I assume this article by the New York Times is discussing the same thing? https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/07/science/a-conservative-climate-solution-republican-group-calls-for-carbon-tax.html?_r=0

Huh, that's weird. I wasn't paywalled coming from twitter, or reading about it in local news. Try these:

https://t.co/tf2Urgms85
http://nzh.tw/11797316

it depends on the level of the tax, but this looks like a decent place to start. Raises the cost effectiveness of alternative energy. Of course it might not be enough, but the VERY SECOND alternative energy progresses enough in front of fossil fuel, the market will select for it.

Instead of subsidizing alternative energy, creating monopolies and only allowing temporary gains, this could be a temporary tax that can lead to a permanent solution.

I find the Wall Street Journal to be funny in that regard. Sometimes I can access their articles, and other times they will tell me I have to be subscribed, it's inconsistent.

As far as the proposed carbon tax goes, I don't think it could work. Primarily because the fossil fuel company's can not make a profit right now without yet another regulation being imposed upon them to raise their costs even higher.

Three of the five largest coal producers in the U.S. have filed for bankruptcy, numbers 1,2, and 4 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_mining_in_the_United_States). And if you take a look at natural gas producers, there are 10 losing money for every one making money. The oil companies are not doing much better. Companies can't operate on losses forever, and this tax would only make it harder for them to make a profit. For the time being, this just doesn't seem like a realistic option.

The permanent gases whose percentages do not change from day to day are nitrogen, oxygen and argon. Nitrogen accounts for 78% of the Earth's atmosphere, oxygen 21% and argon 0.9%. Gases like carbon dioxide, nitrous oxides, methane, and ozone are trace gases that account for about a tenth of one percent of the atmosphere.

this carbon thing is nothing new. my uncle played with this in the early nineties:
L.A. Firm Helps Utility With Innovative Plan : Environment: The idea is to lower carbon dioxide levels in another area of the world as an offset to pollution closer to home.
Los Angeles Times August 04, 1992

What's your point Brad? Percentage doesn't matter, it's the effect that does. CFCs were "trace" gases, but Reagan regulated those because he understood the harm they were causing. Greenhouse gases from fossil sources are no different.

We don't want or need fossi fuels to be profitable. That's kind of the point. They're imposing massive costs on society and not paying for it. That got to stop

Of course what isn't realistic is conservatives taking any actions to protect the public welfare at the expense of corporate profits. They'd literally prefer to kill off most life on earth before they'd let that happen

Progressives have been proposing a carbon tax for ages, but went for cap and trade as a "market friendly" solution that conservative might support. Stupid idea, but there it is.

And coal is going extinct because it is obsolete

CFC's were one thing, they had a direct effect on ozone in the upper atmosphere. Carbon Dioxide is the gas that plants use to breathe and convert to carbon for growth.

People produce carbon dioxide. perhaps the solution is to rid the earth of them. oh yes, that is the point of abortion to rid the planet of humans

That's why fossil fuels are the problem Brad, they are millions of years worth of carbon released in the last 100 years. That's not part of the natural carbon cycle at all.

@ogion

Ok, we will do what you suggest and force the fossil fuel companies to go out of business. It'll be too bad that we won't be able to find out how you are liking it since none of us will be able to get electricity to power our computers/phones to hop onto this site, however. Or to power our cars to get to work, or to get water pumped to our homes, etc. etc.

Did you read the article Manwe? Rex Tillerson supported a carbon tax while CEO of Exxon Mobil, so I hardly think it's going to push them out of business. It's just about fixing a market distortion from unpriced externalities.

Probably beats the pants off the cap-and-trade thing California has going.

Actually, Manwe, my power is 100% from renewables where I live, including my driving. So speak for yourself. Not all of us are stuck with obsolete technology, in part because I live in a place that doesn't go in for denying reality and is very active in creating new technology. We don't burn whale oil or burn peat anymore either. Sorry if your part of the world is more backward.

We need to greatly reduce the use of fossil fuels obviously. Physics doesn't negotiate on that point, no matter what lies conservatives spew. Having dispensed with that, the reasonable question is how to prioritize and incentivize such a transition. People who are responsible for pollution need to be paying for it, and a carbon tax does that quite well. It also would help kill carbon inefficient forms and prioritize carbon efficient ones, and give the appropriate price signals showing that renewables are vastly more economical.

Abolishing slavery was economically disruptive too, and made vastly vastly more so because vested interested dug in their heels instead of figuring out how to make necessary change intelligently. We had decades to get this figured out but sat on our collective butts, mostly. Now it's time to pay the piper for that stupidity.

zinger

With zero regulation, in terms of cost effectiveness for creating energy:

Nuclear > Oil/Natural Gas (and Coal) > Alternative Energy

In terms of resource supply:

Alternative Energy > Nuclear > Oil/Natural Gas (and Coal)

In terms of environmental impact:

Alternative Energy > Oil/Natural Gas (and Coal)
... with Nuclear occasionally killing thousands and causing tens of thousands more to get cancer, with major potential pollution problems, but not always.


we have sensible regulations on nuclear that are poorly administered, we have ineffective regulation on fossil fuels the hurt business but have done nothing to slow carbon emissions, and we subsidize alternative energy which fails and costs is money.

so basically American Gov't is shit at doing stuff. good. to. know.

FOr those wanting the details, California has an aggressive budget and comprehensive set of climate change laws that include provisions that allow local governments to set up retail utilities that can buy 100% renewable power for its customers. My county has created such an entity. My wife and both drive Nissan LEAFs, a significant part of which is possible due to a reasonably robust charging network for longer trips. (My wife is at the moment returning from a site visit that involves around 200 miles of driving today. the quick charger was so fast that it finished charging before she could grab lunch.) There are technical issues, such as regional integration of wind, using concentrated solar with thermal storage and dispatchable storage like Teslas new power station in LA (all batteries). it can be done and fairly easily, provided there is a will do to it. However, in places where people bury themselves in falsehooods and myths rather than thinking about how to solve problems, this is slower and harder. Unfortunately, everyone has to pay the price for such sluggishness.

oh, and the California economy has absolutely smoked that of the rest of the country over the last thirty yeas while we have become more and more energy efficient. Now we are so rich we not only balance our own budget but we contribute major cash to the budgets of backward spots in the South and the Midwest that haven't done this. So, yeah, don't even start with that.

So Ogion doesn't know how gov't form monopolies form. that's so sweet.

secondly, if he's driving a car, his power is not 100% renewable. the machinery used to make that car i almost guarantee was run off of electricity generated by fossil fuels, and even if it is a Prius- likecar, those things are shit for the environment.

and yes, it beats the pants off cap and trade. California couldn't do that because of the federal constitution. If we were independent we could probably do that and impose carbon tariffs on imports from the US. and elsewhere

http://californiapolicycenter.org/californias-total-state-local-debt-totals-1-3-trillion/
http://www.usdebtclock.org/state-debt-clocks/state-of-california-debt-clock.html
http://californiapolicycenter.org/californias-global-warming-high-speed-train/
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/04/150406-california-drought-snowpack-map-water-science/


I LOVE Ogion.

he's so funny and liberal

I read the article I posted which I am still assuming was about the same thing. I can think of a couple reasons why he might have done that. When was he CEO? The energy sector could have been doing much better then than it is now and it would have been a burden that they could have actually been able to bear at the time. Another reason he could have been for it is that Exxon could have been in a better position to deal with it than its computation, allowing it to survive while growing market share or having competitors be forced out of business. Win-win for them in that situation. Just a couple of many possibilities.

Just because the tax would have been a viable option (though not necessarily the best) during a previous point in time, that does not mean it is now under current market conditions. That is the case I am making, I don't believe it is.

@Manwe

that's fair

Yanik, I have no idea where you are getting your figures from. In my country there are no incentives for renewables but they're still an amazing investment. Either an EV if you drive every day, or solar panels if you use most power during the day will yield 10% ROI in the savings you make on fuel/power bills. Since you don't pay tax on money you don't spend, that's 10% tax free. This idea that renewables somehow cost more is totally flawed. Yes, there is a high upfront cost, but the lifetime costs are very viable even without a fair price on carbon.

As a general matter, carbon taxes hav much greater administrative simplicity and greater economic efficiency than cap and trade systems which are tricky to keep them from introducing distortions. There aren't a ton of other options on the table unless you want to introduce a strict production budget which would be the best, but politically impossible.

Not all of us are so fortunate to be wealthy enough to be able to afford such high cost ways of obtaining energy and expensive electric vehicles. In fact, most of us aren't. Ordinary people have a hard time paying their electric bills when the energy is coming from low cost fossil fuels. You may be for increasing the cost of electricity to where only the wealthy can afford it, but I'd rather keep it cheap enough so that it is affordable for most, if not all..

@Manwe he was CEO right up until Trump gave him a better offer!

The reason I wasn't sure you'd read the article is because the proposed tax would be a replacement for the current raft of regulations. As Ogion says, it's administratively simple, so should result in smaller government as well as certainty for the fossil industry. A true conservative solution.