But that doesn't (inherently) emit CO2 so it isn't subject to a carbon tax. It should actually make plastics cheaper because they won't have to compete with power plants for oil.
> Renewables will help significantly in reducing the power plant power issue. Sure. But we haven’t solved the storage problem, which means that at night we need gas/coal. When there’s no wind we need gas/coal.
Markets are good at fixing things like this. Nuclear works great at night. Solar works during most of the peak load times (solar generation correlates with air conditioning usage). There is a problematic demand period between when the sun goes down and when people go to sleep, so use pricing to encourage people to do their laundry on Saturday morning instead of Friday night -- this may even save money on net.
And there is nothing saying you can't burn any carbon. If it's 9PM on a windless night then you pay the carbon tax for an hour. You're still down 95% from when that plant was operating 24/7.
> Any tax will be passed on to consumers, if not in full then in part.
It's revenue neutral. You're basically taking money from oil companies and giving it to renewables companies. That doesn't inherently change the market price at all. It's like taking money from Nike and giving it to Reebok. You get a change in the type of shoes but not necessarily the price of shoes. The only price difference is if it costs more to generate with renewables than fossil fuels -- but if that's even true at all anymore, the difference is very small.
And again, there is a plausible argument that scaling use of renewables will bring prices down. Once you have a given installed base of solar, it keeps generating power without having to spend additional resources on oil exploration/extraction/refining/distribution/etc.
I'm too old to believe "Markets will fix it" anymore, now I need to see the fine print, and then figure out how the economic game will look after the third play through.
Secondly, this doesn't obviate the need for additional power - you will still be burning coal/etc. You will use it less as a % of total power output. But if your power output increases (which it will, since most of humanity doesn't have power today), you are still looking at a potential increase.
I assume we are not including cars/busses because we expect electric cars to fix that.
However, flight and shipping will remain oil based.
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I love your points and the enthusiasm with which you make them, I think you need to consider your model with bad actors playing it, and you need to consider the self referential aspects of this model.
For example
1) More cheap power means more use of that power. Imagine millions more tamagotchis, or fans which can be kept running nonstop, or other items which are now affordable because power is cheaper.
Case in point - bitcoin miners are today limited by the cost of power. Every efficiency gain in power production, results in more bitcoin miners being added to the system. Every increase in power, results in people dropping out of the system.
2) The economic game is played over several rounds. In the best case scenario, the 3 players (consumers, regulators, producers) are in even tension.
But if producers get rich enough (or even earlier), they can regularly suppress regulators and get away with not paying taxes, polluting without worry and so on.
They can also just straight up reject options like carbon taxes, saying that it will not work for them.
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To make my point clear to you -
The set up of the game is such that no player is in a position to put their foot down! Any player that makes that call is removed from the game
Observe the set up of the game
1) Financers
2) consumers
3) Producers
4) Regulators
5) Politicians
Contracts and obligations guarantee that the interests of financers will be met by producers - in short, the necessity of global growth is backed up by contracts and loans.
The producers of industries, regulators, and politicians regularly ignore many of the primary concequences of polluting industries (the tradgedy of the commons, and this is worse in developing nations which dont have the resources to afford or keep regulators safe)
Any politician which ends up proposing a tax increase, will need massive consumer support - but this is eventually self harming.
Those consumers need jobs, an effective carbon tax would severely harm growth prospects, and thus job creation in an economy.
This means that people will eventually vote this govt out, because they want growth.
FInancers and producers will collude to fund people who support their goals.
Your "foot down" cant happen, because the game is not set up to allow that behavior.
> I'm too old to believe "Markets will fix it" anymore, now I need to see the fine print, and then figure out how the economic game will look after the third play through.
You're using "I don't believe in markets" as a justification for not regulating something.
> Secondly, this doesn't obviate the need for additional power - you will still be burning coal/etc. You will use it less as a % of total power output. But if your power output increases (which it will, since most of humanity doesn't have power today), you are still looking at a potential increase.
The potential increase is independent of the percentage decrease. If total consumption doubles while the share of fossil fuels drops from 50% to 5%, total fossil fuel use has gone down. Even if total consumption increases by more, you still have proportionally less fossil fuel usage than you would have with the same increase in consumption and no decrease in the ratio of fossil fuels.
> More cheap power means more use of that power. Imagine millions more tamagotchis, or fans which can be kept running nonstop, or other items which are now affordable because power is cheaper.
You only burn oil when there is more demand than supply, which are exactly the times that price-sensitive users will discontinue their usage.
> However, flight and shipping will remain oil based.
It's possible to use biofuels for this. Also, you can make ships run on anything. Wood, garbage, batteries, wind, plutonium. If it can generate torque, thrust or steam it can power a ship.
> Those consumers need jobs, an effective carbon tax would severely harm growth prospects, and thus job creation in an economy.
You keep saying that it would reduce growth. How is taking billions of dollars that would have gone to unfriendly countries and instead using it to hire a million domestic workers to build renewable energy infrastructure, all while energy prices remain the same or go down, supposed to reduce growth?
>You're using "I don't believe in markets" as a justification for not regulating something
If that’s the case I’m doing it wrong, since I believe the opposite. Good regulations with the ability to verify easily make markets work.
>The potential increase is independent of the percentage decrease.
Agree, it’s matter of what the mix is. Higher power gen, with a smaller coal/oil mix in big relative and absolute terms is also. Possibility. I don’t believe it is, but it remains a possible outcome.
>You only burn oil when there is more demand than supply, which are exactly the times that price-sensitive users will discontinue their usage.
I am wary that this will cleave so cleanly.
>It's possible to use biofuels for this. Also, you can make ships run on anything. Wood, garbage, batteries, wind, plutonium. If it can generate torque, thrust or steam it can power a ship.
But those aren’t there yet and oil is still the best and economic option
So change will not come here, without a break through technology.
>You keep saying that it would reduce growth.
Well yes - you are focused only on power. But I’m looking around me and an actual, effective working carbon tax aimed at saving the environment would hit every industry, not just power.
For example most of the products made in my country don’t necessarily come from places that follow regulations.
Working regulations would necessarily make those products more expensive and that would mean many jobs lost, marginal business shut, and and overall increase in costs of goods.
The cost of compliance with just air regulations norms for engines increased the price significantly. This resulted in many hacks or workarounds which harm the engine but superficially match the new norms.
Another example - we recently saw a major city try and ban plastic (yet again), but it would result in many street vendors and stores being unable to package liquid goods.
India is famously cost sensitive, and price advantages often completely override quality advantages. People developed single use washing powder sachets, and created an entirely new market.
But if the cost of carbon cleanup was added to those sachets, they would not be viable products at all.
All of those represent the razor thin margins needed to ensure the economy in india Grows.
There’s no way in our economy, to keep growth and the environment safe.
So while we are moving to alternate sources of power, it’s not stopping the other sources of pollution.
But that doesn't (inherently) emit CO2 so it isn't subject to a carbon tax. It should actually make plastics cheaper because they won't have to compete with power plants for oil.
> Renewables will help significantly in reducing the power plant power issue. Sure. But we haven’t solved the storage problem, which means that at night we need gas/coal. When there’s no wind we need gas/coal.
Markets are good at fixing things like this. Nuclear works great at night. Solar works during most of the peak load times (solar generation correlates with air conditioning usage). There is a problematic demand period between when the sun goes down and when people go to sleep, so use pricing to encourage people to do their laundry on Saturday morning instead of Friday night -- this may even save money on net.
And there is nothing saying you can't burn any carbon. If it's 9PM on a windless night then you pay the carbon tax for an hour. You're still down 95% from when that plant was operating 24/7.
> Any tax will be passed on to consumers, if not in full then in part.
It's revenue neutral. You're basically taking money from oil companies and giving it to renewables companies. That doesn't inherently change the market price at all. It's like taking money from Nike and giving it to Reebok. You get a change in the type of shoes but not necessarily the price of shoes. The only price difference is if it costs more to generate with renewables than fossil fuels -- but if that's even true at all anymore, the difference is very small.
And again, there is a plausible argument that scaling use of renewables will bring prices down. Once you have a given installed base of solar, it keeps generating power without having to spend additional resources on oil exploration/extraction/refining/distribution/etc.