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The Catastrophic Economic Impact of Cap and Trade
Here on Zerohedge the main goal is to present the readers with facts that remain hidden under the radar of the traditional ( soon to be dead ) information providers. Also, we try to provide information which is useful to our readers, and from which our readers can learn something new.
So i decided to present to you a specialist view on the economic impact of Cap and Trade legislation. Based on scientific facts which are, at least, contingent in their nature, this legislature will not only impact every single part of your life, it will also limit your basic freedoms, and not only that; it will put a price on that which makes you a human being, which makes you a living organism. I will not give my personal opinion on this topic, but i think that the article which i will post here will give you a clear picture of what my opinion on this matter is.
Testimony before
The Energy and Commerce Committee
U.S House of RepresentativesApril 22, 2009
My name is David Kreutzer. I am the Senior Policy Analyst in Energy Economics and Climate Change at The Heritage Foundation. The views I express in this testimony are my own, and should not be construed as representing any official position of The Heritage Foundation.
I want to thank the members of the Energy and Commerce Committee for this opportunity to address you concerning the economic impacts of cap-and-trade policies.
What Is the Problem with Carbon Dioxide (CO2)?
Carbon dioxide is not a toxin, is not directly harmful to human health, and is not projected to become so--even without legislative or regulatory action. CO2 is fundamental to all known forms of life. Indeed, studies show that increased CO2 levels are beneficial for crop production.
Nevertheless, driven by concern that increasing levels of CO2 (and other greenhouse gasses) will lead to a warmer world and cause environmental damage, there have been calls to significantly restrict emissions of all greenhouse gasses, but especially CO2. Among the proposals to reduce CO2 levels are carbon taxes and cap and trade.
The Costs
The typical cap-and-trade proposal seeks to reduce CO2 emissions by 60 percent to 80 percent by 2050 where the comparison year is usually 2005. The Center for Data Analysis at The Heritage Foundation did an analysis of the costs of meeting the goals of the Lieberman-Warner bill, S. 2191, last spring. The report on this analysis is attached.
Our analytical models are not suited to making projections beyond 2030. Nevertheless, the economic impacts of this cap-and-trade program in just the first two decades were extraordinary. The estimated aggregate losses to Gross Domestic Product (GDP), adjusted for inflation, are $4.8 trillion. By 2029 the job losses in the manufacturing sector will be nearly 3 million. This is over and above the nearly one million manufacturing job losses that most economists predict will occur even in the absence of global-warming legislation.
The manufacturing job losses are shown in an attached chart taken from a study of an EPA mandated 70 percent cut in CO2. Also attached is a map showing the relative importance of manufacturing to a state's economy.
Some of the workers forced out of manufacturing will find employment in the service sector, but overall, the economy loses jobs. In some years, this overall job loss exceeds 800,000.
Note: Current law already has many provisions for curtailing CO2 emissions. They range from local renewable-portfolio mandates to increased nationwide Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards to subsidies for ethanol production. While the reductions in CO2 emissions are included for the purposes of meeting the emissions targets, the considerable cost of these programs is not included in our analysis. This is because the costs are attributable to existing legislation and will occur even without additional laws or regulations. Of course, if they were included, job and GDP loss totals would be even higher.
Why Is It So Costly?
Eighty-five percent of our energy use today is based on CO2-emitting fossil fuels. The ability to switch to non-CO2-emitting energy sources over the next 20 years is limited and expensive. Therefore, significant cuts in CO2 emissions require significant cuts in energy use. The energy cuts, in turn, reduce economic activity, shrink GDP, and destroy jobs.
The cap-and-trade schemes, as well as more straight-forward carbon taxes, limit emissions by making energy sufficiently more expensive that they cut their energy use. In addition to the direct impact on consumers' budgets for electricity, gasoline, heating oil, and natural gas, these higher energy costs force cutbacks on the production side of the economy and lead to lower output, employment, and income.
It is important to note that these losses occur after consumers, workers, and businesses have adjusted as well as they can to the higher energy costs. After adjusting for inflation, household energy prices will rise 29 percent above the business as usual prices, even though consumers will have switched to smaller cars, moved into more energy efficient houses, and made greater use of public transit. The lost comfort, convenience, and satisfaction of making these changes are not included in our calculation of economic impacts, though the costs would be very real.
Green Stimulus?
Production drops even though firms will have adopted more energy efficient technologies and processes. To reiterate, the trillions of dollars of lost GDP and the hundreds of thousands of lost jobs occur even after homes and businesses have made the switch to greener methods. The hoped-for green-job gain is a mirage.
Attached is a copy of a page from a 1945 issue of Mechanix Illustrated. It shows a cyclist pedaling a jerry-built generator to power hair dryers in a Parisian beauty salon. Though not the sort of green job that is currently talked about, this human-powered generator illustrates why costly energy policies are not a stimulus.
A person on a bicycle generator would do very well to average 150 watts of output during a day. At this level, a modern-day cyclist/generator could produce electricity worth 10-15 cents per day at retail prices. With sufficient subsidies, people could be induced to power such generators and the proponents could then point to the "green" jobs that have been "created." What is not seen is the value of the cyclists' forgone output elsewhere. Even at minimum wage, the value of the labor is $52.40 per day. So each human-powered generator would shrink the economy by over $50 per day. This is not an economic stimulus.
Alternative energy schemes that require subsidies or that require protection from competing with conventional sources of power cannot be economic stimuli--their output is worth less than their inputs. An industry whose inputs cost more than its output is making the economy smaller and will necessarily reduce overall income.
The Tax
Implementing a cap-and-trade program to cut emissions by 70 percent creates a transfer within the United States that is equivalent to taxes on the order of $250 billion to $300 billion per year, just for the years 2012 to 2030. The combined transfer is about $5 trillion in just the first 20 years. This takes the purchasing power from the households and turns it over to the federal government or to whomever the government assigns the rights to the permits for emissions (allowances). This would be one of the largest taxes in the economy--almost twice as large as the highway use taxes.
Because the transfer, in this case, is similar in magnitude to the lost GDP, we need to be clear on the distinction. A cap-and-trade program with an emissions reduction profile similar to that of last year's Lieberman-Warner bill, will cause an aggregate $5 trillion of transfers after it destroys $4.8 trillion of national income (GDP).
In colloquial terms, the pie gets smaller by nearly $5 trillion and then a $5 trillion piece is cut out and redistributed.
Back-Door Protectionism
Cap-and-trade programs frequently include provisions to protect domestic industries from competition with firms in countries that have not adopted similarly costly mechanisms for reducing CO2. While the intent is certainly understandable, the provisions create the possibility of a protectionist wolf in global-warming clothes.
Putting these protectionist policies into operation is a bureaucratic nightmare. Every product from every country will need to be judged to determine the level of advantage it may have due to different carbon-cutting regimes. Since different countries can have different approaches and since different manufacturers can use different technologies and processes, assigning an offsetting CO2 tariff will necessarily involve arbitrary decisions. The potential for a trade war is very real.
The Gain
Analysis by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) shows that a 60 percent reduction in CO2 emissions by 2050 will reduce CO2 concentrations by only 25 ppm in 2095. This reduction would affect world temperatures by 0.1 to 0.2 degrees C. In other words, it makes virtually no difference.
Conclusion
The Center for Data Analysis at The Heritage Foundation analyzed a proposal to cut CO2 emissions by 70 percent. Such a cut would have little impact on global temperatures. At best, the trade-off is trillions of dollars in lost income and hundreds of thousands of lost jobs versus a fraction of a degree change in average world temperature 85 years from now.
Call your congressman, and DEMAND of him to vote NO. Also, you can use this post as a thread where you can discuss Cap and Trade, Chicago Climate exchange and all other, topic related, issues. I will post the links for the graphs mentioned in the above article, as they are to big for me to post them here.
Graphs
State-by-state Manufacturing Intensity
EDIT: here is a presentation given by Lord Monckton, a former advisor to Margaret Thatcher. It is 1hr 35min long, but worth a watch.
Thank you for reading
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Idiot.
The International Socialists are the first to scream about "human rights" & free speech, but if anyone questions them, look out. Slander en-masse. Deniers etc.
regards
Ian Plimer recently published a new book Heaven and Earth: Global Warming, the Missing Science. The 500 page book has over 2,300 references to peer-reviewed scientific literature and other authoritative sources. It synthesizes what is currently known about the sun, earth, ice, water, and air. The book discredits the "science" backing Global Warming.
Plimer, has won Australia's highest scientific honor (the Eureka Prize) twice, is professor in the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences at The University of Adelaide, and is author of six other books written for the general public in addition to more than 120 scientific papers.
For those who like to hear more about the author and his book, Jim Puplava interviewed him last week on the Financial Sense News Hour at www.financialsense.com .
The heck with you, CB!
I am getting into my private jet to go round up evidence for man-made global evidence. When I get back, I am going to make your evidence look pretty skimpy....
http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/2005/09/sunwarm.html
I suspect they tempered their paper to be politically correct and to keep the grant money flowing. But the fundamental truth is there if you read between the lines.
Cheeky=Prolific
Thanks Cheeky, really appreciate you presenting the record of testimony. I'm also glad to see that you are increasing your presence as a ZH submitter, keep up the great stuff...
with the new emission standards, applied to big rig diesels, It makes a lot of sense to convert them to CNG, and install fuelling stations at truck stops, along our interstate highways. not a solution, but a sensible stop-gap to keep vital supplies moving. the cost to convert way cheaper than upgrading emission system to meet new standards.
Are you sure about the "cost to convert" .... diesel engines cannot be converted to NatGas cheaply. Carburated gasoline engines are easily converted, but diesel engines I think are quite another matter. A diesel engine is fuel injected, so that would have to go. A diesel engine doesn't have a spark plug, so you'd have to machine the head to accept one (if possible), then you'd have to come up with some kind of ignition system. The entire engine is set up on the premise of diesel fuel combustion profile ... the volume and pressure of the piston/cylinder, etc.
cost has got to be less than 10 tril.
Take a $25,000 (average) serviceable diesel engine out of every truck in America, throw it in the junkyard (along with all the cash for clunkers cars). Now go to the local engine shop and ask them for a good deal on a big ass engine that will run off of natural gas. Oh, and do this while everyone else is doing it too. Now, tow your truck over to a shop that can install said engine and its necessary fuel storage system. You'll probably want a big ass carbon fiber pressure vessel to store the Nat Gas in on your rig .... so get out your wallet. Okay, so now you are rolling down the road burning "clean" natural gas. Hope you don't need any repairs because if you do, your truck can only (legally) be pulled into a shop that has explosive proof light fixtures, and other mods that the Feds have deemed "safe" when repairing or servicing vehicles powered by compressed flammable gas. Are we having fun yet?
Horses**t. In the UK, cars were converted to use "town gas" during WWII. They stored it in huge bags tied to the roof.
Compress natural gas and you end up with something very similar to LPG, which will run a gasoline internal combustion engine, with relatively few tweaks. Billions of Natural Gas appliances show that Natural Gas is about as safe as Gasoline.
You have a narrow view on life and are missing the point. Switch to any other energy system, and you will rapidly deplete it (regardless of the CO2 debate). If governments were serious, they would have encouraged development of light weight economic vehicle using tax incentives. The gas guzzlers of the USA were obscene as are SUV's now. The whole concept of big heavy cars is finished, "cash for clunkers" and all!
The years ahead are going to be about very basic survival, for the VAST majority. God help those in the suburbs of large cities, and the elderly.
Natural Gas might be cheap now, just wait a couple of years! Oh, and it still produces CO2, so you don't get around that one either. The fact is cheap energy (in any form) is getting scarce!
During WWII England I doubt there were CFR's and OSHA regulating the safety requirements of repair facilities. Welcome to the brave new world.
"Compress natural gas and you end up with something very similar to LPG, which will run a gasoline internal combustion engine, with relatively few tweaks. " True, if the gasoline engine was carburated. Not so true if it was fuel injected. And not true at all if you are referring to a diesel combustion engine (which I was), notwithstanding my "narrow view on life".
absolutely correct. incidentally, the entire diesel engine was originally set up on the premise to run on peanut oil. always been surprised that Jimmy C never figured that one out. he could have made a bundle post-pres.
Diesel engine was designed for vegetable oil, it just needs to run a higher temperature than for oil derived diesel fuel. Some of the best sources are plants that grow in marginal land, Brazil is testing this.
Brazil also subsidized its sugar production for 10+ years to make the shift to gasohol.
They are likely doing the same thing now for vegetable oil.
Its likely they have something like a Latin American version of T.Boone Pickens.
Pretending to want to save them from the Saudis, while lining his own pocket at the tax payers expense.
F that guy.
kohn kerry, lieberman, obama, i mean rahm
nobody knows the trouble I've seen, ...
Cap and Trade has no chance on happening because the tax burden on productive citizens is going to explode after National Health Care, imploding economy, continued government bailouts and 40 years of wasteful government spending. The gig is up, the U.S. is broke and politicians are too dumb to realize how we mortgaged our entire future on failed policies. In summary - You can't get blood from a stone!
CB,thank's for bringing this up,I've been pulling my hair out over this.yeah the US burn's way too much,but I think we've turned the corner.As dumb as we are,I think we realize the importance of renewable's.No cap and trade needed.the science is weak to say the least....we don't know!What's telling is the propaganda surrounding the issue,hell,350 has got model's stripping for the cause(personally not offensive)but, come on!Gotta kill the cap and trade monster
Someone please tell me why we should listen to a lobbyist for the heritage foundation over anyone else? Because he agrees with what you want to hear?
+1
CB, Have you notice the banner at the top of this page?
http://www.america.gov/climate_change.html?gclid=CKXFicqh4Z0CFQpinAodQC8pNw
On the topic, I think the inertia of the global system is so large that if this effect is real the only way to deal with the problem will be climate engineering.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkEys3PeseA
allow the earth to heal itself...it has for many millenia before we got here and will for many millenia after we're gone.
humans thinking they can control climate is about as hubristic as humans thinking they recreate the Big Bang or have unlimited growth forever.
Not hubris. It's an engineering response to the fact that sh*t can happen.
1. We can observe weather fluctuations in a short time scale in cases like the oscillations in the Pacific Ocean know as El Niño,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fN_NmCpry38&feature=related
2. There is far more important global system of currents known as The Great Ocean Conveyor which COULD be disrupted if the North Pole gets too warm, the time scale of this system is 1,000 years,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZbsMlr9WRI&feature=related
My position is that we are better off preparing for an scenario like this than relying on emission controls, which probably would not stop global warming if the theory is correct. So, no cap & trade, but invest in R&D for climate engineering and deal with the global politics associated with a possible intervention.
tip e. canoe -
Global warming - aka Climate change acolytes are arrogant enough to think that man is "god" , and has power to change the climate and the weather . This is the new world religion , fall down on your face and worship the carbon idol , or die . Pride cometh before the fall . May these charlatans reap what they sow . The whirlwind .
Of all the drivel that has been posted to CB's shameless plugging of the Heritage Foundation, yours is the best. This hubris argument has been floating around for a bit now and its ridiculousness grows with age. Throw away the global warming stuff, it's moot to your crappy argument. It is not hubristic to desire to lessen the impact of human activity on the environment. What is hubristic is the feeling that you can emit CO2, mercury, SO2, NOX, particulate matter, etc..., and have no significant negative effect on the environment and or other people.
"yours is the best." thanks for the compliment.
"Throw away the global warming stuff, it's moot to your crappy argument."
well, this winter is going to do a fine job of throwing away the 'global warming' stuff, but how is it moot to the argument exactly? please explain.
"It is not hubristic to desire to lessen the impact of human activity on the environment." i never said it was. what is is the thought that you can throw a shitload of ash into the atmosphere to try to 'solve' the problem. you're right, that's not hubris, it's lunacy.
"What is hubristic is the feeling that you can emit CO2, mercury, SO2, NOX, particulate matter, etc..., and have no significant negative effect on the environment and or other people. "
the true irony of your comments is that i personally happen to agree with this sentence. however, making CO2, one of the main compounds in the cycle of life, the dreaded boogeyman, as well as intentionally ignoring the obvious fact that the earth goes through natural warming & cooling cycles and that there are processes happening that are much grander than us silly little cockroaches can yet understand, is i'm sorry, indicative of a belief that i feel is the much larger issue that plagues our species: fear & control, control & fear.
you want to regulate CO2? here's a simple idea: start a compost bin and start growing plants. show others how to do it. i've got over 100 of them up on my roof...you're welcome to have one if you wish.
"mercury, SO2, NOX, particulate matter, etc..." there's plenty of laws on the books that regulate these compounds. why are they not being currently enforced? if they need to be tightened, why aren't there bills being discussed?
if you go to Shanghai, you'll see middle class neighborhoods (equated in U.S. on dollar terms with low-income housing) with solar panels all over the rooftops. why don't we have that here?
(things that make you go hmmmmm....)
maybe one day you'll realize that AliG and his goonies have given us greenturds a bad name and have done nothing to encourage the skeptics amongst us that it is possible if we are willing to make an effort to live more gently on this planet, all 6 odd billion of us.
until then, i'm sorry but my homemade windmill & solar panel making, glass pulverizing, greaser Mercedes driving, drivel spewing greenturd ass has unfortunately sided with the skeptics.
cheers
The problem with environmentalists is that they elevate nature to a level above people and act as if people are the plague on the earth - many state that we have way too many people on earth and believe we should limit populations by a number of different means. These people are psychopaths that would like to see populations reduced, in fact new laws are going to label you a pollutant since you exhale CO2 - now we can regulate you and tax you on it.
These fucking bankers make money out of thin air and loan it to you with interest, and then have the balls to try to tax you on thin air too (CO2). They will control all of humanity if they can control you through national (top down heirarchial) health care and taxing all activity. My statement to these anti-social individuals is you first on population reduction - the quicker the better.
Of course everyone wants less mercury in their water and other pollutants and I am all for laws that protect against true pollution (that's not what this is about). Al Gore shared with the europeans that this bill would be the first step in world government - it will be the global tax to support the UN world government. I will continue to quote Kissinger stating US cities will gladly accept foreign soldiers in their country if they believed in a fear, real or promulgated, to save them from the unknown. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you both global warming and global terrorism with a swine flu cherry on top (the promulgated meaning fake propaganda to create fear of an unknown and give up liberty for security).
Great post as always A.N.
I expect a new bull market in fear shortly...
speaking of Big Bang 2.0, less than a month to go:
http://press.web.cern.ch/press/
maybe they'll fire it up on the same day all the leaders meet in Denmark and a black hole opens up to suck them all in.
one can never give up hope, yes?
They won't find the Higgs. It doesn't exist.
David Deutsch, of quantum computing fame, smart man, makes the same point @15:30 here,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQliI_WGaGk
I think it would be terrible if the problems with crap n'trade, which are about 110% of the whole crap n'trade concept, result in people discrediting all the science about climate change. Of course, that seems an almost certain result at this point. Cap and trade is a terrible idea that seems specifically formulated to provide central government/bankster control over everything, with the vampire squid presumably getting the lion's share. If anyone wanted to do something effective they would simply tax fossil fuels at the point of sale to provide a disincentive to their use, much as europe has been doing with transportation fuels for decades. The lack of such a proposal tends to reinforce the idea that this has little to nothing to do with climate change.
Max, I am sorry you may be mad about "all the science about climate change". A researcher discovered that NASA's data was incorrect, the calculations on their spreadsheet were incorrect. When the NASA scientist was interviewed (this is the info Al Gore used to get the Nobel and produce his inconvenient lie) he looked so sheepish and said something like, well let's not, let's not, well it's really not even important. This was the information used by Al Gore to create a hockey stick graph showing accelerating warming.
I guarantee 100% it is a complete and utter scam - climate change itself is almost exclusively caused by sun-spot activity which follows predictable patterns (found in hundreds of years of old clay samples in atolls (bacteria growth in the layers correlated with sunspot patterns - more sunspots, more bacteria, more fish as well). The science is settled on this, and thousands of scientists believe human caused global warming is incorrect - even a court in London found 9 problems with the Al Gore video - but you don't hear this in the controlled media - the owners of the banks own the media.
I know this is all probably news to you, I'm not with an energy company, remember Greenland was called that because it was warmer hundreds of years ago (before people produced much carbon dioxide). The polar ice caps are growing - that's a fact, check it out.
".....climate change itself is almost exclusively caused by sun-spot activity which follows predictable patterns (found in hundreds of years of old clay samples in atolls (bacteria growth in the layers correlated with sunspot patterns - more sunspots, more bacteria, more fish as well). The science is settled on this, and thousands of scientists believe human caused global warming is incorrect"
Well, that is a load of huey. You're attempting to make the argument that climate change is simply a function of whether and how intense the sun shines on the earth. How do you explain the the mini ice ages experienced following major volcanic eruptions? Atmosphere has a huge impact on climate change.
Not sure what a load of huey is, and weather is spelled "weather".
I am not attempting anything, just stating the facts mam.
I am not certain what the effects of a volcanic eruption is, I suppose if it was large enough it might have a small short term impact but it is still not man made. I fail to see your point, as thousands of years of history are preserved in organic layers - when sunspots are more active the atmosphere is hotter and more bacteria is created in the oceans - the sunspots are on a predictable cycle.
I'm not sure why people are so skeptical about the role of the sun, we actually revolve around it and it makes life possible here on earth - believe me, it's important!!!!!
Its a complete fabrication, infact, they changed the name from Global Warming to the new and improved weapons of mass wealth distruction.
Al Gore should be in jail, he was dreaming this crap up with Ken Lay back when he was Clinton's bucket boy! Glen Beck has exposed the whole scam for what it is...Imagine taxing the human race for breathing??? WTF will these bastards dream up next???
Ding!
People thought the Enron rolling blackouts were bad, or oil speculation.
Just wait until they can spin the derivatives for carbon.
GS is all over it already.
It's called "climate chaos" now.
I prefer economic entropy.
"Al Gore should be in jail, he was dreaming this crap up with Ken Lay back when he was Clinton's bucket boy! "
- Wrong .... AlGore got started much earlier than that.... way before he even knew Clinton:
(from: http://www.kusi.com/weather/colemanscorner/38574742.html)
In regards to the statement: " "... and a hundred million dollars from the carbon credits business." Generation Investment Management LLP was co-founded by Algore.
Below is a reply to a Lazlo Toth style inquiry (redacted) I sent via the Generation Investment Management website "contact us" mail form:
thanks, I forgot about the Loony! Gore was just the greedy messenger! Still, that fact that the Nobel commission awarded Obama a prize in anticipation of his vote makes me sick.
"Eighty-five percent of our energy use today is based on CO2-emitting fossil fuels. The ability to switch to non-CO2-emitting energy sources over the next 20 years is limited and expensive. Therefore, significant cuts in CO2 emissions require significant cuts in energy use. The energy cuts, in turn, reduce economic activity, shrink GDP, and destroy jobs."
That bit alone is enough to undermine the whole piece. The holes in logic a large enough to drive a coal-filled railroad car through. The sentence about the ability to switch to non-carbon producing sources being too expensive over the next 20 years is particularly hillarious - did this guy fall asleep in the 1980's and just woke up? Wind is already cost-competetive with coal. So is geothermal. Solar thermal is getting there or thereabouts. It's ludicrous that idiocy such as this flies under the radar of an ZH audience whose senses are so finely attuned to smelling a rat everywhere else.
Neophiliac -
Facts please ? How much does solar cost - 43c a kilowatt
Coal , about 8-10c kwh . Gee not bad , only a 500% difference
Article author is correct. This game will cost millions of jobs ultimately - no coal miners, no coal mining equip needed , no coal trains or cars or drivers needed . No coal fired plant workers , no engineers to design new coal fired plants. ad infinum . Anyone who wishes to pass HR2454 is a communist , facist blind dumb fool
http://www.solarbuzz.com/ModulePrices.htm
Nice work posting a link to retail solar module prices. Apple, meet orange.
Here are some links for more apples-to-apples comparison:
http://www.cna.ca/english/pdf/Studies/Royal_Academy_Engineering_04/Royal%20EngineeringAcademy_cost_generation_commentary.pdf
http://www.ethree.com/cpuc_ghg_model.html (check the calculator spreadsheet)
http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/2009/05/12/levelized-cost-of-new-generating-technologies/
Please present your information on the ability to create enough wind and geothermal electric power to supplant a significant portion of the coal base load plants in the next 20 years. The quoted text is simplistic but sounds accurate to me.
Why isn't there more talk about natural gas? We have tons of it, we're actually still finding more, and as long as you burn it (rather than let it escape unburnt, that's bad) it releases far less CO2 than other fossil fuels. (Natural gas is mostly methane, CH4, producing mostly H20 upon combustion.)
Where there is a will there is a way. With wind, the problems is not the potential capacity but (i) manufacturing bottlenecks; (ii) transmission bottlenecks; (iii) variable load. Problem (i) is obviously a solvable one over 20 years. Problem number (ii) is absolutely solvable, but needs federal government involvement. Problem (iii) is a bit harder to track down, but (a) offshore wind makes it a lot less significant and (b) over 20 years we ought to have sufficiently scalable energy storage solutions.
Geothermal actually IS baseload power, and the problems are only (i) transmission (same as wind) and (ii) in terms of scale it's where wind was 5-10 years ago. But again, there are no actual technical or economic barriers to adoption in the presence of a stable price on carbon.
Natural gas is good, by the way, but don't forget that it's actually a good bit more expensive than coal, and if you switch to it completely, it will become more expensive still.
Facts are thus: at this moment already, even in the absense of a clear price signal on the price of carbon (i.e. under conditions of uncertainty), there are no reasons to build new coal plants in the US and, based on this report here (http://www.netl.doe.gov/coal/refshelf/ncp.pdf), rather few are indeed being planned or built (especially if you compare with China) and even fewer actually get built. Without more, that makes fossil fuel electricity a dinosaur that will go extinct as the old plants get decomissioned. Actually replacing existing coal plants with solar, wind, geothermal or nuclear is harder, but very far from impossible or economically ruinous. Indeed, what the posted report completely and utterly fails to mention in the positive effect on GDP and the economy that comes from increased investment in new tech that would inevitably come if you start taxing the old tech.
...extracting every ounce of energy and concentrating it just above the surface of the earth...hmm.
max, careful with the gas...Haliburton's got their greasy fingerprints all over fracking. if they can figure out a way to do it without f'ra'cking up the water supply, then yes great idea, more power to them.
Will they exempt the unions on this one? I'd have to think there would be some effects that would be unfavorable to them.