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Posted on 03/03/2007 3:49:48 AM PST by yoe
The idea of a cap-and-trade system for limiting carbon-dioxide emissions in the U.S. has become all the rage. Earlier this year, 10 big American companies formed the Climate Action Partnership to lobby for government action on climate change. And this week the private-equity consortium that is bidding to take over Texas utility TXU announced that, as part of the buyout, it would join the forces lobbying for a cap on carbon emissions.
But this is not, as Lenin once said, a case of capitalists selling the rope to hang themselves with. In most cases, it is good old-fashioned rent-seeking with a climate-change patina.
Start with the name. Most of those pushing this idea want you to think about it as cap-and-trade with emphasis on the trading part. Senator Barbara Boxer touts all the jobs that would be created for people trying to game the system--er, save the planet. And her colleague Jeff Bingaman calls cap-and-trade "market based," because, you know, people would trade stuff. But for that to happen, the government would first have to put a cap on CO2 emissions, either for certain industries or even the economy as a whole. At the same time, it would allocate quotas for CO2 emissions, either based on current emissions, or on energy output, or some other standard. If a company then "over-complied," which means it produced less carbon dioxide than it was allowed to under the rules, it could sell the excess allowance to someone else. That someone else would buy the right to produce CO2 if doing so cost less than actually reducing emissions.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
This is an excellent background to the current politics of the greens and the green targets.
The next time some airhead tells you how they support controls on CO2 emissions, ask if they are also willing to accept a lower standard of living or even lose their job to achieve it.
The whole thing is a scam. They have finally figured out a way to sell a product that doesnt exist.
Gore already has a piece of the company that would arrange this scam.
They couldnt figure a way to put an oxygen meter on your body,and charge you to breath, so they will put a CO 2 meter on your business and charge you for producing it.
You can bet the guy at the paying end of this scheme wont be Albert Gore or babs Boxer, its will be John Q Citizen.
They are going to hose us deep again and expect us to thank them for it.
Crap and trade.
Just another ENRON style business plan, with a slight green tint. Invent a product that everyone needs, see to it that legislation provides the motivation and means, and viola. Instant revenue stream.
Perhaps we could have goodness credits.
You don't have to stop doing mean things, you only have to get someone else to live better to cancel your meanness.
Goodness credits.
Want to buy some?
Click pn POGW graphic for full GW rundown
Ping me if you find one I've missed.
I always wondered where Violas came from!!! Poof, voila a Viola.
P.S. No offense. Sometimes our typos are funnier than the intend text.
He who lives in a glasshouse and all that!!
intend ==> intended
Durn, blew right by me. Didn't even do a spell check, and to think, I coulda had violin or base fiddle in there.
This is worse than Enron. At least their business was, to some extent, based on a real product that people really do need.
'Invent'?? I think 'legislate' (or 'conjure up') would be a more appropriate term.
'A product'?? The only product involved here is a piece of paper that, without the government-imposed caps, would have no value whatsoever.
'That everyone needs'?? Just like the 'product', the need for it can only be created by law.
"If you get too cold I'll tax the heat."
-Beatles
To look at CO2 as a waste product is, well, wasteful.
MIT has proven that when CO2 is bubbled through water tanks with algae, even in the weak sun of Massachusetts, it grew prodigiously, and was of a variety optimal for making biodiesel and even some ethanol.
That is, it turned waste CO2 into valuable fuel at low cost.
So why should corporations spend lots of money and suffer inconvenience when with a modest investment of tanks, water and pipes, it could make a profit that keeps on giving?
It doesn't even have to refine the algae itself. Some other company could periodically dredge harvest ton after ton of algae and haul it away in trucks, or even railroad cars, leaving payment in exchange.
In sunnier places, the tanks might even be designed to continuously dredge, leaving mountain of algae ready for processing.
Sorry, Pop, you don't have an intuitive feel for the amount of CO2 generated by the power, cement and transportation industries. You'd probably have to slime every square inch of earth's land are with algae to accomodate all the CO2 generated by consumers and industry. Granted CO2 is a useful input to some industrial processes, but there is an enormous imbalance between CO2 demand and CO2 "supply".
Well, the DOE says the US produces about 7B tons of CO2 per year. Of that, as a wild guess, let's say 2B tons could be put into biodiesel production, though that is probably a liberal guess.
Algae consumption of CO2 gas is about 60% efficient, so perhaps it is not as unreasonable as all that.
Every process that we use only makes sense at the low end of the curve, before the law of diminishing returns kicks in.
But it still makes of lot of sense compared to throwing CO2 away.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Yes: As I said ,another crooked scam with Al Gore right in the middle of it.
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