Something tells me Big Oil is behind all this.

The first paragraph was intended to justify asking the AEI for $10,000. The rest was intended to please her editors.

Seriously, she is right on target suggesting that solutions have to be very simple. A carbon tax is a very simple solution.

Of course, conservatives will scream that all liberals ever want to do is tax, tax, tax. Are their other market based solutions?

Very mysterious.

Oh, hardly mysterious. Ever win a game and hear the loser say, "You don't have to be a jerk about it," even if you haven't been dancing in the end zone, or whatever the current fashion in celebration is? It's pure sore-loserdom.

The yeast in every bottle of wine have this debate about whether their excrement, alcohol, will destroy their environment. Right up to the point before their environment becomes noxious with their waste, the wealthiest yeast continue to argue for solutions that keep their wealth and the political economy that sustains it from being drastically changed. Then the alcohol content goes over 12% and all of the yeast die.

Every bottle of wine is an example of humanity's future. If we are to save our planet and ourselves, we need to become more like beer.

She knows most people don't read past the first paragraph or two so put her disdain for the Europeans and the global climate change consensus up front. Put the reasonable ideas in the middle so when she is called on her BS she can say; "Look I really support doing something about global warming."

Any "conservative" who advocates a carbon tax isn't a real conservative. A tax is a tax is a tax.

"Global warming" is simply a way to get people talking about "carbon taxes" which is a back-door way of raising taxes.

The liberal agenda has been revealed.

RON BEYERS: Are their other market based solutions?

Brojo:

Great post.

Of course, conservatives will scream that all liberals ever want to do is tax, tax, tax.

That's because it's 100% true. While there may be something to global warming, the hysteria is just an excuse for liberals to control more and more of the economy and to tax things they don't like anyway.

Boy, it sure would be a good idea for people to keep their eye on the ball here.

Everytime a difficult issue comes up, there seem to be large groups of people tempted to dwell on how mean everyone is being to one another. The press complains about the administration. The administration complains about the Democrats. Bloggers complain about other bloggers, and even about how mainstream media columnists characterize mainstream media publications.

Key to our destinies as the epidemic of meanness doubtless is, the carbon tax idea deserves a little more than a paragraph. For one thing, "every serious analyst" must not include any member of Congress, or any Presidential candidate, or even many environmental groups. Higher taxation of energy use is very unpopular: no mystery about that, but the observation begs the question of whether it is possible to make a sound but unpopular policy idea acceptable to the public. Trust me, this is easier than making unsound or ineffective but popular policy ideas good.

Nowhere is this more true than in the field of energy. The key to Americans' energy use is price; it has always been price, and it will always be, primarily, price. If we never address the price of energy we could fiddle around with CAFE standards, alternative fuels research and ethanol subsidies until Doomsday without ever getting anywhere. The world energy market will force the issue of price for us eventually; we can wait for this to happen, or face the question now through taxation.

Those are the choices we have. There are no others. Of course it is unpopular, with nearly everyone: Republicans and Democrats rich and poor, north and south. No one wants to pay more for energy (and especially for gasoline); everyone wants to reduce America's vulnerability to spikes in world energy prices and slow global warming through steps that either look painless (through camouflaging their costs) or are painless. They won't work. We know that increased taxation of energy use will work, and will indeed start to work immediately. And that's where we are.

Could revenues from a carbon tax be used to help smooth out our change over to a single payer health plan?

Brojo, that is brilliant.

I'm all for a carbon tax. But of course, it should be revenue neutral - we can cut income taxes by the amount raised by the carbon tax. Then everyone should be happy - conservatives will be happy that taxes haven't been raised, and liberals will be happy that we are fighting global warming.

I think the point of Appelbaum's column was to bash Kyoto. It's the one plan most of the world has agreed on to mitigate global warming, and conservatives want to see it killed. Once that's done, they figure we'll have another 5-10 years of arguing before another plan is presented for them to fight. Applebaum is floating the carbon tax as an alternate solution since, as a regressive tax, she knows that liberals have no taste for it, and conservatives hate any tax, therefore it will not pass. No action taken!

Inspired by Brojo, I would like to offer the following paraphrase of Gandhi:

"Be the beer you wish to drink."

I am not very excited about the idea of a carbon tax. Maybe there is some role for one as one of many measures to be taken.

But if we really want to have an impact on global warming, government mandates will be needed.

Taxes, and pollution credits, and all that, just get added in to being another cost of doing business. Then the business interests whine about, pay off the Republicans in DC, and then the taxes get reduced. A few people feel good along the way, but the planet loses.

bobinnv

Do we cut income taxes for the rich SUV drivers or for the poor and lower middle class?

The Hunt for the Snark, I believe.

"It's called a carbon tax, and it should be applied across the board to every industry that uses fossil fuels, every home or building with a heating system, every motorist, and every public transportation system."

Wouldn't it be vastly easier and more efficient to simply tax the fuels? You don't need to tax homes and buildings if you tax heating oil, natural gas, coal, etc. You don't need to tax forklifts if you tax diesel, gasoline, and natural gas. The tax should be put where it is easiest to collect.

Really you would only need to tax a few things: Fuel producers/importers pay a tax equal to the amount of fossile carbon they use/import, chemical factories pay for any carbon emissions they or thier products make from not-previously taxed fuel. Then we jack up the tax over some years until co2 output hits our target and adjust as necessary to match future targets.

Ron Byers wrote: "Of course, conservatives will scream that all liberals ever want to do is tax, tax, tax. Are their other market based solutions?"

The most widely discussed market-based solution is carbon-cap-and-trade system, which involves establishing national mandatory limits on carbon emissions -- which would require initial reductions and then would be steadily lowered to require additional reductions over time -- combined with tradeable emissions permits.

This approach is advocated, for example, by the US Climate Action Partnership, founding corporate members of which include Alcoa, BP America, Caterpillar Inc., Duke Energy, DuPont, FPL Group, General Electric, Lehman Brothers, PG&E Corporation and PNM Resources.

It is important to move beyond the Exxon-Mobil funded campaign of deceit about whether anthropogenic global warming and consequent climate change is real, to discussing actual solutions to the problem of reducing carbon emissions as rapidly as possible, as much as possible.

It is already too late to avert destructive climate change that is locked in the by CO2 we have already pumped into the atmosphere, which will continue to warm the Earth for centuries even if we stopped all emissions today. It may not be too late to avert truly catastrophic, civilization-ending, mass-extinction-of-all-life-inducing warming, if we act quickly to reduce emissions by 80 percent within years to at most a few decades.

And that reduction needs to be front-loaded with large initial reductions to reduce the risk of self-reinforcing feedbacks which will lead to dangerous warming beyond any possibility of human control. These feedbacks are already being observed.

"why was she so dismissive of a newspaper report that implied the exact same thing? Very mysterious."

Its hardly mysterious. She is a conservative who must maintain her conservative street cred, and she is accepting global warming. So she bashes the Guardian, a SOCIALIST newspaper in EUROPE. I suppose a little vitriol helps the truth go down.

You see even though the left was right about global warming, and even Drudge has accepted global warming, the left can never be right.

jefff is right. Unless you simply put a tax on the fuels, the government is going to have to come up with some IRS-like bureaucracy to administer who's using how much carbon.

Think about how you would have to do this for a typical house. What kind of car do you drive? How far and how often? Do you take mass transit? When, and how much? How many plane flights did you take? Where? What brand heaters do you use? How much electricity, and from what company?

Where are all the "privacy freaks" now?

Maybe you could deduct the trees in your yard as carbon-fixing dependents...

"But if we really want to have an impact on global warming, government mandates will be needed."

Nah. I think there are basically two main ideas:

1) Tax carbon, set the tax to control emissions. This means you set the tax at whatever you need to set it at to achieve the emissions target you want. If we are emitting too much we raise the tax until emissions go down, if we are emitting less we lower the tax and let them go up.

2) Limit emissions. There are two major ideas for how to do this.
A) Give or auction off carbon emission credits which can then be traded more or less freely. This is analogous to how we control access to radio wavelengths.
B) Regulate each instance of emission. So we say how much carbon a car can emit, and how much a farm can emit, and how much a cheeto factory can emit. This is analogous to how we control pollution emissions.

I think one weakness of 1 is that there are long lag times built in. Those lag times can be played with politically. It is pretty ridiculous to imagine that such a system would have been anything but useless for the past 8 years of republican control of government. Year after year they would lower the tax and allow more emissions. They would fire the scientists and appoint college republicans to run the agency designated to figure out what they tax should be each year.

The weakness of 2A is similar, but not as laggy. Europe has some carbon trading set up, but it is my understanding that industry lobbies ensured that the limits are higher than the total emissions, and I think they are given rather than auctioned, so the credits are very very cheap and don't prevent anyone from emitting at present.

2b I think makes more sense when you want to pretty much eliminate the pollutant, and when it is somewhat localized. We really don't want any mercury being released and we don't want factory X buying up all the mercury credits or just paying a big tax and filling some particular river with mercury. CO2 isn't localized and we can emit some fraction of what we do today safely (probably a pretty small fraction for this particular country).

All in all auctioning credits seems to have the edge to me over a carbon tax because I think it works better with human nature.

"All in all auctioning credits seems to have the edge to me over a carbon tax because I think it works better with human nature."

Which means, yea I agree, government mandates are the best way to go, but if there was a very robust consensus a carbon tax could also work... but it would really be an indirect mandate, so i'm pretty much quibbling anyway.

i like tuna

"Do we cut income taxes for the rich SUV drivers or for the poor and lower middle class?"

You cut income taxes for everyone to offset the amount collected by the carbon tax. That way you aren't really raising taxes, just changing what is taxed. So in fact "rich SUV owners" would be taxed more, because they are driving carbon emitting SUVs. And I would assume, as with income taxes, there would be some sort of break or credit for those with the lowest incomes.

i am a hobo writing to you now from a public lybrary i dont not have a good eduction and my name is ted i am eating cake mix.

dear josphen i am gay and want a divoce

Are their other market based solutions?

Tradable emissions rations (cap-and-trade) is similarly market-based, in a sense, and not much more complex in outline: neither is simple in execution, though.

Truly simple approaches will be fairly blunt, and non-market-based ones: banning internal combustion vehicles in certain areas; prohibiting new fossil fuel-based generating capacity except to replace less-efficient systems of similar capacity being decommissioned. A tax or cap-and-trade regime that captured every source of anthropogenic carbon emissions might be ideal, but it will be tremendously intrusive to administer anything even remotely approximating it, and difficult even with the intrusion to administer well. In practice, I expect we'll need a broad, approximate "carbon tax" (or system of carbon taxes that are coordinated to approximate a global carbon tax) that is minimally intrusive combined with a number of simpler, blunt, prohibitive policies.

So in fact "rich SUV owners" would be taxed more, because they are driving carbon emitting SUVs. And I would assume, as with income taxes, there would be some sort of break or credit for those with the lowest incomes.

It would have to be a big credit at the lower end. In the U.S., as around the world, it's the poor who can least afford to cut back on emissions of any kind. Solar power and hybrid cars are for the wealthy.

I'd bet that a 2006 SUV emits less carbon than a fifteen-year-old badly-maintained Chevy.

"And I would assume, as with income taxes, there would be some sort of break or credit for those with the lowest incomes."

Or, much more simply, we could just make the income tax more progressive to compensate. The overall tax system is what matters to people's budgets. Each individual tax doesn't need to be progressive. Make the taxes that are easy to make progressive progressive, not the ones that are hard.

So in fact "rich SUV owners" would be taxed more, because they are driving carbon emitting SUVs.

As would the poor, lower middle class folks driven out-of-date, out-of-shape inefficient gas-burning vehicles. The middle-class and up environmentalists who have both the inclination and means to maintain a comfortable lifestyle while bearing the high up-front costs of hybrid ownership, converting to more expensive but more efficient devices in the home, owning homes where they can choose more carbon-clean systems for heating, etc., will make out well.

Huge new taxes on anything that creates emissions, i.e. industry and technological civilization in general?

The simplest way to cut emissions and end up with a lot of carbon credits to sell is to do what Russia did: have an economic collapse. Taxing the hell out of productivity should work as well as anything else.

1) Tax carbon, set the tax to control emissions. This means you set the tax at whatever you need to set it at to achieve the emissions target you want. If we are emitting too much we raise the tax until emissions go down, if we are emitting less we lower the tax and let them go up.

Well, I think you miss one element of a tax; actions can directly offset emissions by sequestering carbon. You can, in theory, essentially build the cost of sequestration into the tax so that the level of emissions is almost irrelevant, those causing the emissions are paying directly for programs to neutralize the impacts.

"actions can directly offset emissions by sequestering carbon"

Well yea, you could have tax credits for sequestration. Under a carbon credit system you also might have the government giving credits to sequestration companies that they could then sell.

A carbon tax wouldn't be necessary if everyone simply traded their fossil fuels in for bio-fuels (because burning bio-fuels doesn't result in a net increase in atmospheric CO2)

A carbon tax wouldn't be necessary if everyone simply traded their fossil fuels in for bio-fuels

Or if magical carbon fairies came and cleaned up our atmosphere. OTOH, that's not going to happen, and neither is everyone going to simply trade in their fossil fuels for bio-fuels, even if it would be better if everyone did, without some rearrangement of the short-term incentives.

everyone simply traded their fossil fuels in for bio-fuels

Yes, please, let's have 1) more habitat destruction and 2) energy demand competing with food demand.

In Mexico they are already seeing a rise in the price of tortillas due in part to the increasing demand for ethanol in the US.

The complete revenues generated by carbon tax should be returned on a per capita basis to the citizens of the country. I would not even support using it for "deficit" reduction since Congress will just increase spending like it always does with new revenues.

I would not support any subsidies to any alternative energy sources. Like she says, keep it simple. Unfortunately, she thinks simple includes more government spending.

"Or, much more simply, we could just make the income tax more progressive to compensate"

"As would the poor, lower middle class folks driven out-of-date, out-of-shape inefficient gas-burning vehicles."

A lot of people want to debate tax policy, which is missing the point. The point of the carbon tax is to stop putting crap in the air, not to redistribute wealth or fix inequities in the current tax system. Like any consumption tax, it is likely to be "unfair" to some extent to the lowest income people, so maybe some sort of subsidy or break could be part of it for them. But the goal here is to get rid of these "out of date, inefficient gas burning vehicles", no matter who owns them.

If a carbon tax becomes just another additional tax on top of what everyone pays now, most people are going to see it as just another tax increase, and it isn't going to be very popular. If it is seen a shift in how taxes are collected, and not an increase, it is going to be much more palatable to most people.

Right, I'm not saying that you wouldn't have to have some sort of incentive (but not that much, biofuels are pretty competitively priced). But it is amazing that there is a solution to global warming right that no one is talking about.

"Yes, please, let's have 1) more habitat destruction and 2) energy demand competing with food demand.

In Mexico they are already seeing a rise in the price of tortillas due in part to the increasing demand for ethanol in the US."

We're talking about the end of the world as we know it. Tortilla prices in Mexico don't mean squat.

Having said that, tortilla prices don't have to go up...you can make ethanol out willow trees and switch grass and these things can grow on land that won't support corn or soybeans.

A lot of people want to debate tax policy, which is missing the point.

No, its disagreeing with you about what the point is, not missing it.

The point of the carbon tax is to stop putting crap in the air, not to redistribute wealth or fix inequities in the current tax system.

Correct. It exists to incentivize changes in behavior through penalizing undesirable behavior. This does not work if the people it is penalizing do not have the means to choose a more desirable behavior, and so it either produces no change in behavior while placing additional burdens, or it produces an undesirable change in behavior.

For this reason, the distributional impact of the tax is critical to understand since it goes directly to the issue of whether or not it can be expected to meet its goals.

Like any consumption tax, it is likely to be "unfair" to some extent to the lowest income people, so maybe some sort of subsidy or break could be part of it for them. But the goal here is to get rid of these "out of date, inefficient gas burning vehicles", no matter who owns them.

Which a carbon tax—which provides, in and of itself, no additional ability of the poor to replace them and, in and of itself, no additional capacity for them to operate without them does not do.

Which is a rather serious shortfall in meeting its desired goal.

If a carbon tax becomes just another additional tax on top of what everyone pays now, most people are going to see it as just another tax increase, and it isn't going to be very popular. If it is seen a shift in how taxes are collected, and not an increase, it is going to be much more palatable to most people.

Ah, so you want to skip past discussion of how to make the carbon tax work to discuss how to make it maximally politically palatable: and yet you have the gall to suggest everyone who disagrees with your focus is missing the point?

the poor, lower middle class folks driven out-of-date, out-of-shape inefficient gas-burning vehicles.

Several years ago my state paid a tax rebate to those who converted their new auto purchases to use natural gas. The tax rebate included the entire cost of the auto up to around $30,000, which came to the public's attention when the costs began to approach $300 million. Many wealthy people used the tax rebate from the state to purchase and convert their new SUV's. Some more enterprising individuals manipulated the system so that the state paid for whole fleets. Although the automobiles and trucks were converted to a less pollutiong fuel, they were dual use, so the owners could continue to use gasoline.

The whole program was exposed as welfare for the rich, with the Republican state legislator who wrote the law running in-house seminars to show his consitituents how to exploit the program. The program did very little to reduce air pollution in Phoenix, AZ, if at all, which was its stated purpose.

When I look at the amount of money spent, some estimates were as high as $500,000,000, I think of opportunity costs. If that money had been used to purchase stripped down Honda Civics and given to those insufficiently well off to afford new autos, the working poor and lower classes, in exchange for their high polluting old clunkers, it might have really reduced the air pollution in Phoenix. Instead, the Arizona taxpayers received nothing for their investment.

Unfortunately, unless very strong measures are implemented very soon, it will be too late to stop the envrironmental catastrophe our carbon emissions create. Reading the comments about carbon taxation, I fear that little will be done except to spend tax payer money purchasing wealthy people new boats while the seas rise.

"Be the beer you wish to drink."

The big chunk of money will be used primarily to feed the parasitical military industrial monster which is sucking the life blood from our country. The working poor will foot the bill. In order for a gas tax to have any effect on the upper classes, its magnitude will have to be crippling for those who can least afford to pay.

I'm not sure where the assumption came from that Applebaum is a conservative. There's something seriously wrong with liberals if the mere fact that someone wrote a book on the gulag and made it clear that they thought communism was a bad thing is automatically a conservative.

I should note that I don't have the foggiest clue what her politics are. I only know that she has had critical things to say re: Bush's foreign policy and European hypocrisy, and that she writes for Slate and the Washington Post.

I suppose if you're coming from the perspective of the Nation that makes someone a conservative, like, say, Al Gore.

Quite so, and virtually every serious analyst I've read agrees that a carbon tax is one of the primary building blocks for any effective global warming policy.

Does this mean that you are really in favor of a carbon tax? You frequently are in favor of a policy in principle right up until it is time to enact it.

Do you like the Democrats' "Clean Edge" proposal, and have you written to your senators encouraging them to enact it swiftly?

On another note, now that Indonesians have learned that important sources of fuel can be grown, they are commercially replanting their deforested land with bushes, shrubs, millet, and that sort of stuff for fuel. It is not an optimal substitute for natural reforestation, but it is a considerable improvement over what was done a few years ago. Because of the permanent root growth and ground litter from perennials (when they are used), and because the dry residue left over from fermentation can be returned to the farms in lieu of fertilizer, the growth of biological fuel sources provides a net sequestration of CO2 as the fuel is used.

Write to your representatives and tell them that you want the carbon tax NOW. With the economy growing, it is a good time for a small revenue enhancement targeted toward conserving dwindling resources (air, carbon-based fuel.)

Back to the Guardian and Applebaum: a 2-3 foot rise in sea level over a century will not be catastrophic no matter what is done, but it's cheaper to prevent than to adjust to, even though it may not even happen at all. Why not say that?

We're talking about the end of the world as we know it. Tortilla prices in Mexico don't mean squat.

Tell that to the people starving so that rich first worlders can continue driving SUVs powered by corn.

Having said that, tortilla prices don't have to go up...you can make ethanol out willow trees and switch grass and these things can grow on land that won't support corn or soybeans.

Which brings us back to habitat loss.

The solution for those of us who are interested in the continuance of human civilization without increasing our ecological footprint is to decrease consumption.

In Europe we pay about 1.20 EUR per liter gasoline. That is about 6$ per gallon. Miles per car and year are stable, overall gasoline consumption is declining. It works. And the money from that tax isn't gone, it replaces other taxation. So it stays in the local economy instead of filling the coffers of the House of Saud.

brojo: The yeast in every bottle of wine have this debate about whether their excrement, alcohol, will destroy their environment.

If we can't compare humans to hyenas, antelope, and lions, is it really respectable to compare them to yeast? It's this sort of exaggeration that gives environmentalists a bad reputation.

Any movement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (take note - CO2 is the most prevalent, but not the most potent) is going to take a long time to bear fruit. We'll need to concurrently work on removing it from the atmosphere if we're going to dodge the worst of the effects of anthropogenic climate change.
And there are other things at work, that make reducing CO2 important, but once we've crossed the threshold, CO2 will be a footnote in comparison. It may be that we simply don't have time to allow market economics and carbon taxation or trading to work.
Carbon taxes and sequestration are all well and good, but the first thing, the most important thing, has to be faced before we can do anything meaningful.
WE CANNOT CONTINUE TO LIVE LIKE THIS.
(by WE I mean residents of the USA and others in the "First World" - we help to inspire the folks in the developing world to be like us in our consumption, in addition to our profligate waste and output of greenhouse gases)

Until we've resolved that our societies must change considerably to avoid or mitigate a very real threat of destruction, we're just pissing in the wind.

For those interested, I suggest reading "Collapse" by Jared Diamond; there are some interesting parallels in his discussion of the collapse of several historic societies where climate changes and human activity intersected.

I'm not sure where the assumption came from that Applebaum is a conservative.

At best, Nathan displays his ignorance and/or lack of reading comprehension; at worse, this is just another deliberate distortion from a commentor with a long and sordid track record of same.

Good Ford, man, I pity your clients.

We'll need to concurrently work on removing it from the atmosphere if we're going to dodge the worst of the effects of anthropogenic climate change.

Agreed. One aspect of the problem which is not widely known is that global warming is not the only problem of increased levels of atmospheric CO2. As we continue to pump CO2 into the air, the ocean continues to absorb more CO2, which increases the acidity of the oceans, which is starting to have an effect on the phytoplankton. Some scientists are concerned that we could reach a tipping point where we have a cascade of massive phytoplankton die-off. Why should we care? Well, in addition to being the bottom of the food chain, and being a major carbon sink, phytoplankton is also the main source of O2 on the planet.

Gregory:

care to enlighten me?

From MatthewRMarler: is it really respectable to compare them (humans) to yeast

It depends. Who are we talking about?

"Having said that, tortilla prices don't have to go up...you can make ethanol out willow trees"

Thought poplar was the most common tree species mentioned in this context.

Anyway, cellulose-based ethanol is still a long way away. Separating the cellulose from the lignin and hemicellulose is not trival (acid hydrolysis is the current technology), and the enzyme cost is still high (although this is an easier problem to solve than the lignin separation one). Personally, I think gasification of cellulosic material is the better way to go.

But starch-based ethanol (the current version) is a real crock. It's barely energy-positive: 20% more energy out than is put in, because of the energy cost of creating fertilizers. Biodiesel is a lot better (300% more energy out than in, IIRC).

"and switch grass and these things can grow on land that won't support corn or soybeans."

Yeah, but even with those crops biomass can't meet the projected energy demands - it'll maybe meet about a 1/7th of the BTU demand. You need a mix of different technologies, regrettably including nuclear, to mitigate the problem. It's a lot of copper bullets, not a single silver one.

I'm not sure where the assumption came from that Applebaum is a conservative.

Hmmm, perhaps the fact that she once endorsed Oliver North for the Senate, as when she said that his "election would be a good thing for the Senate, on the theory every institution needs a gadfly"? [The Washington Post, 12/13/94]. Or perhaps her well-known reputation as a conservative?

There's something seriously wrong with liberals if the mere fact that someone wrote a book on the gulag and made it clear that they thought communism was a bad thing is automatically a conservative.

There's something seriously wrong with someone who assumes that the mere fact that someone wrote a book on the Gulag and made it clear that they thought Communism was a bad thing is the only reason why someone is considered a conservative.

Good Ford, man, I pity your clients.

At some point I Can't Believe It's a Law School! is going to ask for that degree back....

Nathan,

You would have better luck trying to get blood from a stone.

I'm not sure where the assumption came from that Applebaum is a conservative.

Could it be that she is an "adjunct scholar" at the American Enterprise Institute, for starters?

There's something seriously wrong with liberals if the mere fact that someone wrote a book on the gulag and made it clear that they thought communism was a bad thing is automatically a conservative.

Well, sure, if what you describe was the reason that "liberals" thought of Applebaum as a conservative, there would be a problem with liberals.

As it is, the problem seems to be elsewhere.

care to enlighten me?

Nathan, you are entirely immune to enlightenment, that much you've made pretty clear.

You would have better luck trying to get blood from a stone.
Posted by: Yancey Ward

... or doing your own research instead of being spoonfed.

jesus-f-christ, but conservatives bitch about everything ... just read some of her stuff and decide for yourself, you fucking ignoramus. It'll keep you from writing things like

I should note that I don't have the foggiest clue what her politics are.
Posted by: Nathan

I should note that I don't have the foggiest clue

Nathan, you should have put a period right there and been done posting; it would be completely accurate, and more worthwhile then everything else you've posted on the thread.

You would have better luck trying to get blood from a stone.

Yancey Ward is, surprisingly enough, correct, though as cmdicely pointed out, not for the reason he thinks he is.

Nathan, you should have put a period right there and been done posting; it would be completely accurate, and more worthwhile then everything else you've posted on anythread.

With respect, fixed it for you.

"Yeah, but even with those crops biomass can't meet the projected energy demands - it'll maybe meet about a 1/7th of the BTU demand."

What are/where are the calculations for this? I'd like to review them and see what assumptions are made.

"Anyway, cellulose-based ethanol is still a long way away."

Doesn't look that way:

(Wikipedia) On December 21, 2006, SunOpta Inc. announced a Joint Venture with GreenField Ethanol, Canada's largest ethanol producer. The joint venture will build a series of large-scale plants that will make ethanol from wood chips, with SunOpta and GreenField each taking 50% ownership. The first of these plants will be 10 million gallons per year, which appears to be the first true "commercial scale" cellulosic ethanol plant in the world.

Disputo,
It wasn't too long ago that I first heard about measurable decreases in ocean pH due to absorption of CO2. That made me sit up and say Holy Shit to myself several times.
I don't know if phytoplankton are as sensitive as corals and zooxanthellae, but even if they aren't, once the corals start dying off, there will be food shortages in the very near future. I'd like to think the phytoplankton have a sufficiently short reproductive cycle that they could adapt to increased acidity and avoid a total collapse of the oceanic food chain.

Didn't Clinton propose a carbon tax in his SOTU in about '93 or '94? How different would our situation be today if that had been passed?

Eric,
Any idea how many such plants would be required to replace annual oil usage for fuel, of some 880 million tonnes?(1999 figure)
http://www.nef1.org/ea/eastats.html

Or how about a 2004 figure of usage of gasoline, diesel and other fuels(I assume ethanol is one such) of 173,000 MILLION gallons? Wait, I did the arithmetic - it would be about 1700 such plants assuming available cellulose to keep them in production.
http://ops.fhwa.dot.gov/freight/freight_analysis/nat_freight_stats/docs/06factsfigures/table5_7.htm

Ethanol will play a part, I am sure. Just like sunscreen plays a part in the fight against skin cancer. But the problem is pretty large.

kenga,

I assume Eric's 10 million gallons figure is the actual output of the facility, not the net energy production (however, Eric can clarify if he wishes). If I am correct, then the actual figure for plants is going to be far higher. And did you even correct for the energy/volume difference of ethanol vs gasoline or diesel?

I assume Eric's 10 million gallons figure is the actual output of the facility, not the net energy production (however, Eric can clarify if he wishes). If I am correct, then the actual figure for plants is going to be far higher.

Aside from the energy content conversion you note later, total output is the right consideration, since the question was about replacing oil and/or gasoline as a fuel, so the right comparison is one of total fuel output.

Of course, if one wants to compare net energy, there is a point to that, but even then your conclusion isn't warranted, since oil has extraction, refining, and transportation costs, (energy and otherwise) too; so consideration of net yield may not make the comparison less favorable to this mode of ethanol production. (It may, but more assumptions are required to conclude that than you propose.)

"On December 21, 2006, SunOpta Inc. announced a Joint Venture with GreenField Ethanol, Canada's largest ethanol producer. The joint venture will build a series of large-scale plants that will make ethanol from wood chips, with SunOpta and GreenField each taking 50% ownership. The first of these plants will be 10 million gallons per year, which appears to be the first true "commercial scale" cellulosic ethanol plant in the world."

Look, I've been following cellulose-to-ethanol for about six years now, have an ex-colleague who did a PhD in it, sat through multiple technical sesssions on it, read volumes of NREL papers on it, did conceptual designs for cellulase enzyme production facilities, etc.

There have been multiple announcements about cellulosic ethanol plants, including one in the California central valley by Iogen that then died a quiet death. I'll believe in the joint venture you mention when there's steel and concrete in the ground. The technical challenges are not trival, and they're still using acid hydrolysis AFAIK.

Also, the plant you mention has (roughly, on the back of an envelope) maybe 8-10 million liters fermentation capacity. [By comparison, Kikkoman's soy sauce fermentation plant in Wisconsin is running about 130 million liters fermentation capacity.] The technology has a long, long way to go.

'"Yeah, but even with those crops biomass can't meet the projected energy demands - it'll maybe meet about a 1/7th of the BTU demand."

What are/where are the calculations for this? I'd like to review them and see what assumptions are made.'

US DoE estimates, IIRC, based on their estimates of the quads the US would consume to 2100 and the their estimates of the quads available using biomass on the most optimistic scenario, including cellulosics. After I saw that estimate, I realized that biomass is only part of the answer.

But still...you all agree that bio-fuels are large part of the solution to global warming...yet I haven't heard ANYONE talking about it. Why not?

I also think that a lot of people aren't taking into account the innovation and progress that could be made with bio-fuels if the US started treating this is as a viable solution to global warming.

I'm to the point that I think the US should pour ALL of its research dollars into this problem. Researching anything else seems like a waste, like getting dressed up just to commit suicide.

But still...you all agree that bio-fuels are large part of the solution to global warming...yet I haven't heard ANYONE talking about it. Why not?

I don't know why you haven't heard anything. I've heard people talking about them specifically, and talking about more general terms (renewables) that include, but are not limited to, biofuels.

I think biofuels are, as far as transporation is concerned, one of two major components: the other is electric (including hybrid) technology. Essentially, you offload what you can (especially short-range driving) onto the large-scale electric generation grid, which is generally more efficient than small-scale engines, and, being more centralized, is more amenable to shifting the balance of production through policy without getting intrusive, and for what you can't shift, you shift to burning biofuels instead of fossil fuels in small engines.

I'm to the point that I think the US should pour ALL of its research dollars into this problem.

I wouldn't go that far, in part because I think that its easy to miss with narrow-focus science so its good to keep researching things that don't yet seem directly applicable to where you want to go, particularly "general tool" technologies like computing. But I agree it ought to be the foremost national research priority.

"But still...you all agree that bio-fuels are large part of the solution to global warming"

I don't. I think they're about 16% of the solution. Google "stabilization wedges".

All right, you suckers win. I finally did some (more)research and it does look like currently we are on track to have 30% of our transportation fuel from bio-fuels by 2030 (but that's without really sacrificing--I bet we could double that if we put the hurt on). And since transportation is about 30% of our total energy use, it'll probably be about 10-15% of our total energy by then.

But I'm still holding out for genetically modified willow/poplar trees that will grow in the desert and spontaneously melt into ethanol after 5 years.

No longer a urinated State of America: Look, I've been following cellulose-to-ethanol for about six years now, have an ex-colleague who did a PhD in it, sat through multiple technical sesssions on it, read volumes of NREL papers on it, did conceptual designs for cellulase enzyme production facilities, etc.

Fair enough, but which is really more likely, ethanol from cellulose or a 3 foot rise in the ocean surface level? And which will occur first?

I don't. I think they're about 16% of the solution.

That's sufficient to eliminate imports of oil from the Middle East, and cost-effective on that alone. Definitely Yes! on the stabilization wedges.

For a light read on mangroves, and the amazing new mangrove forests in Eritrea, try the February 2007 issue of National Geographic. They are bound to be a large part of one of the stabilization wedges.

Carbon tax bad - its a tax.
Hard caps bad - government control.
Stabilization whatevers - not enough.
Try carbon credits - every resident is assigned the same number of carbon credits which are needed to buy gas, oil, etc. If you don't need your credits, you auction them off. If you need more credits, you buy them at auction. Every year the number of credits issued is reduced by a planned amount so people can project how many they will need and can afford. Simple, innovative, free market, penalizes waste and helps the poor.

Is the nuclear power route feasible? Or are Americans just too afraid of it? You'd think with our wide open spaces, that power plants could be located away from densely populated areas.

Massive amounts of electric power = electric cars and light rail.

margrave: Try carbon credits ... Simple, innovative, free market, penalizes waste and helps the poor.

An administrative and bookkeeping nightmare. It's not just gasoline and home heating fuel that spew fossil carbon. Ride on mass transit or an airplane and that does it. Buy anything in a store and fossil carbon was used to transport it to the store (not to mention heating or cooling the store). Every manufactured item and almost all food you buy involved emitting fossil carbon. How are you going to track all that?

The same effect could be achieved by instituting a carbon tax on all sales of fossil fuels (no exemptions for governments please) and giving everyone an equal tax credit so that the net effect was revenue neutral.

sara,

The estimate I saw said we'd need 350 new nuclear plants to replace the oil we use today. Remote location or not that is a LOT of new nuclear plants. Then there is the problem of nuclear fuel. The safe stuff is running out. The plentiful stuff is easy to turn into a bomb.

I wish people would do a little research and pay attention to the numbers, especially the SCALES.

I am sick to death of people thinking we can all fill up on waste oil from Chinese restaurants or we can build 350 nuclear plants or we can, of all things, burn our food. The latest pie in the sky is ethanol from cellulose. It seems every politician in the world is mentioning this, failing to mention that while we CAN do this (they used that technique in WWII) it has serious technical problems. First you need to get at the cellulose, usually done with acid, and then you need to break the cellulose down into sugar. They are hoping they can find an enzyme to do this, but they don't have one so far.

Try carbon credits ... Simple, innovative, free market, penalizes waste and helps the poor.

And a transaction and accounting cost nightmare.

aw, I see that alex beat me to it

Try carbon credits ... Simple, innovative, free market, penalizes waste and helps the poor.

Simple means limit it to a small group of products where it will do the most good - don't try and track carbon through the whole economy. And a carbon tax with a tax credit is not the same at all.

A nightmare is what we'll get if we don't do something different. Carbon credits are an accounting challenge which is a walk in the park compared to the alternatives.

margrave: Carbon tax bad - its a tax.

It's simple. The federal government right now is running a deficit, which increases the interest that has to be paid, and the deficit will not come down soon. If you think the feds collect too much money, reduce another tax.

The estimate I saw said we'd need 350 new nuclear plants to replace the oil we use today.

that's hardly insurmountable. to start with, 35 would reduce the oil consumption 10%, and that is a good start.

People write as if the whole problem has to be solved all at once and only one way.

The demand for gasoline is relatively inelastic. It does not drop as price rises. The recent runnup of gasoline prices in the US has caused usage to fall slightly and plateau. It can be assumed that a carbon tax would have the same effect on usage. We need to view a carbon tax not as a way to reduce demand but as a revenue source to fund research into viable alternatives.

Also the US is not Europe. We don't live in hamlets clustered around a castle in countries smaller than most states. Our national forest is bigger than the largest country in Europe. We can't simply walk or ride a bike to work if we can't afford to drive.

35 [new nuke plants] would reduce the oil consumption 10%

So would decent CAFE standards, and you don't have to bury them in Yucca Mt.

Forget higher motor fuel taxes due to our geography and regressivity of the tax on the poor, etc. Do a combination of the following:

1) Grow nuclear (not flat-out but steady) and carbon sequestered (possible?) coal electricity production to push energy from transportation hydrocarbon fuel to the electrical grid.

2) Use some of the added electrical capacity to hydrogenate existing transportation fuels and to make available added power for plug-in hybrids and pure electric vehicles.

3) Push biodiesels development for the rural consumers (where hybrids and electrics are less practical and efficient).

4) Aggressive CAFE structual changes to get the transportation sector lighter much quicker to cut demand rapidly. Government work with the auto industry to help.

"First you need to get at the cellulose, usually done with acid, and then you need to break the cellulose down into sugar. They are hoping they can find an enzyme to do this, but they don't have one so far."

Nitpick: they do in fact use an enzyme (actually a complex of three enzymes: endocellulases, exocellulases, and cellubiosase) to do cellulose-to-fermentable sugar. The problem is that relative to, say, starch-degrading enzymes, the cellulase complex is sloooow, and the action of each enzyme in the enzyme complex is inhibited by the intermediate product, so you have to have the enzymes in the complex expressed in an optimal ratio and be able to degrade the intermediate products: hence they're looking at breaking down the cellulose and fermenting to ethanol in the same vessel. Both of the big enzyme companies have worked on upgrading both enzyme expression and protein engineering on improving the enzyme turnover, but there's still a long way to go, as I said above.

"1) Grow nuclear (not flat-out but steady) and carbon sequestered (possible?) coal electricity production"

Yeah, sequestering CO2 is possible (it's currently being done at a couple of oil/gas fields), and you can do it on coal plants, although more the IGCC plants (turn coal + water into hydrogen and carbon monoxide, and then burn that in a Gas/Steam turbine cycle). IGCC plants are still in the development stage.

Fair enough, but which is really more likely, ethanol from cellulose or a 3 foot rise in the ocean surface level? And which will occur first?

Ethanol from cellulose exists now; it is therefore both more likely and will occur first. What do I win?

That's sufficient to eliminate imports of oil from the Middle East, and cost-effective on that alone.

Our sensitivity to events in the Middle East where it concerns oil does not come from the (relatively small share of our total consumption) oil we import from the Middle East, but rather from the fact that events in the Middle East affect world oil prices, and therefore the prices we pay for the oil we import from elsewhere, even Mexico and Venezuela (particularly the latter, since it is an OPEC member.)

cmdicely wrote: "Our sensitivity to events in the Middle East where it concerns oil does not come from the (relatively small share of our total consumption) oil we import from the Middle East, but rather from the fact that events in the Middle East affect world oil prices ..."

There are some other factors.

Middle Eastern oil is of higher quality and is much less expensive to extract (i.e. more profitable) than oil from most other places in the world. Also, geologists who study the "peak oil" issue say that most other major oil reserves throughout the world will be depleted well before the Middle Eastern reserves, so as time goes on, the Middle East will become more important than it already is to the world's oil supply.

The interest of the Cheney Cartel is not so much about getting access to Middle Eastern oil, but about gaining control of Middle Eastern oil. Or put another way, the Cheney Cartel doesn't care so much about whether American consumers or anyone else can buy Middle Eastern oil -- they care about who gets the profits from selling it. And they want to be the ones in a position to control and profit from that oil, because whoever is in that position in the coming era of post-peak oil production decline will become so wealthy that last year's $40 billion dollar profit for Exxon-Mobil will look like small change.

Democrat Robert Samuelson writes a regular collumn on economics in the Washington Post. Excerpts:

We Have No Global Warming Solution

Don't be fooled. The dirty secret about global warming is this: We have no solution. About 80 percent of the world's energy comes from fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural gas), the main sources of man-made greenhouse gases. Energy use sustains economic growth, which -- in all modern societies -- buttresses political and social stability. Until we can replace fossil fuels, or find practical ways to capture their emissions, governments will not sanction the deep energy cuts that would truly affect global warming....

In 2004, world emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2, the main greenhouse gas) totaled 26 billion metric tons. Under plausible economic and population assumptions, they'll grow to 40 billion tons by 2030, projects the International Energy Agency in Paris. About three-quarters of the increase comes from developing countries, two-fifths from China alone. By 2009, the IEA expects China to pass the United States as the largest source of CO2.

Poor countries won't sacrifice economic growth -- lowering poverty, fostering political stability -- to placate the rich world's global warming fears. Why should they?...Nor will existing technologies, aggressively deployed, rescue us.

What we really need is a more urgent program of research and development, focusing on nuclear power, electric batteries, alternative fuels and the capture of CO2. Naturally, there's no guarantee that socially acceptable and cost-competitive new technologies will result. But without them, global warming is more or less on automatic pilot.

"The demand for gasoline is relatively inelastic."

No, its relatively inelastic for small changes from the prices of a few years ago. I calculated it for myself a few years ago when I was commuting by car and gasoline was only about 1/4 of the cost of car ownership (I think I asumed $3.50 gas, as I was trying to estimate total lifetime cost of the car). I don't find it suprising that a 1/8th increase in the cost of car transport against a background of continuing suburban sprawl has had a modest effect. The fact that it has had any effect seems to indicate that there is quite a bit of elasticity.

I do find it telling that in this discussion virtually everyone is talking about how to get cars to emit slightly less carbon and very few people even mention building mass transit or ending the subsidization of suburban sprawl. Residents of New York City use something like 50% of the energy of average americans and it's not because they have a hydrogen economy, its because the denser urban lifestyle is more efficient in its use of the entire range of resources. They use less fossil fuel, they produce less garbage, they use less wood, they produce less toxic runoff, they treat their waste better, they use less stone, they use less metal, etc, etc. Without even really trying cities are vastly more efficient than sprawl, and it is straightforward and not costly to reduce the resource usage of a modern american city by another 50% with already existing technology.

"...that there is quite a bit of elasticity...." in automobile transportation.

I do find it telling that in this discussion virtually everyone is talking about how to get cars to emit slightly less carbon

Actually, the biofuels discussion that has taken up much of the thread is about how to get cars completely carbon-neutral, not "to emit slightly less carbon".

and very few people even mention building mass transit or ending the subsidization of suburban sprawl.

Those are, frankly, long-term transformations, they are important, but unlikely to go far until the first steps (like a carbon tax) are implemented, IMO.

That being said, they are essential in the long-term.

Residents of New York City use something like 50% of the energy of average americans and it's not because they have a hydrogen economy, its because the denser urban lifestyle is more efficient in its use of the entire range of resources. They use less fossil fuel, they produce less garbage, they use less wood, they produce less toxic runoff, they treat their waste better, they use less stone, they use less metal, etc, etc. Without even really trying cities are vastly more efficient than sprawl, and it is straightforward and not costly to reduce the resource usage of a modern american city by another 50% with already existing technology.

Of course, they pay for it by being, in many ways, comparatively unhealthy, unsafe places to live. If we want to reverse the preference for sprawl (which, it goes without saying, in the long-term, environmentally, we do), we need to work really hard on making cities more livable in this country.

"We Have No Global Warming Solution
"Democrat Robert Samuelson"

There's a surprise. I've always though of Samuelson as a right-wing hack who never fails to regurgitate GOP spin.

"Don't be fooled. The dirty secret about global warming is this: We have no solution."

Samuelson hasn't a clue, frankly. We have the ability to capture CO2, and have been doing it for a century or so since Haber invented the Haber process for ammonia, and pumping CO2 back into the ground (for tertiary oil recovery) for decades now. This is an eminently soluble problem at the $100/tonne CO2 level or lower with current technology. The electricity generation infrastructure would be hit hard with increased capital as well as operating costs, but the good news is that electricity generation infrastructure isn't a big portion of GDP.

More R&D will push the cost down. And the best method of developing new technologies is to make the price of CO2 emissions greater than zero, be it through cap-and-trade or a carbon emissions tax.

"Actually, the biofuels discussion that has taken up much of the thread is about how to get cars completely carbon-neutral, not "to emit slightly less carbon"."

Actually, CMD, biofuels aren't completely carbon-neutral, because of the fossil fuel used to produce the hydrogen to make the ammonia to make the fertilizers used in growing the crops, plus the energy consumed in cultivating the crops and transportation. They're less CO2-emitting than fossil fuels, of course, but not completely free.

Don't fergit the CO2 emitted during manufacturing.

"Of course, they pay for it by being, in many ways, comparatively unhealthy, unsafe places to live."

Overall, however, it is the suburbanites who are definately less healthy when properly compared (eg correcting for income). In very important ways they are also less safe, for example vehicle accidents.

Suburbanites have the same health profile as urbanites four years older:
http://health.dailynewscentral.com/content/view/00045/48/

Suburbs are more dangerous for both pedestrians and drivers, and motor vehicle accidents are the leading cause of death for americans 1-34:
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1448007

The suburbs are not safer. People think they are because people are very bad at analyzing risk and because there is a large amount of marketing designed to convince of it. The same way people think SUV's are safer when in fact they are equally dangerous to the people in them and more dangerous to others. The same way people are actually (I find this ridiculous, but I have observed it on multiple occasions) personally afraid of being killed by terrorists.

Mmm, this should be an interesting paper. "Report on public health and urban sprawl in ontario: a review of the pertinent literature"
http://www.ocfp.on.ca/local/files/Communications/Current%20Issues/Urban%20Sprawl-Jan-05.pdf

"Although there appears to be many benefits to suburban life: less exposure to noise
pollution, less overcrowding, decreased stigma and fear of crime, and a greater
experience of nature, there is a growing body of evidence that suggests that the negative
health impacts are enormous and ultimately far outweigh these benefits."

sara wrote: "The estimate I saw said we'd need 350 new nuclear plants to replace the oil we use today."

Marler replied: "that's hardly insurmountable. to start with, 35 would reduce the oil consumption 10%, and that is a good start."

Leaving aside for the moment the merits of nuclear power vs. clean renewable sources of electricity (principally wind and solar), with regard to reducing GHG emissions these are direct replacements for coal and natural gas fueled electrical generation -- but not for oil which is hardly used at all for electrical generation in the US; it is used primarily for liquid fuels for the transportation sector.

For nuclear, wind or solar to replace any significant amount of oil, we have to convert vehicles -- e.g. cars, buses, trains -- to run on some form of stored electricity, either from batteries or hydrogen fuel cells, and we have to have an infrastructure to distribute electricity to them.

So it isn't just a matter of building X number of nuclear power plants, or wind turbines or PV panels, it is a matter of building a fleet of electric vehicles and the grid to charge them.

I am actually very much in favor of doing that -- not with nuclear power, but with wind turbine farms and distributed rooftop PV distributing electricity through a next generati