it can be covered and there are some current incentives in place we can make progress toward the massive installations of renewable energy we need.
We have the incentives in place. And, where needed they can be extended in the short term.
But some kind of Renewable Energy Funding group that could be set up (similar to that set up for FHA Real Estate financing to allow more people to become homeowners or like the SBA loan guarantees we have now that help businesses start or expand) that would act as a catalyst to homeowners, businesses, and utility companies installing new renewable energy sources.
This kind of financial entity for building the new transmission lines and for helping utilities add large scale renewable energy sources will be very important to do. Many states are already asking utilities to add such renewable energy generation and should require more. BUT, without the financing available, it won’t happen and cannot happen. So this government funding source is one kind of subsidy I think is critically important.
Also, a very critical policy is to require that all utility companies in the United States buy back renewable energy in excess of current demand by homeowners or businesses that are on its grid at market rates. In many areas now, you can zero out your utility bill in many months of the year if you have wind or solar generation; but your utility gets any excess renewable energy you produce beyond that free. This is a DIS-incentive to build and install renewable energy sources that should be immediately and permanently halted everywhere.
B. Then once we get started building more renewable energy it will gradually become clear how to incentivize the continued expansion of the renewable energy we need even more in ways that make sense. Providing capital to venture firms to expand renewable energy companies that are cost competitive with fossil fuels and profitable while continuing to catalyze the building of renewable energy with a federal financing arm for it will probably make sense.
C. We should begin to lightly tax all fossil fuels while their cost is temporarily low AND to give back the people and businesses taxed most of those funds to enable them to use less fossil fuels by taking energy efficiency steps or by building renewable energy sources as substitutes.
D. THEN, once all this is in place and there is an expanding base of energy efficiency actions and renewable energy sources, we should start adding restrictions and taxes on fossil fuels until their market cost is at least equal to the true overall lifetime cost of using them.
Roughly speaking that means that the delivered cost for natural gas would at least double; the delivered cost of fuels based on petroleum would go up four times; and the delivered cost of coal to be burned directly would go up ten times; and it would be gradually discontinued to be allowed at all.
The good news is that even in the initial stages, as the taxes increase the cost of fossil fuels and the new technologies and economies of scale begin to make renewable energy cheaper to use than fossil fuels, we will begin to get the massive expansion of renewable sources we need. The renewable sources will cost less and make the providers profits with no further subsidies needed.
Since we now rely on these fossil fuel sources for a huge amount of our transport, heating, and electricity generation and a huge part of our economy and existing jobs is connected to them, it’s also important that we may a huge and growing start with renewable sources and energy efficiency FIRST-- AND make these tax increases and restriction gradually to protect our economy.
That said, I think the process should be set up to be done in no more than 30 years. The taxes can be light until renewable energy costs less; and then moved gradually to very high as renewable replacements are brought online.
If all of the above steps or something very like them are taken, I think we can not only transition to an energy efficient and renewable energy economy and phase out of most use of fossil fuels but also do it with little harm our economy at first and a MUCH stronger and sustainable economy later.
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