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If you internalize emissions costs into the price of electricity, reduced consumption will happen naturally. Precisely nobody likes higher energy bills, so the

If you internalize emissions costs into the price of electricity, reduced consumption will happen naturally. Precisely nobody likes higher energy bills, so there's a natural incentive to reduce consumption as long as you're paying for it.

delusional 1y ago
"internalizing emissions" is the kind of thing that's really easy to say, even conceptualize, but really difficult to implement. You could do it better than we are doing now, but you'll always have people saying: "that's unfair, why are you picking on me"
- _aavaa_ 1y ago
  Even pricing CO2 output from burning fossil gas, plus a % for upstream leaks, and the same for car combustion will go a long way. Mind you people won't like that since we're so used to using the atmosphere as a free sewer. The idea of having to pay for our pollution isn't palatable since the gasses are mostly invisible. Though it's sad that we're talking about market solutions rather than outright bans for the majority of applications like we did for leaded gas.
  - AnthonyMouse 1y ago
    Outright bans are a non-starter because it requires an infrastructure transition. You couldn't possibly replace every car with an electric one overnight, we can't make them that fast. But if you price carbon then it would cause every new car to be electric, or at least a plug-in hybrid that runs in electric mode 95% of the time. And the people who drive a lot of miles would switch to electric first, which would make a big difference right away. Meanwhile the people with a 10 year old car they drive 5000 miles a year will keep it until it's a 20 year old car, at which point they'll buy another 10 year old car, but by then that one will run on electricity. Then you could theoretically ban it, but by then do you even need to?
    - _aavaa_ 1y ago
      Nobody is talking about replacing all cars overnight. You don't have to ban existing cars, they will phase themselves out. Give every X years and ban the sales of any non-hybrids for all but a few niche applications. Then in X+Y years ban all combustion engines other than niche applications. But ultimately, we need to be serious about this, and half the population and the governments of most western countries are not serious. Many people still believe that climate change is a hoax, and ridiculous ideas like hydrogen cars and ammonia burning ships are still getting funding.
  - delusional 1y ago
    I should probably clarify that I'm not against CO2 emissions taxes. What I am saying is that we shouldn't get bogged down with the discussion of "fairness" and "paying for a shared resource" rhetoric. Down that road lies an infinite discussion. What we should do instead is start at the other end. Envision a world that would be sustainable, that we would want to live in, and decide which incentives have to exists for us to get there, fairness be damned.
asdff 1y ago
I wonder how much households can really save here. Most "luxury" items using electricity don't really use much e.g. a modern laptop or modern smartphone. The stuff that does use a lot of electricity are things like your AC unit or your electric heater and electric stove. Seems there is little wiggle room there to me, people might end up just getting saddled with higher bills especially if slightly more efficient home appliances are out of reach (or not purchased by the renter at all). And for people who might get strongly affected out of their budget by these things for lack of income there are usually subsidies to help pay for their energy usage, which might further stymie market forces from changing behavior. Seems most high energy use consumers are high enough income where they won't be much affected by increased power costs like how we see them unaffected by water restrictions and higher fees for high water usage already. Maybe that says the fees aren't yet high enough for high income people to change behavior, but I'm willing to bet they never truly will be due to the influence this subset of the population holds over politics.
- _aavaa_ 1y ago
  Some of these would benefit from changes (e.g. electric heating -> heat pump). Others would be better off with other changes. E.g. too much cooling? Consider better awnings, stronger blinds, or even IR rejecting films. As for the stove, how much it uses is directly related to the kind of cooking you do, and for how long.
- wmf 1y ago
  It's not about households anyway, it's about transportation and industrial usage. Larger companies have enough scale that they can afford to invest in efficiency.
- bee_rider 1y ago
  Carbon taxes could be phased in over time, to give people a chance to make that decision over the course of natural appliances update lifecycles. Even if rich people don’t consume much more energy than poor people (I have no idea, just engaging with your idea as stated), they must be buying something with their money… carbon taxes should raise the price of goods with lots of embodied carbon. If they aren’t consuming much energy and am they aren’t buying stuff with much embodied carbon… I dunno, I guess that’s the goal, right?
designerarvid 1y ago
It would incentivise energy production that avoids those costs.

delusional 1y ago

"internalizing emissions" is the kind of thing that's really easy to say, even conceptualize, but really difficult to implement. You could do it better than we are doing now, but you'll always have people saying: "that's unfair, why are you picking on me"

_aavaa_ 1y ago
Even pricing CO2 output from burning fossil gas, plus a % for upstream leaks, and the same for car combustion will go a long way. Mind you people won't like that since we're so used to using the atmosphere as a free sewer. The idea of having to pay for our pollution isn't palatable since the gasses are mostly invisible. Though it's sad that we're talking about market solutions rather than outright bans for the majority of applications like we did for leaded gas.
- AnthonyMouse 1y ago
  Outright bans are a non-starter because it requires an infrastructure transition. You couldn't possibly replace every car with an electric one overnight, we can't make them that fast. But if you price carbon then it would cause every new car to be electric, or at least a plug-in hybrid that runs in electric mode 95% of the time. And the people who drive a lot of miles would switch to electric first, which would make a big difference right away. Meanwhile the people with a 10 year old car they drive 5000 miles a year will keep it until it's a 20 year old car, at which point they'll buy another 10 year old car, but by then that one will run on electricity. Then you could theoretically ban it, but by then do you even need to?
  - _aavaa_ 1y ago
    Nobody is talking about replacing all cars overnight. You don't have to ban existing cars, they will phase themselves out. Give every X years and ban the sales of any non-hybrids for all but a few niche applications. Then in X+Y years ban all combustion engines other than niche applications. But ultimately, we need to be serious about this, and half the population and the governments of most western countries are not serious. Many people still believe that climate change is a hoax, and ridiculous ideas like hydrogen cars and ammonia burning ships are still getting funding.
- delusional 1y ago
  I should probably clarify that I'm not against CO2 emissions taxes. What I am saying is that we shouldn't get bogged down with the discussion of "fairness" and "paying for a shared resource" rhetoric. Down that road lies an infinite discussion. What we should do instead is start at the other end. Envision a world that would be sustainable, that we would want to live in, and decide which incentives have to exists for us to get there, fairness be damned.

asdff 1y ago

I wonder how much households can really save here. Most "luxury" items using electricity don't really use much e.g. a modern laptop or modern smartphone. The stuff that does use a lot of electricity are things like your AC unit or your electric heater and electric stove. Seems there is little wiggle room there to me, people might end up just getting saddled with higher bills especially if slightly more efficient home appliances are out of reach (or not purchased by the renter at all). And for people who might get strongly affected out of their budget by these things for lack of income there are usually subsidies to help pay for their energy usage, which might further stymie market forces from changing behavior. Seems most high energy use consumers are high enough income where they won't be much affected by increased power costs like how we see them unaffected by water restrictions and higher fees for high water usage already. Maybe that says the fees aren't yet high enough for high income people to change behavior, but I'm willing to bet they never truly will be due to the influence this subset of the population holds over politics.

_aavaa_ 1y ago
Some of these would benefit from changes (e.g. electric heating -> heat pump). Others would be better off with other changes. E.g. too much cooling? Consider better awnings, stronger blinds, or even IR rejecting films. As for the stove, how much it uses is directly related to the kind of cooking you do, and for how long.
wmf 1y ago
It's not about households anyway, it's about transportation and industrial usage. Larger companies have enough scale that they can afford to invest in efficiency.
bee_rider 1y ago
Carbon taxes could be phased in over time, to give people a chance to make that decision over the course of natural appliances update lifecycles. Even if rich people don’t consume much more energy than poor people (I have no idea, just engaging with your idea as stated), they must be buying something with their money… carbon taxes should raise the price of goods with lots of embodied carbon. If they aren’t consuming much energy and am they aren’t buying stuff with much embodied carbon… I dunno, I guess that’s the goal, right?

designerarvid 1y ago

It would incentivise energy production that avoids those costs.