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I’m of a different opinion. There actually aren’t alternatives to fossil fuel and that’s why there isn’t broad support for the tax. A tax on fossil fuel would m

I’m of a different opinion. There actually aren’t alternatives to fossil fuel and that’s why there isn’t broad support for the tax. A tax on fossil fuel would make everything more expensive with little recourse for alternatives. I bought an electric power washer and weed wacker recently. The performance is just laughable compared to the petrol powered version. Electric cars have given people hope that a fossil fuel free future is possible. However, electric cars seem to occupy a niche where carrying around 30x the amount of “fuel” is possible. Most fossil fuel uses don’t share this luxury. Climate change will likely force a fossil fuel free future. But it probably won’t look much like the society we have today. There certainly won’t be high PSI pressure washers.

ClumsyPilot 4y ago
> A tax on fossil fuel would make everything more expensive with little recourse for alternatives. that money doesn't dissapear, it could be used to reduce other taxes, say income tax or VAT. it's purpose is to rebalance relative cost of things
- collegeburner 4y ago
  no its purpose is to fix an externality. it should be exactly equal to the cost of carbon offset for the amount emitted. or better yet license anybody to do carbon capture and require presenting a certificate of equal carbon removed. start at like 1/8 emissions removal and go up over time. if you care about stopping carbon emissions i think this is the most realistic and efficient way. otherwise we get caught up in discussions of how this changes redistribution and "economic/environmental justice" or whatever and it will never happen. but unfortunately there are many people who care more about adding more free stuff or using the funds for more dumb congress policies then actually passing a carbon policy.
  - Clubber 4y ago
    >>A proper carbon tax would only increase flight costs by about 8% >no its purpose is to fix an externality. it should be exactly equal to the cost of carbon offset for the amount emitted. So it would only cost 8% of the cost of a flight to completely remove all the carbon emitted from that flight? That seems pretty reasonable. How is this done?
    - Panzer04 4y ago
      By causing a reallocation of resources everywhere else - Fossil fuels would only be used where there is no alternative. A carbon tax won't completely kill them off, but it will cause anyone who can to switch away.
      - Clubber 4y ago
        So it's incentive for someone to not take a flight? I would assume travel has a certain degree if inelasticity in demand which would cause the tax to be much less effective in actually reducing emissions. The only way for this to actually reduce emissions is if someone decided to not travel at all and just stay home. If they decided to go by car, I assume that would be worse (180 passengers don't take a flight but drive instead). I mean if you have to go to your grandmother's funeral 5 states away, you gotta go. If you have to go on a business trip, you have to go. What's the estimated percentage of carbon emissions would an 8% tax reduce? I guess this is aimed at leisure travel primarily. This seems like one of those things that sound right on a macro level, but doesn't take into account the inelastic demand of travel. For it to actually reduce emissions (the goal), the tax would probably need to be much, much higher to the point where you just don't go to grandma's funeral. Honestly, for me, the TSA and the actual flight experience in the US as kept me from flying at all since about 2006. I can't stand any part of it. I don't care much for driving either and only put around 2000 miles a year on my vehicle. Most of this is because I can work at home. I guess I've got a pretty low footprint.
        Dylan16807 4y ago
        > For it to actually reduce emissions (the goal), the tax would probably need to be much, much higher to the point where you just don't go to grandma's funeral. Nah, you just need enough pressure to move people onto electric cars. A plane might be one of the last holdouts on fossil fuels, but even then renewable fuel shouldn't be that expensive in bulk.
  - Duwensatzaj 4y ago
    This exact issue helped kill Washington state’s twice proposed carbon tax initiative.
    - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
      They just passed an entirely equivalent law though, so clearly it wasnt fatal.
  - yellowapple 4y ago
    > it should be exactly equal to the cost of carbon offset for the amount emitted If it's to fix an externality, then it specifically should be exactly equal to the cost of that externality - that is, sufficient to compensate for all damages (and repairs for said damages) resulting from that externality. This should be right around the same as a carbon offset, but it's worth remembering why a carbon tax is necessary: not for the mere sake of punishing some dirty activity, but for the specific sake of compensating the victims of reckless negligence.
    - dTal 4y ago
      Which doesn't really work as a concept when there are things so terrible that no amount of money can compensate. What price would you put on human extinction?
      - yellowapple 4y ago
        > Which doesn't really work as a concept when there are things so terrible that no amount of money can compensate. Well yeah, but surely some compensation is better than the current status quo of nothing at all. > What price would you put on human extinction? Well, if we want to get hyper-capitalist about it: whatever the resulting opportunity cost is from those humans no longer being able to produce value. Of course, seeing as how humans can produce other humans who then produce value and yet more humans and so on in perpetuity, that opportunity cost rather quickly approaches infinity.
    - collegeburner 4y ago
      Exactly, that's what I'm saying, the cost should be exactly equal to what it costs to fix it. The most efficient way to do that is allow anybody to get certified to fix that externality and require proof that the person who caused it also paid to get it fixed. This makes it easier than trying to determine what the current price of remediating is. Markets work really well at some things and this is one.
- imtringued 4y ago
  You could pay a carbon dividend and grant every human on earth equal pollution rights...
devoutsalsa 4y ago
Personally I’d like to see mass adoption of synthetic fuel made from the air for use cases where liquid fuel is the only practical solution. Like HIF Global’s plan to make synthetic fuel for about 8 USD per gallon (4.5 liters). https://arstechnica.com/cars/2022/04/porsche-invests-75-million-in-chilean-synthetic-fuel-startup/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2022/04/porsche-invests-75-mill...
- pedalpete 4y ago
  There is lots of research in this area, along with renewable jet fuels, hydrogen, and electric powered jets.
- collegeburner 4y ago
  yep gas is like 100 times more energy dense as lithium ion iirc so there's cases where it's just a better "battery". there's also a big carbon cost to replacing all the huge number of gas engines we have. so like what HIF Global wants to do using electricity to make gas can be a good solution.
- beojan 4y ago
  $8 per US gallon (3.8 L), not imperial gallon.
  - devoutsalsa 4y ago
    Thanks for the correction. I missed that.
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  Part of the EU plan is to force a 1% blend of this in all jet fuel sold in the EU and slowly ratchet up the percentage over time.
ch4s3 4y ago
There may be some truth here, and I have a suspicion a limited amount of fossil fuel burning will continue for the next century. It seems like we may be forced to rely on DAC to some extent an have to negotiate internationally how much CO2 we're pulling out of the atmosphere and how quickly. > There certainly won’t be high PSI pressure washers I wonder if a 220v plug in pressure washer would be practical.
eurleif 4y ago
For pressure washers, the biggest issue is that the US generally uses 120 volts*15 amps. There are 240 volt models that have competitive specs with gas-powered models, but since consumers generally don't have 240 volt outlets other than for specific appliances, they're geared for the commercial/industrial market, and are accordingly expensive. I've toyed with the idea of importing a 240 volt pressure washer from India (specifically: https://www.starq.in/collections/high-pressure-washer-1/products/starq-awp2-8-high-pressure-washer-adjustable-waterproof https://www.starq.in/collections/high-pressure-washer-1/prod...) since they use 240 volts there, and their consumer-grade pressure washers are thus more powerful. Weed wackers need to be cordless, though, so that's a different issue.
- bbarn 4y ago
  120 in the US is typically on a 15 amp circuit. 240 in Europe at least (and I'd assume most of the world) is generally on a 5 amp circuit. This is speaking in typical household voltages and amperages, so obviously someone will have outliers, but this has been my experience 120 * 15 = 1800 watts. 240 * 5 = 1200 watts. US circuits generally carry more power than their overseas equivalents. If you plugged that Indian 240v pressure washer into your 20 amp circuit, it wouldn't likely draw more current unless it was designed badly, and wouldn't perform any better.
  - eurleif 4y ago
    The Indian pressure washer I linked is 2800 watts.
    - Gibbon1 4y ago
      A NEMA 6-15 outlet can deliver that.
      - eurleif 4y ago
        Right -- it's a chicken and egg thing where US manufacturers don't make consumer-grade 240v pressure washers because consumers don't have those outlets installed in the right places, and people don't have the outlets because there would be nothing to use them for.
emailtho 4y ago
Woods chips and hand weeding is an alternative. Concrete is carbon intense to produce; let’s stop using it for driveways and sidewalks. Alternatives! Manual labor used to be applied to these things. One could argue the fossil fuel industry got us hooked to petrol solutions in search of a problem. Look at us too addicted to our inventiveness to get our hands dirty, a little sweaty outside the air conditioned gym, or give up a grass lawn.
netrap 4y ago
I'm just thinking that for the high energy density would a Hydrogen (fuel cell?) pressure washer work?
chad_c 4y ago
There are plenty of great cordless trimmers and electric power washers. Milwaukee, Greenworks, Ego, Krantzle (for car washing)…I think you should expand your search and look at GPM, not max PSI.
max51 4y ago
look at what hilti is making if you think electricity is a limiting factor for Power tools. they don't make power washers but they makes extremely powerful cordless electric tools. The kind that allows you to drill 1.5" wide holes in reinforced concrete and cut thought rebars.
WalterBright 4y ago
Natural gas has half the carbon in it for the same energy as coal. Hence, a carbon tax would favor the use of n.g. over coal. Which is as it should be. The various chemical versions of hydrocarbons all have different amounts of energy per carbon content.
scifibestfi 4y ago
Germany is proving this out in real time. Energy costs have gone through the roof and they are reactivating mothballed coal plants. The dirtiest fossil fuel.
bobbylarrybobby 4y ago
The alternative is to use less energy
Pxtl 4y ago
For the weed wacker, get yourself a 100ft 12-gauge extension cord and go wired. Unless your property is enormous, batteries are for suckers when it comes to yard work.
eloisius 4y ago
To me this sounds like an analogy for fake meat. I don’t care what anyone tells me. Fake meat, including impossible burger and whatever new, hyped up product they come up with taste like garbage. None of it will ever be as good as a real steak. I never want to try another vegan chicken wing again. Some inherently meatless foods are delicious though. Maybe an electric weed whacker will never compare to a petrol one, but maybe the issue is that the typical suburban manicured lawn is an artifact of the petrol era, and we shouldn’t try to fake it with electric lawn mowers and weed whackers.
- DarknessFalls 4y ago
  I have the 80V Greenworks Pro line of mower and trimmer (blower as well). They're much quieter and do an excellent job. The blower is powerful as hell. I don't know what this guy is talking about. I do my lawn about every two weeks as I live in Florida and it rains a lot.
- wishinghand 4y ago
  This is a silly argument- a subjective situation vs an objective one. Can electric pressure washers output a stream of similar force to ICE washers? This can be quantified. While fake burgers don't taste exactly like hamburger, saying they taste like garbage is something without quantification.
alephu5 4y ago
Sounds like an incentive to invest in R&D.
TaylorAlexander 4y ago
My mom just bought a battery operated lawn mower, weed whacker, and leaf blower kit. She loves how portable, quiet, and easy to use they are. She’s 70 years old so portable and easy to use are more important to her than power. I just mention this because what might not seem like an option for you can work fine for other people. She loves not having to pull start a gas mower or deal with the noise and smell of it.
evandijk70 4y ago
I'm from Europe, and have never seen anyone use a gas-powered leaf-blower, pressure washer, or weed wacker in their garden. Do you really need them?
- AvocadoPanic 4y ago
  Also gas powered chainsaw. I didn't need them in Europe, I do in the US.
VoodooJuJu 4y ago
>Climate change will likely force a fossil fuel free future. But it probably won’t look much like the society we have today. There certainly won’t be high PSI pressure washers. It's a hard thing to accept, but I believe it to be true. What's disturbing is that people can't even begin to imagine this ever being true. They vehemently refuse to accept the possibility that many of our modern comforts will cease to be - just look at the responses here talking about all the tech that will ostensibly save us and make everything okay and allow us to continue living exactly the way we do now, indefinitely. That's not good, because we really ought to be talking about a low-tech future as a serious possibility. If we take it seriously, there are things we can start doing now to smooth the transition period. That transition period could be complete and utter hell, or it could be smooth and painless. Humans have been around long before pressure washers and cars and planes, and they'll continue to be around long after these things are gone. If we wean our municipalities, our families, and ourselves from fragile dependencies, then the transition period might not cause serious harm.
maiorana 4y ago
would also need a way to generate steam without natural gas. Maybe nuclear, but that's just as unrealistic right now. Steam is used to heat a lot of things outside of power generation and without steam our economy falls apart and this means without natural gas we are fucked.

ClumsyPilot 4y ago

> A tax on fossil fuel would make everything more expensive with little recourse for alternatives. that money doesn't dissapear, it could be used to reduce other taxes, say income tax or VAT. it's purpose is to rebalance relative cost of things

collegeburner 4y ago
no its purpose is to fix an externality. it should be exactly equal to the cost of carbon offset for the amount emitted. or better yet license anybody to do carbon capture and require presenting a certificate of equal carbon removed. start at like 1/8 emissions removal and go up over time. if you care about stopping carbon emissions i think this is the most realistic and efficient way. otherwise we get caught up in discussions of how this changes redistribution and "economic/environmental justice" or whatever and it will never happen. but unfortunately there are many people who care more about adding more free stuff or using the funds for more dumb congress policies then actually passing a carbon policy.
- Clubber 4y ago
  >>A proper carbon tax would only increase flight costs by about 8% >no its purpose is to fix an externality. it should be exactly equal to the cost of carbon offset for the amount emitted. So it would only cost 8% of the cost of a flight to completely remove all the carbon emitted from that flight? That seems pretty reasonable. How is this done?
  - Panzer04 4y ago
    By causing a reallocation of resources everywhere else - Fossil fuels would only be used where there is no alternative. A carbon tax won't completely kill them off, but it will cause anyone who can to switch away.
    - Clubber 4y ago
      So it's incentive for someone to not take a flight? I would assume travel has a certain degree if inelasticity in demand which would cause the tax to be much less effective in actually reducing emissions. The only way for this to actually reduce emissions is if someone decided to not travel at all and just stay home. If they decided to go by car, I assume that would be worse (180 passengers don't take a flight but drive instead). I mean if you have to go to your grandmother's funeral 5 states away, you gotta go. If you have to go on a business trip, you have to go. What's the estimated percentage of carbon emissions would an 8% tax reduce? I guess this is aimed at leisure travel primarily. This seems like one of those things that sound right on a macro level, but doesn't take into account the inelastic demand of travel. For it to actually reduce emissions (the goal), the tax would probably need to be much, much higher to the point where you just don't go to grandma's funeral. Honestly, for me, the TSA and the actual flight experience in the US as kept me from flying at all since about 2006. I can't stand any part of it. I don't care much for driving either and only put around 2000 miles a year on my vehicle. Most of this is because I can work at home. I guess I've got a pretty low footprint.
      - Dylan16807 4y ago
        > For it to actually reduce emissions (the goal), the tax would probably need to be much, much higher to the point where you just don't go to grandma's funeral. Nah, you just need enough pressure to move people onto electric cars. A plane might be one of the last holdouts on fossil fuels, but even then renewable fuel shouldn't be that expensive in bulk.
- Duwensatzaj 4y ago
  This exact issue helped kill Washington state’s twice proposed carbon tax initiative.
  - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
    They just passed an entirely equivalent law though, so clearly it wasnt fatal.
- yellowapple 4y ago
  > it should be exactly equal to the cost of carbon offset for the amount emitted If it's to fix an externality, then it specifically should be exactly equal to the cost of that externality - that is, sufficient to compensate for all damages (and repairs for said damages) resulting from that externality. This should be right around the same as a carbon offset, but it's worth remembering why a carbon tax is necessary: not for the mere sake of punishing some dirty activity, but for the specific sake of compensating the victims of reckless negligence.
  - dTal 4y ago
    Which doesn't really work as a concept when there are things so terrible that no amount of money can compensate. What price would you put on human extinction?
    - yellowapple 4y ago
      > Which doesn't really work as a concept when there are things so terrible that no amount of money can compensate. Well yeah, but surely some compensation is better than the current status quo of nothing at all. > What price would you put on human extinction? Well, if we want to get hyper-capitalist about it: whatever the resulting opportunity cost is from those humans no longer being able to produce value. Of course, seeing as how humans can produce other humans who then produce value and yet more humans and so on in perpetuity, that opportunity cost rather quickly approaches infinity.
  - collegeburner 4y ago
    Exactly, that's what I'm saying, the cost should be exactly equal to what it costs to fix it. The most efficient way to do that is allow anybody to get certified to fix that externality and require proof that the person who caused it also paid to get it fixed. This makes it easier than trying to determine what the current price of remediating is. Markets work really well at some things and this is one.
imtringued 4y ago
You could pay a carbon dividend and grant every human on earth equal pollution rights...

devoutsalsa 4y ago

Personally I’d like to see mass adoption of synthetic fuel made from the air for use cases where liquid fuel is the only practical solution. Like HIF Global’s plan to make synthetic fuel for about 8 USD per gallon (4.5 liters). https://arstechnica.com/cars/2022/04/porsche-invests-75-million-in-chilean-synthetic-fuel-startup/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2022/04/porsche-invests-75-mill...

pedalpete 4y ago
There is lots of research in this area, along with renewable jet fuels, hydrogen, and electric powered jets.
collegeburner 4y ago
yep gas is like 100 times more energy dense as lithium ion iirc so there's cases where it's just a better "battery". there's also a big carbon cost to replacing all the huge number of gas engines we have. so like what HIF Global wants to do using electricity to make gas can be a good solution.
beojan 4y ago
$8 per US gallon (3.8 L), not imperial gallon.
- devoutsalsa 4y ago
  Thanks for the correction. I missed that.
ZeroGravitas 4y ago
Part of the EU plan is to force a 1% blend of this in all jet fuel sold in the EU and slowly ratchet up the percentage over time.

ch4s3 4y ago

There may be some truth here, and I have a suspicion a limited amount of fossil fuel burning will continue for the next century. It seems like we may be forced to rely on DAC to some extent an have to negotiate internationally how much CO2 we're pulling out of the atmosphere and how quickly. > There certainly won’t be high PSI pressure washers I wonder if a 220v plug in pressure washer would be practical.

eurleif 4y ago

For pressure washers, the biggest issue is that the US generally uses 120 volts*15 amps. There are 240 volt models that have competitive specs with gas-powered models, but since consumers generally don't have 240 volt outlets other than for specific appliances, they're geared for the commercial/industrial market, and are accordingly expensive. I've toyed with the idea of importing a 240 volt pressure washer from India (specifically: https://www.starq.in/collections/high-pressure-washer-1/products/starq-awp2-8-high-pressure-washer-adjustable-waterproof https://www.starq.in/collections/high-pressure-washer-1/prod...) since they use 240 volts there, and their consumer-grade pressure washers are thus more powerful. Weed wackers need to be cordless, though, so that's a different issue.

bbarn 4y ago
120 in the US is typically on a 15 amp circuit. 240 in Europe at least (and I'd assume most of the world) is generally on a 5 amp circuit. This is speaking in typical household voltages and amperages, so obviously someone will have outliers, but this has been my experience 120 * 15 = 1800 watts. 240 * 5 = 1200 watts. US circuits generally carry more power than their overseas equivalents. If you plugged that Indian 240v pressure washer into your 20 amp circuit, it wouldn't likely draw more current unless it was designed badly, and wouldn't perform any better.
- eurleif 4y ago
  The Indian pressure washer I linked is 2800 watts.
  - Gibbon1 4y ago
    A NEMA 6-15 outlet can deliver that.
    - eurleif 4y ago
      Right -- it's a chicken and egg thing where US manufacturers don't make consumer-grade 240v pressure washers because consumers don't have those outlets installed in the right places, and people don't have the outlets because there would be nothing to use them for.

emailtho 4y ago

Woods chips and hand weeding is an alternative. Concrete is carbon intense to produce; let’s stop using it for driveways and sidewalks. Alternatives! Manual labor used to be applied to these things. One could argue the fossil fuel industry got us hooked to petrol solutions in search of a problem. Look at us too addicted to our inventiveness to get our hands dirty, a little sweaty outside the air conditioned gym, or give up a grass lawn.

netrap 4y ago

I'm just thinking that for the high energy density would a Hydrogen (fuel cell?) pressure washer work?

chad_c 4y ago

There are plenty of great cordless trimmers and electric power washers. Milwaukee, Greenworks, Ego, Krantzle (for car washing)…I think you should expand your search and look at GPM, not max PSI.

max51 4y ago

look at what hilti is making if you think electricity is a limiting factor for Power tools. they don't make power washers but they makes extremely powerful cordless electric tools. The kind that allows you to drill 1.5" wide holes in reinforced concrete and cut thought rebars.

WalterBright 4y ago

Natural gas has half the carbon in it for the same energy as coal. Hence, a carbon tax would favor the use of n.g. over coal. Which is as it should be. The various chemical versions of hydrocarbons all have different amounts of energy per carbon content.

scifibestfi 4y ago

Germany is proving this out in real time. Energy costs have gone through the roof and they are reactivating mothballed coal plants. The dirtiest fossil fuel.

bobbylarrybobby 4y ago

The alternative is to use less energy

Pxtl 4y ago

For the weed wacker, get yourself a 100ft 12-gauge extension cord and go wired. Unless your property is enormous, batteries are for suckers when it comes to yard work.

eloisius 4y ago

To me this sounds like an analogy for fake meat. I don’t care what anyone tells me. Fake meat, including impossible burger and whatever new, hyped up product they come up with taste like garbage. None of it will ever be as good as a real steak. I never want to try another vegan chicken wing again. Some inherently meatless foods are delicious though. Maybe an electric weed whacker will never compare to a petrol one, but maybe the issue is that the typical suburban manicured lawn is an artifact of the petrol era, and we shouldn’t try to fake it with electric lawn mowers and weed whackers.

DarknessFalls 4y ago
I have the 80V Greenworks Pro line of mower and trimmer (blower as well). They're much quieter and do an excellent job. The blower is powerful as hell. I don't know what this guy is talking about. I do my lawn about every two weeks as I live in Florida and it rains a lot.
wishinghand 4y ago
This is a silly argument- a subjective situation vs an objective one. Can electric pressure washers output a stream of similar force to ICE washers? This can be quantified. While fake burgers don't taste exactly like hamburger, saying they taste like garbage is something without quantification.

alephu5 4y ago

Sounds like an incentive to invest in R&D.

TaylorAlexander 4y ago

My mom just bought a battery operated lawn mower, weed whacker, and leaf blower kit. She loves how portable, quiet, and easy to use they are. She’s 70 years old so portable and easy to use are more important to her than power. I just mention this because what might not seem like an option for you can work fine for other people. She loves not having to pull start a gas mower or deal with the noise and smell of it.

evandijk70 4y ago

I'm from Europe, and have never seen anyone use a gas-powered leaf-blower, pressure washer, or weed wacker in their garden. Do you really need them?

AvocadoPanic 4y ago
Also gas powered chainsaw. I didn't need them in Europe, I do in the US.

VoodooJuJu 4y ago

>Climate change will likely force a fossil fuel free future. But it probably won’t look much like the society we have today. There certainly won’t be high PSI pressure washers. It's a hard thing to accept, but I believe it to be true. What's disturbing is that people can't even begin to imagine this ever being true. They vehemently refuse to accept the possibility that many of our modern comforts will cease to be - just look at the responses here talking about all the tech that will ostensibly save us and make everything okay and allow us to continue living exactly the way we do now, indefinitely. That's not good, because we really ought to be talking about a low-tech future as a serious possibility. If we take it seriously, there are things we can start doing now to smooth the transition period. That transition period could be complete and utter hell, or it could be smooth and painless. Humans have been around long before pressure washers and cars and planes, and they'll continue to be around long after these things are gone. If we wean our municipalities, our families, and ourselves from fragile dependencies, then the transition period might not cause serious harm.

maiorana 4y ago

would also need a way to generate steam without natural gas. Maybe nuclear, but that's just as unrealistic right now. Steam is used to heat a lot of things outside of power generation and without steam our economy falls apart and this means without natural gas we are fucked.