cmaddog111
Rookie
- Jun 30, 2009
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We need to scrap this cap and trade system and go for a luxury tax system.
For my example, assume 1 ton of coal emits 5700 lbs of CO2 and 20 million BTU (numbers readily available through basic chemistry calculations).
Now i dont have numbers for how much carbon is sequestered from power plants, so my estimate could be way too high or already accomplished, but for the sake of argument, what if we set the goal for half or the emissions?
So for every 20 mil BTU, there is a small tax on 2850 lbs CO2, and then a huge tax after that. It would pose a solution to the market that is going to form for carbon credits.
Of course, a scale would have to be made based on the ability of larger plants to capture more carbon and the smaller plants being unable to do it as efficiently to keep the competition between plants, but I think it could be plausible.
What your proposing has already been suggested in 1993 with Clinton's BTU tax, and thats basically the same as taxing carbon emissions. They end up with the same result and thats causing an undue burden on anything that uses energy, therefor leading to rise in prices in everything from gas to home utilities. We absolutly do not need a rise in prices in a time when the economy is in massive downturn and the resulting job losses that will happen when programs that tax energy are instituted in order to fix a problem that may or may not exist.
On the chopping block is Mr. Clinton's proposal to tax the heat content of fuels - the so-called Btu tax. Democratic leaders have indicated that it may be scaled back by one-quarter to one-third from its current level of $72 billion. In addition, congressional leaders and the president himself signaled Tuesday that the tax would be shifted away from a heat-content tax. An value-added tax or a similar variant of a sales tax appears more likely, according to one Republican who met with the president.
Clinton Retreats on Energy Tax in Fight Over Budget - The New York Times
I am not concerned with global warming, because of the fight over its actual existence. My concern is with the unnatural amount of CO2 that we have introduced into the atmosphere over the past 100-200 years.
The best free-market solution to this would be complete sequestration of carbon, which can be done with great efficiency. The problem is we are encountering NUMBY.
If you are familiar with the debate over wind powered generators, you will know the term NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard). The carbon sequestration problem is similar, except people don't want it under their back yard. What we need is a private sequestration company that can find a way to store it somewhere. They are proposing filling the oil and natural gas fields that we are draining back up with this carbon, which could be a great idea. But until something happens with the market on this front, it'll stay where it is.
Therefore the modern solution is a tax of some kind. Call it Cap and Trade, call it Btu tax, call it Ishmael. It doesn't matter. Anything that inconveniences big energy will not be passed by the Senate.
So basically, government and red tape both suck.
But even somehow if this bill magically passes, its only a 15% commitment to cutting out Carbon by 2020, taking us back to only 4% below 1990 levels of carbon release. Lotta good that'll do.