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Okay, but why is the government subsidizing this? That just encourages increasing the volume of production that increases emissions over time. Instead we need

Okay, but why is the government subsidizing this? That just encourages increasing the volume of production that increases emissions over time. Instead we need to progressively ramp up taxes on fossil fuels to drive down demand over time.

mlyle 5y ago
Government should do both: tax carbon and use it to pay for pilot projects and moonshots that could be valuable in the fight against AGW.
- lukifer 5y ago
  It was definitely a light-bulb moment, recognizing that in some cases, taxation is not a necessary evil, but a positive good (in this case, pricing externalities) [0]. At this point, I care less about what carbon taxes pay for, than making sure they exist at all, enough to shift incentives on both production and consumption. (That said: the dividend strategy certainly does seem to have advantages for political viability, and avoiding "yellow-vest" backlash to regressive taxation.) [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigovian_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigovian_tax
  - jeromegv 5y ago
    Canada carbon tax is interesting because it’s meant to be almost a zero-sum game. They take the money and you get it back in your tax refund. So it is more about pricing externality and ensure we slowly switch to better alternatives without disproportionately taxing us.
    - theluketaylor 5y ago
      My understanding is that it’s designed to be zero-sum for someone who emits the average amount of carbon for a Canadian. If you emit less personally (say by taking public transit and living in an energy efficient apartment) you’ll actually get more back than you pay. If you are a big emitter it is a net tax in your activity. I like that design, since wealth is highly correlated with carbon emissions. I do want to see more programs to make rental units more energy efficient, since renters tend to be less wealthy and are in less control of how much they emit. If their landlord refuses to insulate more, switch from gas heat (or worse they are stuck with baseboard electric) there is very little someone can do to reduce their emissions and any incentives from the carbon pricing just become the punitive tax critics say carbon pricing is.
      - dmurray 5y ago
        Fwiw this is what "zero-sum" usually means. Not that it has net zero impact for any individual, but that the total impact is some fixed amount: every (marginal) dollar gained by you is a dollar paid by someone else.
  - edgyquant 5y ago
    That taxes and tax breaks can be used in to create incentives is one of the fundamental aspects of modern liberalism. Most people don’t have the libertarian idea of taxes where they are evil/theft.
  - trembonator 5y ago
bawolff 5y ago
If you only fund things that fully work, you'll never get anything new because research takes steps. It doesn't happen in a day.
- azinman2 5y ago
  My question is why the government is funding Shell of all companies. The ones who have contributed to so much climate change and climate denial in the first place — shouldn’t this come out of their own pocketbook?
  - echelon 5y ago
    Pragmatism and realpolitik. It doesn't really matter who is doing it so long as it's being done. The incentives align, and they're well positioned to do this.
    - afarrell 5y ago
      Indeed. In the choice between punishing a corporation and solving the problem, we should pick solving the problem.
      - hazza_n_dazza 5y ago
        Thank you for that strawman. In a world with two choices, I take the third. Lets open up dialouge, not close all doors but two.
        fragmede 5y ago
        False dichotomy is the fallacy you're reaching for.
  - caminante 5y ago
    FTA: > Joanna Sivasankaran, the press secretary for the Minister of Natural Resources, said, “Carbon capture utilization and storage is not a silver bullet to the climate crisis but it is an important tool on the pathway to reaching Canada’s ambitious climate goals and reducing emissions in many industries, including oil and gas.”
FormerBandmate 5y ago
Because carbon is the negative part of using fossil fuels? If this improves enough there could end up being no problem whatsoever with fossil fuels. We should fund efforts like this with carbon taxes however because carbon hurts now
rzwitserloot 5y ago
For the same reason governments the world over subisidize research (which, on its own, obviously emits more co2 than it directly saves, as it directly saves zero), or why e.g. germany has subsidized solar so hard there were plenty of obvious net-negative cases to be found: To pull the technology through the hole where it is financially inefficient - without having to wait for some investor to take that gamble (and expect the 10x return that goes with it). _IF_ the subsidies continue forever and _IF_ this technology now takes over all other attempts, you're totally right: Utter madness. But those 2 ifs are extraordinary claims.
credit_guy 5y ago
> Okay, but why is the government subsidizing this? Because the goal is to reduce carbon emissions. This plant produces Hydrogen out of hydrocarbons, and manages to sequester 40% of the CO2 output. The Hydrogen produced maybe be used to generate electricity, for example. The obtained MWh of electricity will have less CO2 emissions than if you simply burn the hydrocarbon to begin with. Moreover, you can store the Hydrogen for load balancing. It's not 100% carbon neutral, but it's an improvement over what's available now; the perfect is the enemy of the good.
coderenegade 5y ago
We need hydrogen for a number of chemical processes, and this will be increasingly true moving forward as we start using it for things like direct reduction of iron to reduce carbon emissions in making steel. Green hydrogen is coming, and will likely be cheaper than grey by the end of the decade, but governments had no way of knowing this when this project was commissioned. Besides which, there are still many, many plants producing grey hydrogen that are going to keep running until they reach EOL. If we can find ways of reducing their carbon output, that seems like a net gain to me. This project is a demonstrator for such technology, and is a net gain over just another grey hydrogen plant.
kmlx 5y ago
> Instead we need to progressively ramp up taxes on fossil fuels to drive down demand over time. this is incredibly simplistic. our whole way of living produces huge amounts of CO2. chemical engineering, mining, aviation, shipping, food production and a lot more. you can start taxing CO2 and realise that some industries cannot function without producing it. thus another solution is needed. CCS is that solution. with enough money we could have the best of both worlds: keeping our way of life and capturing all the CO2 we produce.
AtlasBarfed 5y ago
Because the Alberta tar sands focussed the various political playbooks of the oil companies for a decade or so and now they have their fingers in the Canadian government. These are companies that topple nations if they want to, and basically own US Congress. Their power is waning only because their stocks are collapsing.

mlyle 5y ago

Government should do both: tax carbon and use it to pay for pilot projects and moonshots that could be valuable in the fight against AGW.

lukifer 5y ago
It was definitely a light-bulb moment, recognizing that in some cases, taxation is not a necessary evil, but a positive good (in this case, pricing externalities) [0]. At this point, I care less about what carbon taxes pay for, than making sure they exist at all, enough to shift incentives on both production and consumption. (That said: the dividend strategy certainly does seem to have advantages for political viability, and avoiding "yellow-vest" backlash to regressive taxation.) [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigovian_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigovian_tax
- jeromegv 5y ago
  Canada carbon tax is interesting because it’s meant to be almost a zero-sum game. They take the money and you get it back in your tax refund. So it is more about pricing externality and ensure we slowly switch to better alternatives without disproportionately taxing us.
  - theluketaylor 5y ago
    My understanding is that it’s designed to be zero-sum for someone who emits the average amount of carbon for a Canadian. If you emit less personally (say by taking public transit and living in an energy efficient apartment) you’ll actually get more back than you pay. If you are a big emitter it is a net tax in your activity. I like that design, since wealth is highly correlated with carbon emissions. I do want to see more programs to make rental units more energy efficient, since renters tend to be less wealthy and are in less control of how much they emit. If their landlord refuses to insulate more, switch from gas heat (or worse they are stuck with baseboard electric) there is very little someone can do to reduce their emissions and any incentives from the carbon pricing just become the punitive tax critics say carbon pricing is.
    - dmurray 5y ago
      Fwiw this is what "zero-sum" usually means. Not that it has net zero impact for any individual, but that the total impact is some fixed amount: every (marginal) dollar gained by you is a dollar paid by someone else.
- edgyquant 5y ago
  That taxes and tax breaks can be used in to create incentives is one of the fundamental aspects of modern liberalism. Most people don’t have the libertarian idea of taxes where they are evil/theft.
- trembonator 5y ago

bawolff 5y ago

If you only fund things that fully work, you'll never get anything new because research takes steps. It doesn't happen in a day.

azinman2 5y ago
My question is why the government is funding Shell of all companies. The ones who have contributed to so much climate change and climate denial in the first place — shouldn’t this come out of their own pocketbook?
- echelon 5y ago
  Pragmatism and realpolitik. It doesn't really matter who is doing it so long as it's being done. The incentives align, and they're well positioned to do this.
  - afarrell 5y ago
    Indeed. In the choice between punishing a corporation and solving the problem, we should pick solving the problem.
    - hazza_n_dazza 5y ago
      Thank you for that strawman. In a world with two choices, I take the third. Lets open up dialouge, not close all doors but two.
      - fragmede 5y ago
        False dichotomy is the fallacy you're reaching for.
- caminante 5y ago
  FTA: > Joanna Sivasankaran, the press secretary for the Minister of Natural Resources, said, “Carbon capture utilization and storage is not a silver bullet to the climate crisis but it is an important tool on the pathway to reaching Canada’s ambitious climate goals and reducing emissions in many industries, including oil and gas.”

FormerBandmate 5y ago

Because carbon is the negative part of using fossil fuels? If this improves enough there could end up being no problem whatsoever with fossil fuels. We should fund efforts like this with carbon taxes however because carbon hurts now

rzwitserloot 5y ago

For the same reason governments the world over subisidize research (which, on its own, obviously emits more co2 than it directly saves, as it directly saves zero), or why e.g. germany has subsidized solar so hard there were plenty of obvious net-negative cases to be found: To pull the technology through the hole where it is financially inefficient - without having to wait for some investor to take that gamble (and expect the 10x return that goes with it). _IF_ the subsidies continue forever and _IF_ this technology now takes over all other attempts, you're totally right: Utter madness. But those 2 ifs are extraordinary claims.

credit_guy 5y ago

> Okay, but why is the government subsidizing this? Because the goal is to reduce carbon emissions. This plant produces Hydrogen out of hydrocarbons, and manages to sequester 40% of the CO2 output. The Hydrogen produced maybe be used to generate electricity, for example. The obtained MWh of electricity will have less CO2 emissions than if you simply burn the hydrocarbon to begin with. Moreover, you can store the Hydrogen for load balancing. It's not 100% carbon neutral, but it's an improvement over what's available now; the perfect is the enemy of the good.

coderenegade 5y ago

We need hydrogen for a number of chemical processes, and this will be increasingly true moving forward as we start using it for things like direct reduction of iron to reduce carbon emissions in making steel. Green hydrogen is coming, and will likely be cheaper than grey by the end of the decade, but governments had no way of knowing this when this project was commissioned. Besides which, there are still many, many plants producing grey hydrogen that are going to keep running until they reach EOL. If we can find ways of reducing their carbon output, that seems like a net gain to me. This project is a demonstrator for such technology, and is a net gain over just another grey hydrogen plant.

kmlx 5y ago

> Instead we need to progressively ramp up taxes on fossil fuels to drive down demand over time. this is incredibly simplistic. our whole way of living produces huge amounts of CO2. chemical engineering, mining, aviation, shipping, food production and a lot more. you can start taxing CO2 and realise that some industries cannot function without producing it. thus another solution is needed. CCS is that solution. with enough money we could have the best of both worlds: keeping our way of life and capturing all the CO2 we produce.

AtlasBarfed 5y ago

Because the Alberta tar sands focussed the various political playbooks of the oil companies for a decade or so and now they have their fingers in the Canadian government. These are companies that topple nations if they want to, and basically own US Congress. Their power is waning only because their stocks are collapsing.