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The issue isn’t green energy production and resale, but double counting of credits. Multiple players claiming “green energy” (leaving out whether it’s productio

The issue isn’t green energy production and resale, but double counting of credits. Multiple players claiming “green energy” (leaving out whether it’s production or consumption), while none take responsibility for the fossil fuels. Energy is fungible, meaning they only sell the credits and use the green power internally. Now suddenly they use originally “green” power, never mind that the credits have been sold and someone else is doing the same. Google “Norway green energy” to get a feel for what it looks like in the media. There is no need for them to sell many of those credits, as evidenced by the fact that they don’t even transfer much of that power. Don’t forget that they lower that penalty by increasing supply. If they went off the market, other, domestic players would get more money for their own production. And Norwegians are lulled into a false sense of green compliance, thereby being less incentivised to root for reduction of fossil fuel consumption. It’s a great example for the expression “having your cake and eating it, too.” If you ever need to explain that one :)

avar 7y ago
Respectfully, you're continuing to entirely misunderstand how this works. There isn't double-counting, that's the entire point of the system where "green" producers end up with "dirty" credits, because a "dirty" pays that "green" provider to take its credits in exchange, to prevent double counting. But the notion of which sort of credit you buy and what sort of energy you actually produce are two separate things. As an example Iceland is exempt from certain EU/EEA energy efficiency regulation because of its near-100% use of green energy, even though its power companies have something like >80% "dirty" energy credits on hand. This is because the regulators can distinguish between a "dirty" power plant with 100% green credits on hand (i.e. they've subsidized a "green" power plant) v.s. a "green" power plant with 100% green credits on hand. > There is no need for them to sell > many of those credits, as evidenced > by the fact that they don’t even transfer > much of that power. I think this is the crux of the issue and shows just how thoroughly you're missing the point of this system. The electron that comes through your socket doesn't need to be generated by a "green" power plant for you to consume "green" energy, this is because electrons are fungible. Of course we also want to shift to 100% green energy power plants, but in the meantime energy demand is also elastic. The point of the energy credit system is to shift electricity demand from areas that supply real "dirty" energy to those that supply "real" green energy. This happens because a "green" power plant in Norway might sell its energy for 20 cents/kWh, which would be the same as a "dirty" power plant in Denmark. But if the "dirty" plant needs to buy "green" credits from the Norwegian one it might have to raise its prices to 25 cents/kWh, and the Norwegian one can lower them to 15 cents/kWh. This would then have the effect that an energy consumer (say a factory) might move its operation to Norway to benefit from cheaper energy, or consumers would buy the subsidized Norwegian product over the Danish one. Except for the small detail that it doesn't actually have much of an effect from a macro-economic point of view, but that's because we collectively think this whole climate change thing isn't really all that important, and thus the energy credits are relatively cheap and add almost nothing to the end-user price. But that's the fault of political priorities, the system itself is relatively elegant and would have more of an effect if its designed was backed up by larger political commitments.
- belorn 7y ago
  You don't need to prepend "Respectfully" in order to insult. You can just go ahead and say it directly, and what you are doing is helping climate change skeptics by hiding the fact that coal that was once in the ground is now being burned and released into the air as pollution. If you dig out coal and burn it in a power plant then you are producing pollution and contributing to global warming. No amount of exporting green energy changes that fact. You are trying to dodge the question why there is a big whole in the ground where the coal once where. Someone mined it. Someone burned it. Someone bought it. Each and everyone involved are partly responsible for the harm this act caused to the environment. It is a bit like thief stealing, a fence reselling it and a customer buying it without asking questions of why it is so cheap. It is not an elegant system because in the end a crime occurred and real harm has happened. If you want to produce green energy or run a nuclear plant then do what ever feels best, but the coal stays in the ground. No amount of misleading can hide the fact that digging it out is harmful to the planet, both on a macro and micro level, and if you fund coal mining by buying their energy then you are part of the problem.
  - avar 7y ago
    It's not being hidden, it's being exhaustively documented. Of course burning coal sucks, and we should replace those power plants. But until then we can also discourage their use by subsidising clean energy at their expense. That's what this system is meant to accomplish. It's beyond me how someone can look at what's effectively a tax on non-renewables as whitewashing those energy sources. You tax behavior you want to discourage.
    - belorn 7y ago
      When society collectively decide that something suck we have a simple mechanism to fix it. We make it illegal. Theft suck. We have thus laws against it. A carbon tax in the energy sector helps but it is a rather inefficient method compared to simply keeping the coal in the ground. People keep finding ways to make profits from digging the coal out and burning it, and Sweden is currently a customer to those people. The system has not been successful in keeping the coal in the ground. What it currently accomplishing in Sweden is the opposite, as Swedish use of coal energy has increased. A simple law would fix that, and it doesn't require a discussion about what energy should be subsidized. The only thing required is a stroke of the law writers pen. It is the easiest, simplest and most efficient solution in keeping the coal in the ground and the only reason people are not doing it is that people want to keep buying the energy produced by burning coal.

avar 7y ago

Respectfully, you're continuing to entirely misunderstand how this works. There isn't double-counting, that's the entire point of the system where "green" producers end up with "dirty" credits, because a "dirty" pays that "green" provider to take its credits in exchange, to prevent double counting. But the notion of which sort of credit you buy and what sort of energy you actually produce are two separate things. As an example Iceland is exempt from certain EU/EEA energy efficiency regulation because of its near-100% use of green energy, even though its power companies have something like >80% "dirty" energy credits on hand. This is because the regulators can distinguish between a "dirty" power plant with 100% green credits on hand (i.e. they've subsidized a "green" power plant) v.s. a "green" power plant with 100% green credits on hand. > There is no need for them to sell > many of those credits, as evidenced > by the fact that they don’t even transfer > much of that power. I think this is the crux of the issue and shows just how thoroughly you're missing the point of this system. The electron that comes through your socket doesn't need to be generated by a "green" power plant for you to consume "green" energy, this is because electrons are fungible. Of course we also want to shift to 100% green energy power plants, but in the meantime energy demand is also elastic. The point of the energy credit system is to shift electricity demand from areas that supply real "dirty" energy to those that supply "real" green energy. This happens because a "green" power plant in Norway might sell its energy for 20 cents/kWh, which would be the same as a "dirty" power plant in Denmark. But if the "dirty" plant needs to buy "green" credits from the Norwegian one it might have to raise its prices to 25 cents/kWh, and the Norwegian one can lower them to 15 cents/kWh. This would then have the effect that an energy consumer (say a factory) might move its operation to Norway to benefit from cheaper energy, or consumers would buy the subsidized Norwegian product over the Danish one. Except for the small detail that it doesn't actually have much of an effect from a macro-economic point of view, but that's because we collectively think this whole climate change thing isn't really all that important, and thus the energy credits are relatively cheap and add almost nothing to the end-user price. But that's the fault of political priorities, the system itself is relatively elegant and would have more of an effect if its designed was backed up by larger political commitments.

belorn 7y ago
You don't need to prepend "Respectfully" in order to insult. You can just go ahead and say it directly, and what you are doing is helping climate change skeptics by hiding the fact that coal that was once in the ground is now being burned and released into the air as pollution. If you dig out coal and burn it in a power plant then you are producing pollution and contributing to global warming. No amount of exporting green energy changes that fact. You are trying to dodge the question why there is a big whole in the ground where the coal once where. Someone mined it. Someone burned it. Someone bought it. Each and everyone involved are partly responsible for the harm this act caused to the environment. It is a bit like thief stealing, a fence reselling it and a customer buying it without asking questions of why it is so cheap. It is not an elegant system because in the end a crime occurred and real harm has happened. If you want to produce green energy or run a nuclear plant then do what ever feels best, but the coal stays in the ground. No amount of misleading can hide the fact that digging it out is harmful to the planet, both on a macro and micro level, and if you fund coal mining by buying their energy then you are part of the problem.
- avar 7y ago
  It's not being hidden, it's being exhaustively documented. Of course burning coal sucks, and we should replace those power plants. But until then we can also discourage their use by subsidising clean energy at their expense. That's what this system is meant to accomplish. It's beyond me how someone can look at what's effectively a tax on non-renewables as whitewashing those energy sources. You tax behavior you want to discourage.
  - belorn 7y ago
    When society collectively decide that something suck we have a simple mechanism to fix it. We make it illegal. Theft suck. We have thus laws against it. A carbon tax in the energy sector helps but it is a rather inefficient method compared to simply keeping the coal in the ground. People keep finding ways to make profits from digging the coal out and burning it, and Sweden is currently a customer to those people. The system has not been successful in keeping the coal in the ground. What it currently accomplishing in Sweden is the opposite, as Swedish use of coal energy has increased. A simple law would fix that, and it doesn't require a discussion about what energy should be subsidized. The only thing required is a stroke of the law writers pen. It is the easiest, simplest and most efficient solution in keeping the coal in the ground and the only reason people are not doing it is that people want to keep buying the energy produced by burning coal.