4 ms·

> have "safety of environment" as a clear and unambiguous incentive That's non-trivial to do in practice. It's already incentivized, via inspections and fines

by ethbro 7y ago

> have "safety of environment" as a clear and unambiguous incentive That's non-trivial to do in practice. It's already incentivized, via inspections and fines. What you're presumably talking about is prioritizing it above other incentives. Which gets into how much risk is acceptable and how much risk mitigation is reasonable to pay for. Hint: never enough that risk approaches zero. I absolutely think fines (and especially inspections, or likelihood of catching violations) should be increased, but the world economy is still transitioning off oil. It's easy to forget that we can absolutely put such a premium on risk that energy prices spike, that suppresses downstream consumers and economic activity, that causes worse outcomes. IMHO, accelerating the shift to clean renewables, while simultaneously continuing to raise fines and regulation on oil pipelines as the actual energy mix shifts is the optimal choice.

hanniabu 7y ago
> That's non-trivial to do in practice. $1M fine for every gallon spilled. Any attempts to falsify data will lead to imprisonment and 5x fines per gallon. Boom, properly incentivized.
- ethbro 7y ago
  And what effect does that have on energy prices?
  - cannonedhamster 7y ago
    Who cares? The market will adapt.
    - manigandham 7y ago
      Billions of people care. The market is you and your family as you deal with increased costs of living or lack of power and other goods.
  - cmiles74 7y ago
    Slightly more expensive to the energy companies, cheaper for the countries the pipeline travels through and the people who live there. I'm not seeing a downside.
mindslight 7y ago
> It's easy to forget that we can absolutely put such a premium on risk that energy prices spike, that suppresses downstream consumers and economic activity, that causes worse outcomes. This kind of undermines the validity of your point, as it carries an assumption of wanting to churn through as many natural resources as possible. If you care about environmental sustainability, every time you hear "reduced economic activity" you should think "sounds great!". We've figured out how to produce so much stuff that our homes are full and we throw things away every several years to get new ones. Economic priests want to keep the machine running full tilt under a misguided idea that sustainability can somehow be priced in. But compare the general time to fix (or simply maintain!) something at your general hourly rate to the cost of buying a shiny new one. Thinking that this harsh dynamic can be abstracted and then recouped somewhere else is simply more unsustainable bubble thinking.
- ethbro 7y ago
  It's a straw man to cast all concerns about economy sustainability as "exploit natural resources as quickly as we can." There are serious, life-threatening concerns about reorienting the world to a lower-growth, lower-carbon model. And to substitute fervor for fact is just as much of a fallacy as the global free trade crowd committed, before recently admitting that maybe they should have thought harder about the dislocating side effects and funding strategic workforce reskilling programs. We don't get to a brighter future by ignoring the hard questions and consequences of proposed paths.
  - mindslight 7y ago
    Sure, any sort of abrupt change has serious (possibly life threatening) concerns. But there is a difference in arguing for caution, and perpetuating the same assumptions that have lead to the current state of affairs. Drawing attention to one of those assumptions rather than letting it continue in the background does not make for a straw man. "Economic activity" directly translates into "use natural resources". The overwhelming fallacy seems to be this idea that sustainability will somehow eventually, not today, but some day soon, be priced into the economy such that we can have large sums sloshing back and forth but the externalities will be fully captured. This seems like an economically convenient myth, analogous to the free trade crowd's handwaving about comparative advantage. Sorry I did not see how to succinctly express the overall arc of what I said with less "fervor". If two people are having a casual conversation about say baseball, but you think it is harmful and destructive, it's impossible to express without sounding like a looney. (I used baseball because I think it's innocuous. Whereas any real example would inherently be polarizing).
einpoklum 7y ago
> It's already incentivized, via inspections and fines. Well, the inspections aren't happening - since major leaks are happening. And the fines are very small, otherwise a bunch of these companies would have gone under. More importantly - no criminal charges against the management of these companies and the engineers who signed off on the thing.

by ethbro 7y ago

hanniabu 7y ago

> That's non-trivial to do in practice. $1M fine for every gallon spilled. Any attempts to falsify data will lead to imprisonment and 5x fines per gallon. Boom, properly incentivized.

ethbro 7y ago
And what effect does that have on energy prices?
- cannonedhamster 7y ago
  Who cares? The market will adapt.
  - manigandham 7y ago
    Billions of people care. The market is you and your family as you deal with increased costs of living or lack of power and other goods.
- cmiles74 7y ago
  Slightly more expensive to the energy companies, cheaper for the countries the pipeline travels through and the people who live there. I'm not seeing a downside.

mindslight 7y ago

> It's easy to forget that we can absolutely put such a premium on risk that energy prices spike, that suppresses downstream consumers and economic activity, that causes worse outcomes. This kind of undermines the validity of your point, as it carries an assumption of wanting to churn through as many natural resources as possible. If you care about environmental sustainability, every time you hear "reduced economic activity" you should think "sounds great!". We've figured out how to produce so much stuff that our homes are full and we throw things away every several years to get new ones. Economic priests want to keep the machine running full tilt under a misguided idea that sustainability can somehow be priced in. But compare the general time to fix (or simply maintain!) something at your general hourly rate to the cost of buying a shiny new one. Thinking that this harsh dynamic can be abstracted and then recouped somewhere else is simply more unsustainable bubble thinking.

ethbro 7y ago
It's a straw man to cast all concerns about economy sustainability as "exploit natural resources as quickly as we can." There are serious, life-threatening concerns about reorienting the world to a lower-growth, lower-carbon model. And to substitute fervor for fact is just as much of a fallacy as the global free trade crowd committed, before recently admitting that maybe they should have thought harder about the dislocating side effects and funding strategic workforce reskilling programs. We don't get to a brighter future by ignoring the hard questions and consequences of proposed paths.
- mindslight 7y ago
  Sure, any sort of abrupt change has serious (possibly life threatening) concerns. But there is a difference in arguing for caution, and perpetuating the same assumptions that have lead to the current state of affairs. Drawing attention to one of those assumptions rather than letting it continue in the background does not make for a straw man. "Economic activity" directly translates into "use natural resources". The overwhelming fallacy seems to be this idea that sustainability will somehow eventually, not today, but some day soon, be priced into the economy such that we can have large sums sloshing back and forth but the externalities will be fully captured. This seems like an economically convenient myth, analogous to the free trade crowd's handwaving about comparative advantage. Sorry I did not see how to succinctly express the overall arc of what I said with less "fervor". If two people are having a casual conversation about say baseball, but you think it is harmful and destructive, it's impossible to express without sounding like a looney. (I used baseball because I think it's innocuous. Whereas any real example would inherently be polarizing).

einpoklum 7y ago

> It's already incentivized, via inspections and fines. Well, the inspections aren't happening - since major leaks are happening. And the fines are very small, otherwise a bunch of these companies would have gone under. More importantly - no criminal charges against the management of these companies and the engineers who signed off on the thing.