You're right that physics will crush the net-zero agenda. I'm not certain you're right that the left will become energy realists as a result. There are so many convenient, readymade bogeymen to blame for the failures.
>> Why is the grid becoming more unreliable? It must be climate change.
>> Why did the net-zero agenda fail? The evil oil/gas industry.
>> Why is energy becoming more expensive? Corporate greed.
>> What's the solution? More taxpayer-funded subsidies for more renewable energy.
People like blaming common enemies much more than they like reflecting on their own errors. Democrats know this, and they've built a party around it.
Many of the same people who believe we will rid ourselves of fossil fuels shortly, are the same people carrying "Gays for Hamas" signs, blindly unaware they are cheering, their own demise.
The vast majority of Americans have no idea, electricity is not an energy source, but a delivery system. Even when they see large diesel generators, sitting next to the charging stations, they fail to make the connection. They also have no idea how their food originates, before it arrives in a Whole Foods. A combine harvesting US grain, in the middle of a field that runs for miles, can be refueled by a fuel truck, in mere minutes, charging stations are harder to come by. Moreover, the US population is moving from north to south, where perpetual AC is not a luxury, but a necessity of life .
Finally, US Climate Warriors refuse to acknowledge at its' base, Climate Change is a Math problem. Assuming every thing Climate Crusaders claim is true, the US foregoing all power, but actual horses and candles, would be, but, a rounding error in the world's Climate. We are a paltry 335 million people, out of 8 billion. We have already reduced our carbon output, back to 1990s levels. If Climate Change is a problem to be solved, the answer will be found in changing the behavior of huge cities in China, India , Africa, and South America, not in bankrupting Americans.
Yes, China and India are serious issues, but their population still pollutes at about 25% the rate that Americans so. They are investing heavily in clean energy (more than we are, btw!), but still expanding the number of coal plants as their people try to climb into a middle class. Nobody will accept restricting the use of energy -- not Americans, not Indians. not Chinese.
My view is that Americans are the most likely to invent killer, cost-effective technologies that allow expansion of energy while NOT expanding greenhouse gas emissions. We can then export that tech or those products to other countries (and make good money!).
The other driver to getting China/India to cut GHG emissions is the carbon border adjustment: If we charge Chinese goods entering the USA a tariff reflecting their "embodied carbon" but waive it if they impose carbon pricing on all THEIR use of fossil fuels, they they will have market incentives to pick up the pace of their clean energy transition (which they disparately want owing to air pollution.) Google: carbon diplomacy to see how Canada and Europe, both of whom has carbon pricing, are creating pressure on us to do the same in 2025 as part of an omnibus deal to extend the Trump tax cuts.
The rate doesn't matter, it is how much pollution the country produces. John Kerry himself has admitted a net zero US would be a rounding error in the world's carbon.
Anyone who believes China is investing heavily in clean energy, has never been there. Take a train from Beijing to Xi'an, a new coal plant is passed every hour, billowing black smoke, the likes of which hasn't been seen in the US since the 1970's, because scrubbers are expensive.
Climate Warriors mean well , but like Indiana Jones , they are digging in the wrong spot.
Teixeira's numbers demonstrate vividly the SCALE of the transition that will be required, not only to replace our current fossil-fuel-based world, but to absorb the rightful claims of the ascendant global masses moving out of extreme poverty. For the sake of his argument, he underplays the costs of delay or the urgency of the need to get to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions. He's right about the scale, but wrong about the urgency and the need to respond as if it's an emegency.
The "all of the above" strategy should not only include all forms of energy, but all forms of policy responses -- the most important one of which is carbon pricing. Carbon pricing will unleash the private sector innovations, investments and tech progress necessary to find low cost, reliable substitutes for fossil fuel energy.
Personally, I'm a fan of carbon fee and dividend (https://energyinnovationact.org/), which is composed of 1) a small fee that gradually rises, assessed at the source (mine, well, port of entry); 2) a 100% rebate of the collected fees, sent pro rata to American households each month; and 3) a carbon border adjustment to protect our international competitiveness. Those three elements are mandatory for the policy to be viable. A desirable fourth element is regulatory reforms to address the patchwork of administrative reviews, judicial "stays" and other impediments to the rapid, large scale, build-out of the clean energy infrastructure.
DEMS are there. Sen. Whitehouse had 49 "yes" votes last congress, only missing Sen. Manchin. We need some centrist Republicans to create a bipartisan consensus for making this market-based solution durable over the decades necessary for such a huge transition.
With all do respect , carbon fees would send electricity and everything else soaring. Under Biden, gas is up 50% , food nearly 40% and electricity up 30%. The bottom half of America is barely making ends meet know. Toss carbon fees on top of that, and we will soon have large swaths of Americans, living in actual 3rd world poverty. All to virtue signal, because no matter what Americans endure, it only matters how the other 7.7 billion people on the planet, choose to live.
Ronda, gas prices are subject to geopolitical factors and are VERY volatile. Electricity is much more stable, and rate increases of late have been driven mostly by fuel costs and perhaps some mandates (like our 50% "renewable portfolio standard" requirement here in Nevada. The reality is that climate change is already adding seriously to economic distress (e.g., home insurance rates WAY higher as carriers endure higher claims from windstorms, fires, and flooding.
Last, an actual carbon fee AND DIVIDEND policy actually adds more money to the bottom 60% of income earners than they pay in higher prices because energy is priced to include the "negative externalities."
But let's jump to the big picture: American ingenuity, if properly incentivized with market pricing, will develop alternative to fossil fuel based processes. That why over 3,000 professional economists including all 4 living former Chairs of the Federal Reserve, 27 Nobel Laureate economists, 15 former Chairs of the Council of Economic Advisers, and 2 former Secretaries of the U.S. Department of Treasury endorse carbon fee and dividend. Even Republican think tanks like Niskanen and Texiera's own AEI support the concept: https://www.aei.org/articles/addressing-climate-change-and-reforming-the-tax-code-with-a-carbon-tax/
This is a far superior way to address the issue when compared with mandates (which drive up costs), subsidies (which are inefficient) or industrial policy (which picks winners and losers.)
“The reality is that climate change is already adding seriously to economic distress (e.g., home insurance rates WAY higher as carriers endure higher claims from windstorms, fires, and flooding.” Wayne, do you really think windstorms, fires and flooding are happening at higher rates than in the past 1M years? So far I have seen no proof of any of that. Insurance rates are up for a variety of reasons, none of which has anything to do with climate change, unless you define climate change as the weather.
Nathaniel Bullard, a respected contributor to Bloomberg news and a venture capitalist, publishes an annual presentation to summarize market, energy and climate data in 200 slides. He is no ideologue -- he invests his and other people's money and needs to be right more than wrong. See slides 10 and 11 of his 2024 slides for the data on losses that would have to be covered by insurance: https://www.nathanielbullard.com/presentations
You are right that insurance premiums are influenced by factors in addition to covered losses, but "Several factors are making homeowners insurance more expensive: The increase in the number and severity of hurricanes, floods, tornadoes and other harsh weather has led to a spike in claims in many parts of the country." https://www.cnbc.com/select/homeowners-insurance-skyrocketing-how-to-lower-premium/. Note that CNBC also reports that across the country, premiums have jumped 23% in just the last year. (I've seen other numbers that are higher, too.)
I try to be very careful and have firm authority from respected sources for things I say. I'm pretty comfortable saying that climate change is a factor in insurance premiums. Heck, it's even affecting AVAILABILITY of getting coverage in places like FL and Hawaii.
I'm also a fan of Dick Cheney's "One Percent Doctrine," which states "If there's a 1% chance that [a catastrophe could occur, like] Pakistani scientists are helping al-Qaeda build or develop a nuclear weapon, we have to treat it as a certainty in terms of our response. It's not about our analysis ... It's about our response." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_One_Percent_Doctrine. Well, climate change is way more than a 1% risk. And the damage really is going to be extreme. The sooner we can transition to clean energy, the less the damage. "It's about our response."
My friends on the right are inclined to dismiss the alarming data because they don't want to deal with the problem. I get that. "Wayne, eco-nuts are needlessly sounding an alarm in an effort to get government more involved in our lives." My reply: set up the economic incentives and let the private markets address the issues. Carbon fee and dividend!! It doesn't expand government AT ALL.
Do you know what the average, working man will say to you? "I'm getting a 100% rebate each month? Sure, I totally believe that <sarc>." People are smarter than you give them credit for, they know they will be paying A LOT more for energy and they're hurting now.
Yes, trust in government and cynicism about public action are an issue. The good news is that a carbon-fee-and-dividend law can be written so that if future Congresses try to redirect the fee to spending other than the 100% rebate, the whole law self-destructs. (Google: SERVERABILITY in legal contexts). Also, respected conservative economists who have studied this policy find that over 60% of households, mostly in lower and middle income segments, get more back in carbon dividends than they pay in higher prices. Another 20% essentially break even. The top 10% --mostly people who travel a lot, mostly college/white/higher income - pay more. But they are the most likely to invest in clean tech alternatives, as they can afford the capex and harvest the overall lower total cost of ownership for tech that doesn't face a rising level of carbon fees.
Thanks for giving voice to those who distrust governmental action like this. LMK if you want any links/citations. This CF&D simply must be part of the answer, as it's the most effective, most efficient and most equitable way to address the problem.
People who can’t afford to live in the cities because of housing costs so they live in rural areas and commute are not “mostly college/white/higher income” people. A carbon fee and dividend rebate will affect blue collar people who can’t sit at their home office and work remotely. The pandemic proved who could work from home and who couldn’t. The laptop workers wouldn’t be paying the tax, they’d be collecting the dividend. The blue collar workers would get the shaft, just like they are with student loan forgiveness.
It's more complicated: first, remote workers are economically better off working from smaller cities or exurbs NOT in the center city. Rich people live in cities because they can afford it and because they like the entertainment and other resources of cities. Poor people also live in cities. Rural residents might be family farmers or ranchers ... or the long-distance commuters you mention. People have sorted themselves based on their values, their relationships and their economics.
Here's the thing: I don't think we should impose any mandate to REQUIRE anyone to make a change. But since "insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result," we need to do something to reduce the rate that CO2, methane and other GHGs are entering the atmosphere and adding to the pollution blanket that is retaining heat. A small, but inexorably rising carbon fee will SIGNAL a change in economics, so everyone will include that fact in their calculations of where to live, how to drive, and what to spend their money on. Yes, that will increase costs -- there are no free lunches. But yes, the dividend will neutralize that cost increase by putting money back into each family's pocket for them to spend as they choose. Some will use it to offset the higher price of gas. Some will use it to move closer (and possibly pay higher rents.) Some will see the tax coming and insulate their homes or invest in a heat pump when their gas furnace craps out.
Lefty, this discussion/debate is not timely between you and me, I now realize, because you are not persuaded that there's a real problem. So until that more basic issue is resolved, let's shelve debate over solutions for the time being, OK?
I'm buying a new car this year and it won't be an EV or a Hybrid - the numbers just don't work for me. I make a 400 mile (one way) trip each month and the charging infrastructure just isn't there. No one I know wants one. And until I'm convinced that children won't be mining precious metals, I will never buy one.
For whatever it's worth, the flip side of the fueling coin with EVs is that if you mostly travel short distances, you will never have to spend time and money at a gas station again: you commute, come home, charge in your garage.
They're not universally bad, but they're not anything close to what they're hyped to be. They are not a replacement for ICEs.
Yeah - I've driven back and forth to MN a couple times since the pandemic (most recently in February), and the infrastructure for long-distance EV travel just isn't there yet. Plug-in hybrids seem like the way to go more generally, but I just don't see a plan to get us from exclusively ICE vehicles to mix of pure EVs, hybrids (plug-in or otherwise), and ICE vehicles. I think it's possible to dramatically increase the proportion of EVs in the mix but I also believe it's going to take longer than the Biden administration seems to think right now.
Yeah, that's scary, being on the road about to be stranded by a dead battery. I wouldn't do it, either.
I think the hybrids are the best, too. They require something like 1/10th the battery compared to a full EV. I agree that either way, though, the timeline is WAY longer than the goals set by Dems.
I'm in and out at a gas station in 2 minutes, 3 minutes tops. I can run in and go to the restroom and grab a piece of pizza. None of those things are true at a charging station. If I can find one. And if its operational. And I'm still paying for the electricity. The break-even point is different for everyone. A lot of working people don't think in terms of breaking even 7 years down the road....
You are right, the breakeven point is different for everyone and right now it isn't there for you.
As the EV market and infrastructure evolve, that will change. Innovation and incentives are driving improvements in battery tech, wait times likely will decrease, charging stations are proliferating privately (not just those subsidized by the government) and charging stations are adding cafes or other amenities. The upfront costs are coming down as more suppliers compete. The breakeven points will change based on whatever happens with those things.
Here's the point: no one knows how or when these changes will take place ... so the best policy is to let market dynamics and family decision making prevail. AND, because we need to reduce the roughly 20% of greenhouse gas emissions caused by the transportation sector (over half of which is passenger cars), the long-term transition to electrification (using clean energy sources) of car and light trucks is desireable. The way to make that happen is to enact a carbon-fee-and-dividend policy and then let the market decide. Heck, I have a friend who is convinced (and has invested) in a non-EV solution: Hydrogen fuel cells. But that's another post ... not for here. My point is that we don't need to choose. Betamax or VHS? Let the market decide. EV vs. hydrogen? Let the market decide. All we as citizen need to do is insist that our government enact wise public policies to address the issue in the most effective, efficient, and equitable way possible.
This, unfortunately, very plausible; however, the discussion focusing on electoral feasibility seems to downplay or ignore the real, existential threat of climate change. Think of children now in Kindergarten, who should live into the 22nd Century. What will they have to cope with? Think of the climate refugees who may well overwhelm North America and Europe: we will need pragmatic policies to cope with them as well, one hopes within the current political system. What's needed is a degree of "realism", but "realism" should include some crusading on the depth and implications of the climate problem: we need political leadership that focuses on that problem, as well as on the incidental energy and political issues discussed in the article. An all-out campaign, as with Roosevelt's campaign to sell World War II is what's needed.
Wayne, I grew up with the media yelling that an ice age was imminent. In the grand scale of earths age it was almost yesterday. Then it was years of global warming. Now it’s that every time there is a storm or unpredictable weather event it’s man made climate change. Heck, a politician just said the last eclipse and northeast earthquake were due to climate change. You want to believe that man has anything to do with the climate changing then go ahead and put windmills and solar panels on your property. But to try and change societies basic sources of power and to some extent survival, using climate models, is beyond lunacy. Everyone knows a model is only as good as the data fed it, and there are prominent scientists who have shown that the data being fed into these climate models are at best inaccurate.
Insurance companies are for-profit organizations. They read the bottom line and make decisions based on that. Cost of materials, prevailing wages, overall cost of repairs and likelihood of payouts are all factors in coverage and pricing.
Well, Lefty, we are just going to have to agree to disagree, at least for now. I pride myself on not succumbing to "moral panics" offered by either side for their own purposes. I don't overreact to some provocation from either Marjorie Taylor Green or Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. I should not listen to "some politician" who claimed the eclipse and the Baltimore ship accident was a consequence of DEI; you should ignore "disaster entrepreneurs" who market fear of climate change in everything they see. That doesn't affect the overwhelming consensus that the climate is changing and greenhouse gas emissions are the dominant reason for that change.
I understand that you do not believe that man is changing the climate. What evidence would you require to cause you to question that belief? Would you be open to receiving that evidence if it exists?
“Lefty, this discussion/debate is not timely between you and me, I now realize, because you are not persuaded that there's a real problem. So until that more basic issue is resolved, let's shelve debate over solutions for the time being, OK?”
I agree Wayne but for a different reason. You have swallowed hook, line and sinker that climate change is man made and can be artificially manipulated by everyone paying more money to the gov’t. Until you stop believing the propaganda that the far left activists, grant dependent scientists and gov’t propagandists spew and look dispassionately using science and actually listen to scientists with dissenting viewpoints, our discussions are just like yelling in an empty hallway.
You're right that physics will crush the net-zero agenda. I'm not certain you're right that the left will become energy realists as a result. There are so many convenient, readymade bogeymen to blame for the failures.
>> Why is the grid becoming more unreliable? It must be climate change.
>> Why did the net-zero agenda fail? The evil oil/gas industry.
>> Why is energy becoming more expensive? Corporate greed.
>> What's the solution? More taxpayer-funded subsidies for more renewable energy.
People like blaming common enemies much more than they like reflecting on their own errors. Democrats know this, and they've built a party around it.
Many of the same people who believe we will rid ourselves of fossil fuels shortly, are the same people carrying "Gays for Hamas" signs, blindly unaware they are cheering, their own demise.
The vast majority of Americans have no idea, electricity is not an energy source, but a delivery system. Even when they see large diesel generators, sitting next to the charging stations, they fail to make the connection. They also have no idea how their food originates, before it arrives in a Whole Foods. A combine harvesting US grain, in the middle of a field that runs for miles, can be refueled by a fuel truck, in mere minutes, charging stations are harder to come by. Moreover, the US population is moving from north to south, where perpetual AC is not a luxury, but a necessity of life .
Finally, US Climate Warriors refuse to acknowledge at its' base, Climate Change is a Math problem. Assuming every thing Climate Crusaders claim is true, the US foregoing all power, but actual horses and candles, would be, but, a rounding error in the world's Climate. We are a paltry 335 million people, out of 8 billion. We have already reduced our carbon output, back to 1990s levels. If Climate Change is a problem to be solved, the answer will be found in changing the behavior of huge cities in China, India , Africa, and South America, not in bankrupting Americans.
Yes, China and India are serious issues, but their population still pollutes at about 25% the rate that Americans so. They are investing heavily in clean energy (more than we are, btw!), but still expanding the number of coal plants as their people try to climb into a middle class. Nobody will accept restricting the use of energy -- not Americans, not Indians. not Chinese.
My view is that Americans are the most likely to invent killer, cost-effective technologies that allow expansion of energy while NOT expanding greenhouse gas emissions. We can then export that tech or those products to other countries (and make good money!).
The other driver to getting China/India to cut GHG emissions is the carbon border adjustment: If we charge Chinese goods entering the USA a tariff reflecting their "embodied carbon" but waive it if they impose carbon pricing on all THEIR use of fossil fuels, they they will have market incentives to pick up the pace of their clean energy transition (which they disparately want owing to air pollution.) Google: carbon diplomacy to see how Canada and Europe, both of whom has carbon pricing, are creating pressure on us to do the same in 2025 as part of an omnibus deal to extend the Trump tax cuts.
The rate doesn't matter, it is how much pollution the country produces. John Kerry himself has admitted a net zero US would be a rounding error in the world's carbon.
Anyone who believes China is investing heavily in clean energy, has never been there. Take a train from Beijing to Xi'an, a new coal plant is passed every hour, billowing black smoke, the likes of which hasn't been seen in the US since the 1970's, because scrubbers are expensive.
Climate Warriors mean well , but like Indiana Jones , they are digging in the wrong spot.
Teixeira's numbers demonstrate vividly the SCALE of the transition that will be required, not only to replace our current fossil-fuel-based world, but to absorb the rightful claims of the ascendant global masses moving out of extreme poverty. For the sake of his argument, he underplays the costs of delay or the urgency of the need to get to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions. He's right about the scale, but wrong about the urgency and the need to respond as if it's an emegency.
The "all of the above" strategy should not only include all forms of energy, but all forms of policy responses -- the most important one of which is carbon pricing. Carbon pricing will unleash the private sector innovations, investments and tech progress necessary to find low cost, reliable substitutes for fossil fuel energy.
Personally, I'm a fan of carbon fee and dividend (https://energyinnovationact.org/), which is composed of 1) a small fee that gradually rises, assessed at the source (mine, well, port of entry); 2) a 100% rebate of the collected fees, sent pro rata to American households each month; and 3) a carbon border adjustment to protect our international competitiveness. Those three elements are mandatory for the policy to be viable. A desirable fourth element is regulatory reforms to address the patchwork of administrative reviews, judicial "stays" and other impediments to the rapid, large scale, build-out of the clean energy infrastructure.
DEMS are there. Sen. Whitehouse had 49 "yes" votes last congress, only missing Sen. Manchin. We need some centrist Republicans to create a bipartisan consensus for making this market-based solution durable over the decades necessary for such a huge transition.
With all do respect , carbon fees would send electricity and everything else soaring. Under Biden, gas is up 50% , food nearly 40% and electricity up 30%. The bottom half of America is barely making ends meet know. Toss carbon fees on top of that, and we will soon have large swaths of Americans, living in actual 3rd world poverty. All to virtue signal, because no matter what Americans endure, it only matters how the other 7.7 billion people on the planet, choose to live.
Ronda, gas prices are subject to geopolitical factors and are VERY volatile. Electricity is much more stable, and rate increases of late have been driven mostly by fuel costs and perhaps some mandates (like our 50% "renewable portfolio standard" requirement here in Nevada. The reality is that climate change is already adding seriously to economic distress (e.g., home insurance rates WAY higher as carriers endure higher claims from windstorms, fires, and flooding.
Last, an actual carbon fee AND DIVIDEND policy actually adds more money to the bottom 60% of income earners than they pay in higher prices because energy is priced to include the "negative externalities."
But let's jump to the big picture: American ingenuity, if properly incentivized with market pricing, will develop alternative to fossil fuel based processes. That why over 3,000 professional economists including all 4 living former Chairs of the Federal Reserve, 27 Nobel Laureate economists, 15 former Chairs of the Council of Economic Advisers, and 2 former Secretaries of the U.S. Department of Treasury endorse carbon fee and dividend. Even Republican think tanks like Niskanen and Texiera's own AEI support the concept: https://www.aei.org/articles/addressing-climate-change-and-reforming-the-tax-code-with-a-carbon-tax/
This is a far superior way to address the issue when compared with mandates (which drive up costs), subsidies (which are inefficient) or industrial policy (which picks winners and losers.)
Your thoughts?
“The reality is that climate change is already adding seriously to economic distress (e.g., home insurance rates WAY higher as carriers endure higher claims from windstorms, fires, and flooding.” Wayne, do you really think windstorms, fires and flooding are happening at higher rates than in the past 1M years? So far I have seen no proof of any of that. Insurance rates are up for a variety of reasons, none of which has anything to do with climate change, unless you define climate change as the weather.
Nathaniel Bullard, a respected contributor to Bloomberg news and a venture capitalist, publishes an annual presentation to summarize market, energy and climate data in 200 slides. He is no ideologue -- he invests his and other people's money and needs to be right more than wrong. See slides 10 and 11 of his 2024 slides for the data on losses that would have to be covered by insurance: https://www.nathanielbullard.com/presentations
You are right that insurance premiums are influenced by factors in addition to covered losses, but "Several factors are making homeowners insurance more expensive: The increase in the number and severity of hurricanes, floods, tornadoes and other harsh weather has led to a spike in claims in many parts of the country." https://www.cnbc.com/select/homeowners-insurance-skyrocketing-how-to-lower-premium/. Note that CNBC also reports that across the country, premiums have jumped 23% in just the last year. (I've seen other numbers that are higher, too.)
I try to be very careful and have firm authority from respected sources for things I say. I'm pretty comfortable saying that climate change is a factor in insurance premiums. Heck, it's even affecting AVAILABILITY of getting coverage in places like FL and Hawaii.
I'm also a fan of Dick Cheney's "One Percent Doctrine," which states "If there's a 1% chance that [a catastrophe could occur, like] Pakistani scientists are helping al-Qaeda build or develop a nuclear weapon, we have to treat it as a certainty in terms of our response. It's not about our analysis ... It's about our response." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_One_Percent_Doctrine. Well, climate change is way more than a 1% risk. And the damage really is going to be extreme. The sooner we can transition to clean energy, the less the damage. "It's about our response."
My friends on the right are inclined to dismiss the alarming data because they don't want to deal with the problem. I get that. "Wayne, eco-nuts are needlessly sounding an alarm in an effort to get government more involved in our lives." My reply: set up the economic incentives and let the private markets address the issues. Carbon fee and dividend!! It doesn't expand government AT ALL.
Your thoughts?
Do you know what the average, working man will say to you? "I'm getting a 100% rebate each month? Sure, I totally believe that <sarc>." People are smarter than you give them credit for, they know they will be paying A LOT more for energy and they're hurting now.
Yes, trust in government and cynicism about public action are an issue. The good news is that a carbon-fee-and-dividend law can be written so that if future Congresses try to redirect the fee to spending other than the 100% rebate, the whole law self-destructs. (Google: SERVERABILITY in legal contexts). Also, respected conservative economists who have studied this policy find that over 60% of households, mostly in lower and middle income segments, get more back in carbon dividends than they pay in higher prices. Another 20% essentially break even. The top 10% --mostly people who travel a lot, mostly college/white/higher income - pay more. But they are the most likely to invest in clean tech alternatives, as they can afford the capex and harvest the overall lower total cost of ownership for tech that doesn't face a rising level of carbon fees.
Thanks for giving voice to those who distrust governmental action like this. LMK if you want any links/citations. This CF&D simply must be part of the answer, as it's the most effective, most efficient and most equitable way to address the problem.
People who can’t afford to live in the cities because of housing costs so they live in rural areas and commute are not “mostly college/white/higher income” people. A carbon fee and dividend rebate will affect blue collar people who can’t sit at their home office and work remotely. The pandemic proved who could work from home and who couldn’t. The laptop workers wouldn’t be paying the tax, they’d be collecting the dividend. The blue collar workers would get the shaft, just like they are with student loan forgiveness.
It's more complicated: first, remote workers are economically better off working from smaller cities or exurbs NOT in the center city. Rich people live in cities because they can afford it and because they like the entertainment and other resources of cities. Poor people also live in cities. Rural residents might be family farmers or ranchers ... or the long-distance commuters you mention. People have sorted themselves based on their values, their relationships and their economics.
Here's the thing: I don't think we should impose any mandate to REQUIRE anyone to make a change. But since "insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result," we need to do something to reduce the rate that CO2, methane and other GHGs are entering the atmosphere and adding to the pollution blanket that is retaining heat. A small, but inexorably rising carbon fee will SIGNAL a change in economics, so everyone will include that fact in their calculations of where to live, how to drive, and what to spend their money on. Yes, that will increase costs -- there are no free lunches. But yes, the dividend will neutralize that cost increase by putting money back into each family's pocket for them to spend as they choose. Some will use it to offset the higher price of gas. Some will use it to move closer (and possibly pay higher rents.) Some will see the tax coming and insulate their homes or invest in a heat pump when their gas furnace craps out.
Lefty, this discussion/debate is not timely between you and me, I now realize, because you are not persuaded that there's a real problem. So until that more basic issue is resolved, let's shelve debate over solutions for the time being, OK?
I'm buying a new car this year and it won't be an EV or a Hybrid - the numbers just don't work for me. I make a 400 mile (one way) trip each month and the charging infrastructure just isn't there. No one I know wants one. And until I'm convinced that children won't be mining precious metals, I will never buy one.
For whatever it's worth, the flip side of the fueling coin with EVs is that if you mostly travel short distances, you will never have to spend time and money at a gas station again: you commute, come home, charge in your garage.
They're not universally bad, but they're not anything close to what they're hyped to be. They are not a replacement for ICEs.
Yeah - I've driven back and forth to MN a couple times since the pandemic (most recently in February), and the infrastructure for long-distance EV travel just isn't there yet. Plug-in hybrids seem like the way to go more generally, but I just don't see a plan to get us from exclusively ICE vehicles to mix of pure EVs, hybrids (plug-in or otherwise), and ICE vehicles. I think it's possible to dramatically increase the proportion of EVs in the mix but I also believe it's going to take longer than the Biden administration seems to think right now.
Yeah, that's scary, being on the road about to be stranded by a dead battery. I wouldn't do it, either.
I think the hybrids are the best, too. They require something like 1/10th the battery compared to a full EV. I agree that either way, though, the timeline is WAY longer than the goals set by Dems.
I'm in and out at a gas station in 2 minutes, 3 minutes tops. I can run in and go to the restroom and grab a piece of pizza. None of those things are true at a charging station. If I can find one. And if its operational. And I'm still paying for the electricity. The break-even point is different for everyone. A lot of working people don't think in terms of breaking even 7 years down the road....
You are right, the breakeven point is different for everyone and right now it isn't there for you.
As the EV market and infrastructure evolve, that will change. Innovation and incentives are driving improvements in battery tech, wait times likely will decrease, charging stations are proliferating privately (not just those subsidized by the government) and charging stations are adding cafes or other amenities. The upfront costs are coming down as more suppliers compete. The breakeven points will change based on whatever happens with those things.
Here's the point: no one knows how or when these changes will take place ... so the best policy is to let market dynamics and family decision making prevail. AND, because we need to reduce the roughly 20% of greenhouse gas emissions caused by the transportation sector (over half of which is passenger cars), the long-term transition to electrification (using clean energy sources) of car and light trucks is desireable. The way to make that happen is to enact a carbon-fee-and-dividend policy and then let the market decide. Heck, I have a friend who is convinced (and has invested) in a non-EV solution: Hydrogen fuel cells. But that's another post ... not for here. My point is that we don't need to choose. Betamax or VHS? Let the market decide. EV vs. hydrogen? Let the market decide. All we as citizen need to do is insist that our government enact wise public policies to address the issue in the most effective, efficient, and equitable way possible.
This, unfortunately, very plausible; however, the discussion focusing on electoral feasibility seems to downplay or ignore the real, existential threat of climate change. Think of children now in Kindergarten, who should live into the 22nd Century. What will they have to cope with? Think of the climate refugees who may well overwhelm North America and Europe: we will need pragmatic policies to cope with them as well, one hopes within the current political system. What's needed is a degree of "realism", but "realism" should include some crusading on the depth and implications of the climate problem: we need political leadership that focuses on that problem, as well as on the incidental energy and political issues discussed in the article. An all-out campaign, as with Roosevelt's campaign to sell World War II is what's needed.
Wayne, I grew up with the media yelling that an ice age was imminent. In the grand scale of earths age it was almost yesterday. Then it was years of global warming. Now it’s that every time there is a storm or unpredictable weather event it’s man made climate change. Heck, a politician just said the last eclipse and northeast earthquake were due to climate change. You want to believe that man has anything to do with the climate changing then go ahead and put windmills and solar panels on your property. But to try and change societies basic sources of power and to some extent survival, using climate models, is beyond lunacy. Everyone knows a model is only as good as the data fed it, and there are prominent scientists who have shown that the data being fed into these climate models are at best inaccurate.
Insurance companies are for-profit organizations. They read the bottom line and make decisions based on that. Cost of materials, prevailing wages, overall cost of repairs and likelihood of payouts are all factors in coverage and pricing.
Well, Lefty, we are just going to have to agree to disagree, at least for now. I pride myself on not succumbing to "moral panics" offered by either side for their own purposes. I don't overreact to some provocation from either Marjorie Taylor Green or Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. I should not listen to "some politician" who claimed the eclipse and the Baltimore ship accident was a consequence of DEI; you should ignore "disaster entrepreneurs" who market fear of climate change in everything they see. That doesn't affect the overwhelming consensus that the climate is changing and greenhouse gas emissions are the dominant reason for that change.
I understand that you do not believe that man is changing the climate. What evidence would you require to cause you to question that belief? Would you be open to receiving that evidence if it exists?
“Lefty, this discussion/debate is not timely between you and me, I now realize, because you are not persuaded that there's a real problem. So until that more basic issue is resolved, let's shelve debate over solutions for the time being, OK?”
I agree Wayne but for a different reason. You have swallowed hook, line and sinker that climate change is man made and can be artificially manipulated by everyone paying more money to the gov’t. Until you stop believing the propaganda that the far left activists, grant dependent scientists and gov’t propagandists spew and look dispassionately using science and actually listen to scientists with dissenting viewpoints, our discussions are just like yelling in an empty hallway.