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It's also hard to believe that insurance against theft could ever be less expensive than nobody stealing anything, but that doesn't imply insurance is a fraud t

It's also hard to believe that insurance against theft could ever be less expensive than nobody stealing anything, but that doesn't imply insurance is a fraud to allow people to carry on stealing. We live in a world where theft and carbon emissions are going to happen with or without the blessing of the US government, so if they want to spend some money seeing how far they can mitigate the damage then good. I'd rather pin my hopes on technological progress than political magic.

AnthonyMouse 5y ago
The problem is that it's still political magic. Suppose it costs $1 to avoid emitting CO2 (e.g. replace gas car with electric car) and $10 to extract the CO2 after the fact. If you get the latter down to $3, you're still upside down. So where does the $3 come from? Presumably a government, but it doesn't even matter. Anyone would still be better off spending that money to subsidize electric cars or solar panels or something.
- incrudible 5y ago
  > Suppose it costs X to do Y Don't. You can't predict prices like that. Consider that electric cars roll out of the factory having emitted more CO2 than the equivalent combustion vehicle. It takes a lot of miles to break even. If you put a price on the CO2, you may well figure out that combustion engines end up more efficient, because carbon-neutral fuel is close to being economical. > But then they'd still be better off spending that money to subsidize electric cars or solar panels or something. This is a huge mistake. Don't pick winners. You don't have better information than the market.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
    > Don't. You can't predict prices like that. You can predict that not emitting CO2 will cost less than emitting CO2 and then recapturing it, because it's the second law of thermodynamics. > Consider that electric cars roll out of the factory having emitted more CO2 than the equivalent combustion vehicle. It takes a lot of miles to break even. It takes about the number of miles that the average person drives in a year. New cars last a lot more than a year. Also, the CO2 it takes to make an electric car has a lot to do with the fact that existing vehicles and power generation emit CO2, which goes away as we get more electric vehicles and non-carbon power generation. > If you put a price on the CO2, you may well figure out that combustion engines end up more efficient, because carbon-neutral fuel is close to being economical. So put a price on CO2. The point isn't that subsidizing electric cars and solar panels is the best solution to the problem, it's that subsidizing carbon capture is strictly worse.
    - IanCal 5y ago
      > You can predict that not emitting CO2 will cost less than emitting CO2 and then recapturing it, because it's the second law of thermodynamics. I'm not sure that's true, in two senses. Even if the _energy_ cost is higher, the _monetary_ cost may be lower as emissions and capture don't need to be in the same place. It may be cheaper for example to just burn some petrol to cover long distances where there's less infrastructure and instead capture an equivalent amount of CO2 using energy from solar panels somewhere sunny. I'm not certain the energy cost must be higher due to thermodynamics. If you were taking CO2 and water and recombining them to get back nat gas and oxygen then sure. But what if you're taking the CO2 and doing something else with it? If I'm thinking about this right the bond energy in CO2 is a little lower than the overall energy released. Of course things come down then to efficiencies but I don't think there's a thermodynamics point here.
    - incrudible 5y ago
      > You can predict that not emitting CO2 will cost less than emitting CO2 and then recapturing it, because it's the second law of thermodynamics. You're mixing up watts with dollars, a mistake that "green energy" stockpickers make all the time. Consider all the energy that is hitting the Sahara. It's worth zero dollars, because it can't economically be used - but what if you could capture and transport it somehow, you know, like in a fuel? > It takes about the number of miles that the average person drives in a year. That's the lowest estimate I have ever heard - do you have a source for that? > Also, the CO2 it takes to make an electric car has a lot to do with the fact that existing vehicles and power generation emit CO2, which goes away as we get more electric vehicles and non-carbon power generation. Sure, but economics of scale apply to all technologies and unless you let the market do its thing, you won't know the minima and maxima. > So put a price on CO2. Exactly. > The point isn't that subsidizing electric cars and solar panels is the best solution to the problem, it's that subsidizing carbon capture is strictly worse. You don't know that. Ideally, nothing should be subsidized. However, in a market where profit is sooner found with dog meme cryptocurrency and other harebrained schemes, subsidies are arguably necessary, and then you shouldn't put all the money into directions that have already been mostly explored.
      - 5y ago
- notahacker 5y ago
  Which number do you think is larger, the cost for the US to dictate industrialisation policy for the rest of the world or the cost for the US (and possibly other governments more interested in reducing global warming, if the tech is there) to offset some of their emissions? The problem isn't getting wealthy Californians to swap their SUV for a Tesla, it's getting poor Cubans to give up the only car their government will allow them to afford, cryptoenthusiasts to give up on Bitcoin, Saudi Arabia to decide it doesn't want to exploit its only resource and China to retire its recently constructed coal power plants. That doesn't just require lots of money, it requires magic
  - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
    > Which number do you think is larger, the cost for the US to dictate industrialisation policy for the rest of the world or the cost for the US (and possibly other governments more interested in reducing global warming, if the tech is there) to offset some of their emissions? You only have to dictate policy to them if you're trying to get them to pay for it. If you're going to pay for it yourself, there is nothing at all stopping you from paying people in Africa or South America to buy electric cars. The main thing preventing this is that you would have to convince your taxpayers to pay to offset emissions in some other country. But that's the same problem with carbon capture, except worse, because you would need more dollars to offset the same amount of CO2.
    - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
      > you would have to convince your taxpayers to pay to offset emissions in some other country I strangely think the rich world would be more comfortable building carbon capture infrastructure at home than clean energy offshore. The jobs are domestic. And you aren’t handing a productive asset to another country. Hell, find it with an import tax on polluting countries and we don’t even have to pay for most of it.
      - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
        The solution to that is to subsidize production of the alternative products in your own country for export. Then subsidized US-made solar panels and electric cars would be cheaper for people in Africa and South America than burning coal, but you get all the US jobs etc.
ericd 5y ago
It seems like you’re assuming our current culture stays constant. I’m pretty sure it’s going to change quite drastically after we have our first million+ death heat wave. It’s going to suddenly seem a hell of a lot more tacky to be driving a huge Chevy Tahoe. Which is to say that things that seem impossible politically might suddenly become very politically possible.
- HPsquared 5y ago
  Ironically in such a heat wave, lots of people would likely take shelter in their air conditioned cars.
  - ericd 5y ago
    A lot of the people in a lot of the places likely to have those don’t have cars with AC.
    - HPsquared 5y ago
      Either way the actions people will take for adaptation/mitigation are often at odds with the "prevention" path. Similarly, building flood defences would be expected to require a lot of steel and concrete, which are energy and carbon intensive. I suppose people in more marginal circumstances will need to make some tough decisions.

AnthonyMouse 5y ago

The problem is that it's still political magic. Suppose it costs $1 to avoid emitting CO2 (e.g. replace gas car with electric car) and $10 to extract the CO2 after the fact. If you get the latter down to $3, you're still upside down. So where does the $3 come from? Presumably a government, but it doesn't even matter. Anyone would still be better off spending that money to subsidize electric cars or solar panels or something.

incrudible 5y ago
> Suppose it costs X to do Y Don't. You can't predict prices like that. Consider that electric cars roll out of the factory having emitted more CO2 than the equivalent combustion vehicle. It takes a lot of miles to break even. If you put a price on the CO2, you may well figure out that combustion engines end up more efficient, because carbon-neutral fuel is close to being economical. > But then they'd still be better off spending that money to subsidize electric cars or solar panels or something. This is a huge mistake. Don't pick winners. You don't have better information than the market.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- AnthonyMouse 5y ago
  > Don't. You can't predict prices like that. You can predict that not emitting CO2 will cost less than emitting CO2 and then recapturing it, because it's the second law of thermodynamics. > Consider that electric cars roll out of the factory having emitted more CO2 than the equivalent combustion vehicle. It takes a lot of miles to break even. It takes about the number of miles that the average person drives in a year. New cars last a lot more than a year. Also, the CO2 it takes to make an electric car has a lot to do with the fact that existing vehicles and power generation emit CO2, which goes away as we get more electric vehicles and non-carbon power generation. > If you put a price on the CO2, you may well figure out that combustion engines end up more efficient, because carbon-neutral fuel is close to being economical. So put a price on CO2. The point isn't that subsidizing electric cars and solar panels is the best solution to the problem, it's that subsidizing carbon capture is strictly worse.
  - IanCal 5y ago
    > You can predict that not emitting CO2 will cost less than emitting CO2 and then recapturing it, because it's the second law of thermodynamics. I'm not sure that's true, in two senses. Even if the _energy_ cost is higher, the _monetary_ cost may be lower as emissions and capture don't need to be in the same place. It may be cheaper for example to just burn some petrol to cover long distances where there's less infrastructure and instead capture an equivalent amount of CO2 using energy from solar panels somewhere sunny. I'm not certain the energy cost must be higher due to thermodynamics. If you were taking CO2 and water and recombining them to get back nat gas and oxygen then sure. But what if you're taking the CO2 and doing something else with it? If I'm thinking about this right the bond energy in CO2 is a little lower than the overall energy released. Of course things come down then to efficiencies but I don't think there's a thermodynamics point here.
  - incrudible 5y ago
    > You can predict that not emitting CO2 will cost less than emitting CO2 and then recapturing it, because it's the second law of thermodynamics. You're mixing up watts with dollars, a mistake that "green energy" stockpickers make all the time. Consider all the energy that is hitting the Sahara. It's worth zero dollars, because it can't economically be used - but what if you could capture and transport it somehow, you know, like in a fuel? > It takes about the number of miles that the average person drives in a year. That's the lowest estimate I have ever heard - do you have a source for that? > Also, the CO2 it takes to make an electric car has a lot to do with the fact that existing vehicles and power generation emit CO2, which goes away as we get more electric vehicles and non-carbon power generation. Sure, but economics of scale apply to all technologies and unless you let the market do its thing, you won't know the minima and maxima. > So put a price on CO2. Exactly. > The point isn't that subsidizing electric cars and solar panels is the best solution to the problem, it's that subsidizing carbon capture is strictly worse. You don't know that. Ideally, nothing should be subsidized. However, in a market where profit is sooner found with dog meme cryptocurrency and other harebrained schemes, subsidies are arguably necessary, and then you shouldn't put all the money into directions that have already been mostly explored.
    - 5y ago
notahacker 5y ago
Which number do you think is larger, the cost for the US to dictate industrialisation policy for the rest of the world or the cost for the US (and possibly other governments more interested in reducing global warming, if the tech is there) to offset some of their emissions? The problem isn't getting wealthy Californians to swap their SUV for a Tesla, it's getting poor Cubans to give up the only car their government will allow them to afford, cryptoenthusiasts to give up on Bitcoin, Saudi Arabia to decide it doesn't want to exploit its only resource and China to retire its recently constructed coal power plants. That doesn't just require lots of money, it requires magic
- AnthonyMouse 5y ago
  > Which number do you think is larger, the cost for the US to dictate industrialisation policy for the rest of the world or the cost for the US (and possibly other governments more interested in reducing global warming, if the tech is there) to offset some of their emissions? You only have to dictate policy to them if you're trying to get them to pay for it. If you're going to pay for it yourself, there is nothing at all stopping you from paying people in Africa or South America to buy electric cars. The main thing preventing this is that you would have to convince your taxpayers to pay to offset emissions in some other country. But that's the same problem with carbon capture, except worse, because you would need more dollars to offset the same amount of CO2.
  - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
    > you would have to convince your taxpayers to pay to offset emissions in some other country I strangely think the rich world would be more comfortable building carbon capture infrastructure at home than clean energy offshore. The jobs are domestic. And you aren’t handing a productive asset to another country. Hell, find it with an import tax on polluting countries and we don’t even have to pay for most of it.
    - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
      The solution to that is to subsidize production of the alternative products in your own country for export. Then subsidized US-made solar panels and electric cars would be cheaper for people in Africa and South America than burning coal, but you get all the US jobs etc.

ericd 5y ago

It seems like you’re assuming our current culture stays constant. I’m pretty sure it’s going to change quite drastically after we have our first million+ death heat wave. It’s going to suddenly seem a hell of a lot more tacky to be driving a huge Chevy Tahoe. Which is to say that things that seem impossible politically might suddenly become very politically possible.

HPsquared 5y ago
Ironically in such a heat wave, lots of people would likely take shelter in their air conditioned cars.
- ericd 5y ago
  A lot of the people in a lot of the places likely to have those don’t have cars with AC.
  - HPsquared 5y ago
    Either way the actions people will take for adaptation/mitigation are often at odds with the "prevention" path. Similarly, building flood defences would be expected to require a lot of steel and concrete, which are energy and carbon intensive. I suppose people in more marginal circumstances will need to make some tough decisions.