Energy - Market Forces or Politics?

[oggbashan]

Some of the UK's largest investors in alternative energy technologies are the existing oil and gas producers such as BP and Shell.

If their market is to be skewed they want to be significant players in the production of energy by means that aren't fossil fuels.

Og

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

No one has thought of the obvious solution to both the energy problem and the political/economic problems the high cost of oil has caused.

The clear solution is wood burning cars. Just think, we can denude the national forests for wood (there's plenty for the next 100 years) which will clear new land to build new houses which will push us out of the Housing slump. Weyerhauser and the other "Biggies" in the timber business will become obscenly wealther which will give GW a massive hard-on. The Arabs will go broke and we will be world leaders again. GREEN AMERICA!

See? Problem solved.

Plus you get to cut down all those steamy rain forests with all their yucky creepie crawlies. Damn Jennie, I think this has even more potential than ethanol!

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Some of the UK's largest investors in alternative energy technologies are the existing oil and gas producers such as BP and Shell.

If their market is to be skewed they want to be significant players in the production of energy by means that aren't fossil fuels.

Og

And they have lots of know how in the delivery of energy so it makes sense for them (and society) to benefit from that. But there is also benefit from outside-the-box thinking from non-incumbents, including lone geniuses doing unpredictable thing in garage workshops. As long as there is genuine competition and real price signals for consumers, consumers (and society) benefit from all of this.

 

[Weird Harold]

Not quite sure what you mean here, Harold. For clarity, all rail services in Portugal are electric. In the Greater Lisbon area, I have a monthly travel pass, costs me about $100, includes all travel (bus, metro, tramway, ferry and rail). In the UK I commute about the same distance into London as I do into Lisbon, my UK fare costs me around $400 just for the rail fare.

The point is that transportation -- freight, more than people -- consumes a huge percentage of any country's energy budget; for Portugal, according to Ami's citation, just over one-third.

All of the money put into wind, solar, wave/tidal, and geothermal does little to clean up the trucks delivering groceries and finished goods to the local stores and they are the prime users of fossil fuels and the least efficiient users of fossil fuels.

Personal vehicles contribute a significant portion of the transport section of the energy budget but there is that hard core of the trucking industry that seems to be untouchable when it comes to cleaning up the energy economy.

There are a couple of builders -- Freightliner is the one I know of for sure -- who are dabbling in hybrid tractors for over-the-road hauling, but they are to date either completely experimental or limited edition costum production runs for eco-conscious clients. (IIRC, Walmart commissioned 100 Hybrid tractors from Freightliner which constitutes about 1% of Walmart's fleet -- more a publicity stunt than a real attack on transportation energy.)

 

[Weird Harold]

The clear solution is wood burning cars.

Yes, they have thought of woodgas generators as alternate fuel for generating plants and for cars:

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2006/09/everything_old_.html
Everything Old Is New Again: Biomass Burners at Automechanika Frankfurt
17 September 2006

The charcoal-fueled Opel Kapitän. Click to enlarge.
by Jack Rosebro

Visitors to one of the 4,500 exhibits at last week’s Automechanika Frankfurt 2006, which is Europe’s largest and best-known automotive service, repair, and aftermarket accessory trade show, were treated to a biomass “blast from the past” in the form of a 1938 6-cylinder, 3.5-liter Opel Kapitän which ran on wood and charcoal almost seventy years ago.

Charcoal burning conversion kits, which are really wood gas generators, enjoyed a brief civilian and military niche market in England, Germany, Australia, the United States, and other countries up to and during World War II. Wood gas generators were used to power taxis in Korea as late as 1970.

http://bioage.typepad.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/opelkapitan.jpg

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

The point is that transportation -- freight, more than people -- consumes a huge percentage of any country's energy budget; for Portugal, according to Ami's citation, just over one-third.

All of the money put into wind, solar, wave/tidal, and geothermal does little to clean up the trucks delivering groceries and finished goods to the local stores and they are the prime users of fossil fuels and the least efficiient users of fossil fuels.

Personal vehicles contribute a significant portion of the transport section of the energy budget but there is that hard core of the trucking industry that seems to be untouchable when it comes to cleaning up the energy economy.

There are a couple of builders -- Freightliner is the one I know of for sure -- who are dabbling in hybrid tractors for over-the-road hauling, but they are to date either completely experimental or limited edition costum production runs for eco-conscious clients. (IIRC, Walmart commissioned 100 Hybrid tractors from Freightliner which constitutes about 1% of Walmart's fleet -- more a publicity stunt than a real attack on transportation energy.)

Nothing prevents the use of electric trucks, with power provided by nukes, geothermal, or possibly other sources (makes no difference to me which ones so long they are selected via the voluntary choices of consumers in an environment of competition on a level playing field). I've described the system in other threads - cars and trucks have standardized battery packs that most of the time you just plug in, but for long distance travel there are "gas stations" where you pull up to a machine that automatically extracts your depleted battery and replaces it with a recharged unit dropped off a few hours earlier by someone else.

The point of this scenario is not that it's the way of the future - I don't know that - but that it's a practical, sustainable system that's possible with current technology, at a cost not hugely greater than current cars and fuels. IOW, it's possible to maintain for the next several thousand years the comforts, conveniences and expanded horizons of industrial civilization that we take for granted. We're not "all gonna die," and naturally the ongoing advance of knowledge and technology will just add to human well being and the amelioration of human suffering, for all the people of the world.

(I would prefer a world population of a billion or so, and we can ease our way there in 150-200 years or so by increasing the wealth of all the world's people - wealth is the one sure-fire way known to reduce a population's fertility rate. But that's a different subject.)

 

[Weird Harold]

Harold, you might take a closer look at the capacity of those hydro-generation resevoirs. Unless they hold volumes comparable to regular hydroelectric impoundments the amount of generating capacity is likely to be hours, not days.

The hydro containments are, AFAIK, existing Hydro installations, so I guess they are "comparable to regular hydroelectric impoundments." Even if they aren't, the stored capacity isn't intended to carry the full load for more than a few hours anyway; the stored energy is intended for supplemental generation at peak loads and replacement capacity for short term calm conditions that shut down the wind farms completely -- a condition that isn't likely to persist for more than 12 hours and is extremely unlikely to persist for as long as 72 hours. So a capacity of "hours" is about right -- say a maximum designed capacity of 100 hours?

I don't know what the designed reserve capacity or exact configuration of of the hydro-pumping energy storage scheme is, but the point is that it exisits and presumably is designed with the needs of the particular grid system being powered in mind so that the wind farms can go offline for some calculated period without needing to resort to fossil fuel or nuclear generation capacity.

There are several non sequitors here. First off, a carbon tax doesn't "remove money from the energy sector." ...

On the next point - higher energy taxes mean households can't afford to purchase "micro-generators" - you forget the offsetting income tax cuts (or refundable credits for those who pay no income tax)

MOney is "removed" from the energy sector because you want a "revenue neutral" carbon tax -- revenue neutral means that the money is removed from the energy sector and moved to whatever sector you're reducing tax in.

Does a carbon tax interfere with free market choices? Yes - as does any kind of tax. As long it's revenue neutral - ie. some other tax is cut by the amount the new tax raises - it's OK by me.

My preferred regime would be to gradually ratchet up the tax on fossil fuels, and lower income taxes by the amount the new taxes raise (with the actual form of the tax cuts devised via the usual political mud wrestling).

If you're going to rebate tax-payers with the money you're collecting from the carbon tax AND reducing other taxes, the carbon tax isn't revenue neutral, it's a negative net revenue for the government.

Your final point sounds an awful lot like a politician's impulse to "do something" just to make the claim, and not to accomplish anything real. ...

A carbon tax works by pricing fossil fuels out of the market place without turning the "value added" back into alternative energy sources -- your plan is to turn that added value to the general fund to offset reductions in other sectors of the economy. Neither the consumer nor the energy producers have the money collected by the carbon tax to apply towards any capital investment in alternative energy production -- and it is the initial capital investment that is blocking progress in alternative energy sources.

Portugal is stimulating investment in capital infrastructure by guaranteeing a price level that will make the amortization of the investment calculable -- in effect putting money into the infrastructure instead of taking money from consumers and corporations/conglomerates that they could otherwise apply to alternatives of their choice.

The four types of sustainable alternative power Portugal is subsidizing are essentially proven technologies that can provide a mix of generation capacity as reliable and predictable as fossil fuel, hydro, or nuclear generation.

They aren't subsidizing unproven technologies because there simply are no other technologies, theoretical or actual, with any promise for use on the scale of a national power grid. Nuclear and Hydrogen come close but Nuclear is too expensive (politically and financially) and Hydrogen technologies are essentially small scale technologies.

If you want to impose an escalating carbon tax that is rolled back into rebates subsidies and incentives for non-carbon or carbon neutral alternatives -- like converting to LED lighting (which is longer lasting and less hazardous as well as more efficient) or retrofitting solar water heating coils to home and business roofs -- I'd have no intrinsic to the basic economics of the tax or rebates. The money for capital investment in alternatives has to come from somewhere.

Eventually, such a tax should tax itself out of existence -- and take the encentives it funds with it -- but politicians don't let any source of revenue go away; they'll find some way to prolong it by changing the definition of "carbon." For that reason, I'm opposed to a carbon tax on general anti-tax principles.

But if we must have government interference in the energy economy, I'd much prefer that the interference be in funding rather than taxation -- unless the taxation is specifically earmarked to rollback into funding and NOT used to offset or reduce some other tax.

 

[Weird Harold]

Nothing prevents the use of electric trucks, with power provided by nukes, geothermal, or possibly other sources (makes no difference to me which ones so long they are selected via the voluntary choices of consumers in an environment of competition on a level playing field). I've described the system in other threads - cars and trucks have standardized battery packs that most of the time you just plug in, but for long distance travel there are "gas stations" where you pull up to a machine that automatically extracts your depleted battery and replaces it with a recharged unit dropped off a few hours earlier by someone else.

There is one thing preventing the use of electric trucks for over-the-road hauling -- it's called power-to-weight ratios.

I know of no battery technology that can come close to duplicating the horsepower and range of a conventional diesel powered 18-wheeler -- even if the range for battery powered trucks could be pushed to the 250-300 miles expected of a US passenger vehicle it would only be half of a long-haul eighteen-wheeler's unrefueled range. (they hold a LOT of diesel fuel. )

Perhaps your system could work in Europe (or in the eastern US) because of the population density but there is no current or theoretical battery system I know of that could serve the Great Plains or Pacific Inter-mountain regions of the US without an unacceptable weight penalty or a new recharging infrastructure at closer intervals than current truck stop spacing.

Perhaps a few of the "watering station" towns that became ghost towns when Internal Compustion technology made 250-300 mile refueling ranges practical can be resurrected by becoming isolated "recharging stations" for interstate trucking.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

There is one thing preventing the use of electric trucks for over-the-road hauling -- it's called power-to-weight ratios.

I know of no battery technology that can come close to duplicating the horsepower and range of a conventional diesel powered 18-wheeler -- even if the range for battery powered trucks could be pushed to the 250-300 miles expected of a US passenger vehicle it would only be half of a long-haul eighteen-wheeler's unrefueled range. (they hold a LOT of diesel fuel. )

Perhaps your system could work in Europe (or in the eastern US) because of the population density but there is no current or theoretical battery system I know of that could serve the Great Plains or Pacific Inter-mountain regions of the US without an unacceptable weight penalty or a new recharging infrastructure at closer intervals than current truck stop spacing.

Perhaps a few of the "watering station" towns that became ghost towns when Internal Compustion technology made 250-300 mile refueling ranges practical can be resurrected by becoming isolated "recharging stations" for interstate trucking.

With current technology the vehicles can go around 150 miles on a battery. Then you stop and swap it out for a recharged unit someone else swapped out a few hours ago. We have gas stations a lot closer than 150 miles even in the most remote areas, and the technology will only get better. The infrastructure is no great challenge. Nukes, power lines, batteries, rechargers - that's it. It's a bit more costly than internal combustion, but we're a wealthy society and getting wealthier - the proportion of GDP that transportation absorbs will actually be smaller even if the absolute costs are 20 percent, 50 percent or 100 percent more. The difference just isn't that big a deal.

One likely outcome - more freight will probably travel by rail, which in most applications will always be more efficient than trucks. People's love affair with the freedom that cars give will remain, though. And unlike Europe and parts of the Northeast, passenger trains are not likely to make economic sense for most of the U.S. population.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

The hydro containments are, AFAIK, existing Hydro installations, so I guess they are "comparable to regular hydroelectric impoundments." Even if they aren't, the stored capacity isn't intended to carry the full load for more than a few hours anyway; the stored energy is intended for supplemental generation at peak loads and replacement capacity for short term calm conditions that shut down the wind farms completely -- a condition that isn't likely to persist for more than 12 hours and is extremely unlikely to persist for as long as 72 hours. So a capacity of "hours" is about right -- say a maximum designed capacity of 100 hours?

I don't know what the designed reserve capacity or exact configuration of of the hydro-pumping energy storage scheme is, but the point is that it exisits and presumably is designed with the needs of the particular grid system being powered in mind so that the wind farms can go offline for some calculated period without needing to resort to fossil fuel or nuclear generation capacity.



MOney is "removed" from the energy sector because you want a "revenue neutral" carbon tax -- revenue neutral means that the money is removed from the energy sector and moved to whatever sector you're reducing tax in.




If you're going to rebate tax-payers with the money you're collecting from the carbon tax AND reducing other taxes, the carbon tax isn't revenue neutral, it's a negative net revenue for the government.



A carbon tax works by pricing fossil fuels out of the market place without turning the "value added" back into alternative energy sources -- your plan is to turn that added value to the general fund to offset reductions in other sectors of the economy. Neither the consumer nor the energy producers have the money collected by the carbon tax to apply towards any capital investment in alternative energy production -- and it is the initial capital investment that is blocking progress in alternative energy sources.

Portugal is stimulating investment in capital infrastructure by guaranteeing a price level that will make the amortization of the investment calculable -- in effect putting money into the infrastructure instead of taking money from consumers and corporations/conglomerates that they could otherwise apply to alternatives of their choice.

The four types of sustainable alternative power Portugal is subsidizing are essentially proven technologies that can provide a mix of generation capacity as reliable and predictable as fossil fuel, hydro, or nuclear generation.

They aren't subsidizing unproven technologies because there simply are no other technologies, theoretical or actual, with any promise for use on the scale of a national power grid. Nuclear and Hydrogen come close but Nuclear is too expensive (politically and financially) and Hydrogen technologies are essentially small scale technologies.

If you want to impose an escalating carbon tax that is rolled back into rebates subsidies and incentives for non-carbon or carbon neutral alternatives -- like converting to LED lighting (which is longer lasting and less hazardous as well as more efficient) or retrofitting solar water heating coils to home and business roofs -- I'd have no intrinsic to the basic economics of the tax or rebates. The money for capital investment in alternatives has to come from somewhere.

Eventually, such a tax should tax itself out of existence -- and take the encentives it funds with it -- but politicians don't let any source of revenue go away; they'll find some way to prolong it by changing the definition of "carbon." For that reason, I'm opposed to a carbon tax on general anti-tax principles.

But if we must have government interference in the energy economy, I'd much prefer that the interference be in funding rather than taxation -- unless the taxation is specifically earmarked to rollback into funding and NOT used to offset or reduce some other tax.

We seem to be talking past each other. The system I've proposed contains various elements that balance each other. Your responses aren't all that clear, but in some cases appear to ignore the balancing elements -without which naturally it does not work - and to make assertions based on no logic I can see, such as saying the proposal is "pricing fossil fuels out of the market place without turning the 'value added' back into alternative energy sources." To repeat, the proposal gives alternative sources a huge built in price advantage. That translates into an opportunity to make billions, which will attract all the investment that's needed. I just don't know how to explain it more clearly than that.

 

[Weird Harold]

With current technology the vehicles can go around 150 miles on a battery. Then you stop and swap it out for a recharged unit someone else swapped out a few hours ago.

That milage figure is accurate for a 2,500 to 3,000 lb electric auto, but I seriously doubt that it's accurate for moving 40,000 to 80,000 lbs at highway speeds.

Battery power doesn't scale up economically -- if you double the vehicle weight, you have to double the batteries to get the same range and speed capability. It's one of the big drawbacks to electric autos; a 3,000 lb electric auto is about 1500 lbs of batteries.

 

[The_Fool]

What would be interesting is to consider a system similar to train locomotives with a diesel system generating power for electrical drive elements. Obviously this does not eliminate Hydrocarbon, but to use some method of creating the electricity needed to drive the electric motors.

 

[Weird Harold]

We seem to be talking past each other. The system I've proposed contains various elements that balance each other.

But you have NOT delineated those balancing elements other than the "revenue neutral" qualification I quoted from two different posts.

As far as you have explained in THIS thread, your proposed carbon tax would do nothing except price fossil fuels out of the market.

You have mentioned income tax breaks for micro alternate energy installations and energy saving upgrades for home owners, but those are existing incentive programs and not part of your carbon tax proposal.

 

[Weird Harold]

What would be interesting is to consider a system similar to train locomotives with a diesel system generating power for electrical drive elements. Obviously this does not eliminate Hydrocarbon, but to use some method of creating the electricity needed to drive the electric motors.

That's what the walmart's "green" freightliners do. They're diesel-electric hybrids with regenerative braking to recover energy on downgrades.

ETA:

My error, it is Peterbilt/PACCAR who teamed up with Walmart and Eaton Corporation to build the Hybrid over-the-road tractors:

From: http://truckinginformation.wordpres...-truck-users-forum-annual-meeting-in-seattle/
The Model 386 Heavy-Duty Hybrid, a joint-development vehicle with Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Eaton, seeks to validate the benefit of using a hybrid system for long-haul applications for both on-road and idle reduction fuel efficiency gains. On the road, the expected benefit is 5-7% through improved launching, accelerating and hill climbing capabilities. When the idle reduction mode is active, engine operation is limited to battery charging, an automatically controlled process that takes approximately five minutes per hour to fully charge the system. During rest periods, a 90% reduction in idling will be demonstrated while providing high-power A/C, 120VAC, and 12VDC to accommodate the sleeper hotel loads.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

But you have NOT delineated those balancing elements other than the "revenue neutral" qualification I quoted from two different posts.

As far as you have explained in THIS thread, your proposed carbon tax would do nothing except price fossil fuels out of the market.

You have mentioned income tax breaks for micro alternate energy installations and energy saving upgrades for home owners, but those are existing incentive programs and not part of your carbon tax proposal.

Look, here is the balance: Right now a family with an income of $50,000 pays $3000 in income tax, and $720 in gas tax annually. Under a revenue neutral carbon tax regime that might be reversed - $3,000 in fuel tax, $720 in income tax.

Here's the deal: We have just given vehicles that run on something other than fossil fuels a price advantage equal to $2,280 times the life of the vehicle. That amount is the additional tax the owner of a conventional fuel vehicle will pay each year to run the fossil car vs. the alternative car. If the alternative car will last 15 years that's a price advantage of some $20,000 (I'm making a rough present value estimate of the future tax savings there). Alternatively, a vehicle that gets twice the mileage of a conventional car gets a price advantage that's half that amount.

Let me concretize that even more: You will be willing to pay up to $20,000 more for this car, because that's the present value of the tax it will save you compared to a fossil fuel car. The seller of that car can ask and get up to $20,000 more. There's a term for those who can provide the car for perhaps just $12,000 more: Billionaire. Now do you see how this generates investment and research into conservation technology and alternatives?

Back to Joe Car Buyer: Where does he get all that extra money to buy the more expensive car? Well, we've given him an annual income tax cut of $2,280. So he has the resources to make the capital investments needed to use less fossil fuels, or buy a micro generator, or whatever response to the new tax regime makes the most sense for him, and has the incentive to do it. As I said, it's a balanced system, the effect of which is to allign the incentives on consumers and producers with the policy goals of using fewer fossil fuels.

Obviously my example is very simplified, and deals with just one sector - cars. In reality consumers, producers, innovators, entrepreneurs and investors will respond in ways that create virtuous cycles in every energy-using area of their lives. This produces a dynamism that only compounds the gains toward the policy goal, because they all have strong incentives in that direction. That is, they make or save money by engaging in behaviors that advance the policy goal. Millions of experiments and adjustments will be undertaken, with each one increasing knowledge and bringing all the players closer to the optimum solution possible given the current state of technological capabilities, while constantly expanding those capabilities.

Under a centrally planned system of subsidies allocated by bureaucrats and politicians you don't get any of that dynamism. There's tremendous misallocation of resources, and progress is much slower and more expensive, because the price signals that tell players what makes sense and what does not are not present. Only a few big experiments get done, rather millions of them, both large and micro-scale. That dynamism generated by a decentralized system of competing producers responding to the clear price signals on a level playing field yields progress that is much more rapid than anyone would predict, and at a much lower cost to society and to individuals.

It may seem counterintuitive, but it's not rocket science. Again, it's just a matter of getting the incentives on consumers and producers alligned with the policy goals. Once that's done, it's Katie bar the door - stand back and let human ingenuity do its thing.

 

[SeaCat]

what I find interesting is the arguments against things like wind turbines here in the United States. On Cape Cod there is a rather large legal battle going on about a company building wind turbines. The major argument? It might damage the views of the rich who have houses on the beach.

There was another campany which designed a series of underwater turbines that would run off the current created by the tides in the Cape Cod Canal. These turbines would create more electricity than the power plant on the side of the Canal. People complained about them. They claimed that the infrastructure needed for these turbines would destroy the view along the canal. Go figure.

When you dig deep enough you find that those who are fighting against these inovations or changes are those who have money invested in the Oil Companies. Money talks doesn't it?

Cat

 

[amicus]

[QUOTE=SeaCat;26229792]what I find interesting is the arguments against things like wind turbines here in the United States. On Cape Cod there is a rather large legal battle going on about a company building wind turbines. The major argument? It might damage the views of the rich who have houses on the beach.

There was another campany which designed a series of underwater turbines that would run off the current created by the tides in the Cape Cod Canal. These turbines would create more electricity than the power plant on the side of the Canal. People complained about them. They claimed that the infrastructure needed for these turbines would destroy the view along the canal. Go figure.

When you dig deep enough you find that those who are fighting against these inovations or changes are those who have money invested in the Oil Companies. Money talks doesn't it?

Cat[/QUOTE]

~~~

Money equal wealth equal skill/knowledge/dedication; all the virtues of mankind that the left wing socialist, collectivist wimps decry because they have no virtues, no skills except the social sort.

Same old shit, over and over again.

Get over yourself, Cat, grow up!

Amicus...

 

[Weird Harold]

Back to Joe Car Buyer: Where does he get all that extra money to buy the more expensive car? Well, we've given him an annual income tax cut of $2,280.

How many car dealers do you know of that will sell you a car with a mere 10% down? (lots of them will sell you a car with $0 down, but who can afford the interst and payments?) That is of course assuming that Joe Car Buyer can squeeze enough out of his monthly income for a new car payment in the first place after paying the increased cost of getting to and from work with his old car.

Again, that's just considering the effect on the operating cost of his car going up, but a carbon tax would be passed on by the utility and gas companies so his utility bills are going to skyrocket as well and further reduce the room in the budget for a new car payment.

Looking strictly at the effect a carbon tax would have on someone in my income bracket I have to wonder what I'd do for grocery money if my electric, gas and fuel bill went up $2,000 a year -- 2,000 is just over 10% of my annual income. My income tax is nowhere near your off-the-cuff example, but my carbon tax would probably some close; a net gain in my tax liability of about a thousand dollars if your figures are somewhat close to reality.

There really isn't any way that someone in my income bracket could benefit from a carbon tax because the rebate to income tax would only come once a year while the bi-weekly or monthly budget gets shredded 12 or 24 times a year.

There isn't much more that direct subsidies would do for someone in my tax bracket, but a subsidy or price control to bring down the price of a hybrid or electric car to be competitive with conventional vehicles would help someone in my income bracket -- and there are far more people in the US at or near my income level than there are at $50K or more a year.

That doesn't mean that I'd approve of a price control or subsidy, just that it would be more effective in converting the auto economy to alternate fuels than pushing the cost of living out of the reach of the working poor and retirees.

Market forces will eventually force a conversion, but I think you severely underestimate the bad effects of a carbon tax -- even one "neutralized" by income tax offsets. For starters, the carbon tax would be passed on to the consumer for every item transported by truck or that requires energy in any form to manufacture whether that results in a 1% rise in the COL index or a 10% rise would depend on how heavy the carbon tax affected production and distribution cost but it WOULD raise the cost of living.

Just as the unintended consequences of diverting corn production to ethanol from dairy feed has caused a roughly 20% increase in the price of milk (among other related food increases) a carbon tax would have unintended consequences on the cost of everything. Everything would cost more to maufacture/grow/harvest and cost more to distribute to the stores and consumers.

That is what I mean by a carbon tax being a negative influence that would inhibit the ability to finance a changeover. The net annual difference in tax burden might eventually turn in favor of alternatives, but the day-to-day effect on tight budgets is more likely to simply price low-income people out of a balanced diet.

 

[amicus]

This is not my thread; I am an interloper, as per usual.

With Roxanne performing her usual solo gig representing reason and rationality and individual rights, defending against the left assault, of collective intelligence, (an oxymoron if ever there was one), I venture to derail the discussion/debate/argument, beyond recovery.

Any and everyone here, has but peripheral knowledge of the macro energy crisis either from a technical or an intimate knowledge.

I adore Ogg and Neon, and their sincere efforts to justify the intervention of the collective/state, in private affairs to solve social/societal, problems, they both, and many more, truly believe in what they say; I know that.

I also comprehend the truly visceral fear all of you control freaks feel when you even consider the, 'invisible hand' of the market place to right the many wrongs of human endeavor.

You just have to goddamn well manage and direct all phases of everything, don't you?

The world just cannot survive without your superior knowledge and guidance, right?

Fuck you! Get the hell out of our way!

Let individualism set forth to remedy your ills. We will, I guarantee. Just get the fuck out of our way!

Amicus...

 

[oggbashan]

Freight in the UK

Most freight in the UK is moved by diesel power trucks just as it is in the US.

We have problems with some towns because the streets aren't wide and straight enough to cope with the size of the larger trucks but we rely on those trucks coming from all over Europe and beyond.

Our rail freight is mainly heavy bulk materials such as oil fuel, gravel, aggregate, sand and cement moved from entry or extraction point to local distribution point. The ancient rail network that meandered around the countryside collecting panel van size loads has long since gone. Dedicated links to rail lines are now unusual. I can remember when every town with a railway station had a coal yard and a goods yard and I could send parcels by train to be collected at the destination station by a specified time. Once I needed a car panel. I telephoned the supplier, paid them by credit card and they put the panel on a specific train. I collected the panel two hours after the phone call. That sort of service required manpower that is now too expensive.

There are a couple of projects to consider using our ancient canal network to move similar materials that are not perishable. For example if there were to be a dozen canal boats carrying sand arriving at the destination at the rate of two per working day then it wouldn't matter that the journey had taken four days instead of four hours. A canal boat can carry about the same load as a heavy truck, would take longer for the journey, but use much less fuel. Some are steam powered running on wood.

Diesel/electric trucks are not new. They were around in the 1920s with electric motors in the wheel hubs. They ceased to be made because they were no more effective than normal drive and more expensive to maintain.

In the next few years I expect significant experimentation in transport of freight and I shall watch with interest. Whether that experimentation is carried out by commerce, backyard inventors, government laboratories or universities doesn't bother me. Despite what Amicus keeps asserting I am not an advocate of a centrally-controlled economy but a mixed one in which commerce and government work together and sometimes compete. There are areas in which government and educational research establishments are more effective; there are areas in which commercial interests are better. I am aware of the terrible message of the R101 airship disaster. Government built an overweight badly made airship that crashed killing many people. The R100 designed by Barnes Wallis and built by a commercial company was successfully and safely flown BUT the R101 disaster killed all interest in airships.

Og

 

[neonlyte]

There is one thing preventing the use of electric trucks for over-the-road hauling -- it's called power-to-weight ratios.

I know of no battery technology that can come close to duplicating the horsepower and range of a conventional diesel powered 18-wheeler -- even if the range for battery powered trucks could be pushed to the 250-300 miles expected of a US passenger vehicle it would only be half of a long-haul eighteen-wheeler's unrefueled range. (they hold a LOT of diesel fuel. )

Perhaps your system could work in Europe (or in the eastern US) because of the population density but there is no current or theoretical battery system I know of that could serve the Great Plains or Pacific Inter-mountain regions of the US without an unacceptable weight penalty or a new recharging infrastructure at closer intervals than current truck stop spacing.

Perhaps a few of the "watering station" towns that became ghost towns when Internal Compustion technology made 250-300 mile refueling ranges practical can be resurrected by becoming isolated "recharging stations" for interstate trucking.

Theoretically, you could use electrically powered MagLev trains following your interstate routes to convey goods. Use electrically powered trucks at each end, drive them onto the MagLev (like UK/France does with hauling trucks through the Channel Tunnel) drive them off for distribution, probably recharging them on route. Would seem a sensible use of nuclear generated electricity and devastatingly effective in reducing carbon emissions. Sling on a couple passenger carriages and use 'pay per mile' electric pooled cars at each end and you could probably build the dang thing on the interstate leaving lanes free for local transport use.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

How many car dealers do you know of that will sell you a car with a mere 10% down? (lots of them will sell you a car with $0 down, but who can afford the interst and payments?) That is of course assuming that Joe Car Buyer can squeeze enough out of his monthly income for a new car payment in the first place after paying the increased cost of getting to and from work with his old car.

Again, that's just considering the effect on the operating cost of his car going up, but a carbon tax would be passed on by the utility and gas companies so his utility bills are going to skyrocket as well and further reduce the room in the budget for a new car payment.

Looking strictly at the effect a carbon tax would have on someone in my income bracket I have to wonder what I'd do for grocery money if my electric, gas and fuel bill went up $2,000 a year -- 2,000 is just over 10% of my annual income. My income tax is nowhere near your off-the-cuff example, but my carbon tax would probably some close; a net gain in my tax liability of about a thousand dollars if your figures are somewhat close to reality.

There really isn't any way that someone in my income bracket could benefit from a carbon tax because the rebate to income tax would only come once a year while the bi-weekly or monthly budget gets shredded 12 or 24 times a year.

There isn't much more that direct subsidies would do for someone in my tax bracket, but a subsidy or price control to bring down the price of a hybrid or electric car to be competitive with conventional vehicles would help someone in my income bracket -- and there are far more people in the US at or near my income level than there are at $50K or more a year.

That doesn't mean that I'd approve of a price control or subsidy, just that it would be more effective in converting the auto economy to alternate fuels than pushing the cost of living out of the reach of the working poor and retirees.

Market forces will eventually force a conversion, but I think you severely underestimate the bad effects of a carbon tax -- even one "neutralized" by income tax offsets. For starters, the carbon tax would be passed on to the consumer for every item transported by truck or that requires energy in any form to manufacture whether that results in a 1% rise in the COL index or a 10% rise would depend on how heavy the carbon tax affected production and distribution cost but it WOULD raise the cost of living.

Just as the unintended consequences of diverting corn production to ethanol from dairy feed has caused a roughly 20% increase in the price of milk (among other related food increases) a carbon tax would have unintended consequences on the cost of everything. Everything would cost more to maufacture/grow/harvest and cost more to distribute to the stores and consumers.

That is what I mean by a carbon tax being a negative influence that would inhibit the ability to finance a changeover. The net annual difference in tax burden might eventually turn in favor of alternatives, but the day-to-day effect on tight budgets is more likely to simply price low-income people out of a balanced diet.

Look Harold, you can't have it both ways, wanting people to change behavior and convert to a non-fossil fuel economy, without anyone ever changing behavior or do any coverting. I've described a system that makes the mechansim for causing the shift powerful and transparent, and therefore alligns the incentives of everyone in the society with the policy goal in a way that will generate a tremendous amount of experimentation, innovation, and dynamism.

You can sit arount all day and throw stones at it, saying you can't figure out how people will accomplish this or that particular thing in response to the new incentives. My resonse is, and I mean this sincerely and not in any coldhearted "darwinian" way, don't worry about it - people will figure it out. You, me, no one individual needs to figure it all out in advance, because in a system characterized by decentralized responses to transparent incentives millions of people will be working on the problem, generating a ferment of ingenuity and innovation.

Throwing stones is easy to do any time someone proposes we do things in a different way - but the only alternative you've suggested to attain the policy goal is one that also imposes much higher costs on taxpayers and consumers, but in a manner that is not transparent and does not change the incentives for individuals and businesses in any constructive way. It generates only a few experiments - the ones chosen by central planners who hand out massive subsidies to particular interests - and provides no means to judge the success/failure of those experiments in the real world marketplace. It generates no social/technological/economic dynamism, and does not create a virtuous cycle of interections between innovators and consumers, accellerating progress toward the policy goal in unpredictable ways. In comparison to the dynamic, decentralized system I've described it's static and sterile.

Here's an analogy: I'm proposing a Wikipedia solution vs an Encyclopedia Brittanica one. No group of experts has to sit around and think of everything in advance, which is a good thing since there's no possible way that they can do so. (Don't push the analogy too far, though, because in this instance there's no such thing as "accurate" vs "inaccurate," just "economically viable" or not, and the voluntary interactions of the marketplace will make those judgements in totally fair and unambiguous terms.)

 

[Weird Harold]

Theoretically, you could use electrically powered MagLev trains following your interstate routes to convey goods. Use electrically powered trucks at each end, drive them onto the MagLev (like UK/France does with hauling trucks through the Channel Tunnel) drive them off for distribution, probably recharging them on route.

Much of the cross-country freight in the US moves in "inter-modal containers" which don't require transporting the tractor along with the cargo.

Maglev is a neat technology, but I'm not sure how energy efficient it is. It's definitely a much bigger investment in infrastructure than electrifying 3,000 miles of track for a single trans-continental route.

Converting the interstate system to a "fixed guideway" system (rail, maglev, driverless control, etc) runs into problems with "grades" -- the interstate system has much steeper grades and tighter swithchbcks than rail or maglev can handle.

Sling on a couple passenger carriages and use 'pay per mile' electric pooled cars at each end and you could probably build the dang thing on the interstate leaving lanes free for local transport use.

That's a concept that should get more promotion, especially as a means for dealing with urban air pollution. I've seen a couple of "concept cars" featured on various Discovery and History channel shows that suggest the SF promise of driverless robotic taxis moving people around cities isn't as far in the future as you might think.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Trains are efficient enough that it may actually make economic sense to use of some kind of artificial biofuel when fossil fuels are no longer available at a price where it makes sense to burn them. The definition of "makes economic sense" is that no subsidy or coercive mandate is required to make the thing profitable. (The definition of "doesn't make economic sense" is that subsidies or mandates are required. When you see pols handing out subsidies think, "doesn't make economic sense.")

 

[Weird Harold]

Our rail freight is mainly heavy bulk materials such as oil fuel, gravel, aggregate, sand and cement moved from entry or extraction point to local distribution point. ...

I suspect there is more intermodal container freight on your rails than you might think although probably not on the scale of the 100 car intermodal trains on US rails.

There are a couple of projects to consider using our ancient canal network to move similar materials that are not perishable. For example if there were to be a dozen canal boats carrying sand arriving at the destination at the rate of two per working day then it wouldn't matter that the journey had taken four days instead of four hours. A canal boat can carry about the same load as a heavy truck, would take longer for the journey, but use much less fuel. Some are steam powered running on wood.

I think ressurrecting the canal system is going to be of strictly limited benefit for the same reasons that railroads supplanted the canals in the first place.

FWIW, wood-fired steam might save a few imported barrels, but from an ecological perspective, it's not nearly an even trade -- the UK doesn't have many trees to spare for steam generation, for starters.

Diesel/electric trucks are not new. They were around in the 1920s with electric motors in the wheel hubs. They ceased to be made because they were no more effective than normal drive and more expensive to maintain.

In the next few years I expect significant experimentation in transport of freight and I shall watch with interest. ...

There have been a lot of improvements in electric motors and diesel engines since the 1920's. There have also been breakthroughs in things like regenerative braking to conserve energy that multiply the efficiency modern diesel-electric systems.

The maintenance costs are an important point. They're something that can be economical when using Diesel-Electric to move a million tons of freight on rails or water, but may not be economical when moving 20 to 40 tons through rush hour freeway traffic.

I am aware of the terrible message of the R101 airship disaster. Government built an overweight badly made airship that crashed killing many people. The R100 designed by Barnes Wallis and built by a commercial company was successfully and safely flown BUT the R101 disaster killed all interest in airships.

Between the R101 and the Hindenburg heavy-lift airships have a very much undeserved reputation for crashing -- Add the Akron and Macon disasters to US sensibilities.

Heavy-lift airships -- even filled with flammable hydrogen -- are a technology that could definitely save tons of carbon emmissions from the transport sector. They're far safer than the general perception would suggest.

I've even suggested on other threads like this that robotic/remote-controlled hydrogen airships would be an ideal method of transporting hydrogen from remote, mobile, hydrogen production rafts to fixed local distribution systems or even point of use installations like generating plants or industrial customers.