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I don't think this is a bad idea, and would vote for this to happen in my state. The problem is that if only one state does this at significant expense, they w

I don't think this is a bad idea, and would vote for this to happen in my state. The problem is that if only one state does this at significant expense, they won't see any appreciable benefit because the rest of the states and the rest of the world would still be emitting CO2. So one state has huge expenses with an unlikely payback, AND they won't benefit from the economies of scale that everyone else will if they do get around to converting. It's a hard sell. I think the best way to look at it is that non renewable energy does has huge hidden costs to society. Converting to renewables is the rational action, so if we use a cap or a carbon tax to price non renewables appropriately the price of each will reflect that. *edited for typos

anamax 16y ago
> AND they won't benefit from the economies of scale that everyone else will Most of the "economies of scale" happen at a fairly modest level. In fact, there are actually diseconomies at extreme scale. (The US Govt is a nice example.) > The problem is that if only one state does this at significant expense, they won't see any appreciable benefit The claim was that the expense wasn't significant, that it was mostly just "will". > if we use a cap or a carbon tax to price non renewables appropriately And what makes you think that the price will be "appropriate"? The arguments for carbon taxes and the like are comparing an abstract ideal with what we got through the political process. That's a meaningless comparison because that processh pretty much guarantees that the nice properties of the ideal won't be realized if we try to implement it. When a proposal contains basic errors like those mentioned above, what are the odds that the rest of it is sound?
- schwabacher 16y ago
  Do you think the price of energy now is appropriate? There are clearly negative externalities associated with CO2 emissions that aren't taken into account in the price today. Wouldn't an artificially high price of carbon emissions be quite a bit better than an artificially low one?
  - anamax 16y ago
    > There are clearly negative externalities associated with CO2 emissions that aren't taken into account in the price today. I'd be more sympathetic to your externalities argument if there was some evidence that you weren't just using it as an excuse to do what you want to do for other reasons. For example, you're ignoring the negative externalities of your proposal. And then there's the small matter that the predicted cost of the externalities is significantly lower than cost of the "solution". Money has positive time value. What? You don't like numerical arguments? Or, is it that you didn't know that the numbers existed? > Wouldn't an artificially high price of carbon emissions be quite a bit better than an artificially low one? No. Or rather, it depends on the magnitudes of "high" and "low". Most folks who complain about subidized energy miscount. Feel free to demonstrate that you'r an exception.
zeteo 16y ago
Right, one state won't make a big difference in global CO2 emissions, but the point is to lead by example. There are a lot of people / political entities sitting on the fence right now, because it is unknown what the cost would be for these projects, or even if they're feasible and would work as intended. If they are shown to work in one place, and at an affordable cost, they would be a much easier sell to everyone else.

anamax 16y ago

> AND they won't benefit from the economies of scale that everyone else will Most of the "economies of scale" happen at a fairly modest level. In fact, there are actually diseconomies at extreme scale. (The US Govt is a nice example.) > The problem is that if only one state does this at significant expense, they won't see any appreciable benefit The claim was that the expense wasn't significant, that it was mostly just "will". > if we use a cap or a carbon tax to price non renewables appropriately And what makes you think that the price will be "appropriate"? The arguments for carbon taxes and the like are comparing an abstract ideal with what we got through the political process. That's a meaningless comparison because that processh pretty much guarantees that the nice properties of the ideal won't be realized if we try to implement it. When a proposal contains basic errors like those mentioned above, what are the odds that the rest of it is sound?

schwabacher 16y ago
Do you think the price of energy now is appropriate? There are clearly negative externalities associated with CO2 emissions that aren't taken into account in the price today. Wouldn't an artificially high price of carbon emissions be quite a bit better than an artificially low one?
- anamax 16y ago
  > There are clearly negative externalities associated with CO2 emissions that aren't taken into account in the price today. I'd be more sympathetic to your externalities argument if there was some evidence that you weren't just using it as an excuse to do what you want to do for other reasons. For example, you're ignoring the negative externalities of your proposal. And then there's the small matter that the predicted cost of the externalities is significantly lower than cost of the "solution". Money has positive time value. What? You don't like numerical arguments? Or, is it that you didn't know that the numbers existed? > Wouldn't an artificially high price of carbon emissions be quite a bit better than an artificially low one? No. Or rather, it depends on the magnitudes of "high" and "low". Most folks who complain about subidized energy miscount. Feel free to demonstrate that you'r an exception.

zeteo 16y ago

Right, one state won't make a big difference in global CO2 emissions, but the point is to lead by example. There are a lot of people / political entities sitting on the fence right now, because it is unknown what the cost would be for these projects, or even if they're feasible and would work as intended. If they are shown to work in one place, and at an affordable cost, they would be a much easier sell to everyone else.