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> We have infrastructure solutions today Prove it. If you say it's a solved problem, then go ahead and deploy the replacement. What should power ships if not f

by rsj_hn 4y ago

> We have infrastructure solutions today Prove it. If you say it's a solved problem, then go ahead and deploy the replacement. What should power ships if not fossil fuels? Sail? Batteries? Hydrogen? Go ahead and tell me the replacement and then deploy it at scale. If it needs some money to be cost effective, then subsidize it so that it's cost effective and deploy the replacement. No wall street needed. No trading needed. Just deploy the replacement and subsidize it as needed. > Of course a carbon tax won't invent fusion - but I think it would be madness to make the case that people or industries don't adjust their consumption to adapt to taxes. Yes, but we do not want industries to use less energy, which is all that cap and trade will accomplish. What we need is replacement energy. >Keep in mind we have 30 years of data that shows cap and trade programs achieve their objectives and are pretty stinking cost effective. No we don't. You are conflating the reduction of energy usage (which creates global famine and de-industrialization) with the deployment of a replacement. We do not have 30 years of data that cap and trade is effective at solving the problem of transforming our energy infrastructure, cap and trade is only effective at reducing usage. And it does not follow that reducing usage of fossil fuels will, by a type of inevitability, cause replacements to appear that are powered by market magic. It will just mean less shipping, which again means famine and de-industrialization.

legitster 4y ago
If you build more nuclear or renewable, that takes pressure off of the oil and gas markets. With cheaper oil and gas, it would start making sense to switch shipping from bunker fuel (literally the dregs of the fuel process) to a fuel source that is a little less polluting. Coal is dying in the US - not because of government R&D or political efforts (perhaps in spite of them) - but because of the prevalence of cheap natural gas and industry's ability to adapt when presented with a price incentive. The whole point of cap and trade is that it's easier for some sectors to adapt than others, and it's easier to just have them sort it out amongst themselves.
- rsj_hn 4y ago
  "If you build more nuclear" can be done without cap and trade, and thus the positive spillovers also happen without cap and trade. But what doesn't happen, is that cap and trade doesn't result in building more nuclear.

by rsj_hn 4y ago

legitster 4y ago

If you build more nuclear or renewable, that takes pressure off of the oil and gas markets. With cheaper oil and gas, it would start making sense to switch shipping from bunker fuel (literally the dregs of the fuel process) to a fuel source that is a little less polluting. Coal is dying in the US - not because of government R&D or political efforts (perhaps in spite of them) - but because of the prevalence of cheap natural gas and industry's ability to adapt when presented with a price incentive. The whole point of cap and trade is that it's easier for some sectors to adapt than others, and it's easier to just have them sort it out amongst themselves.

rsj_hn 4y ago
"If you build more nuclear" can be done without cap and trade, and thus the positive spillovers also happen without cap and trade. But what doesn't happen, is that cap and trade doesn't result in building more nuclear.