Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

GreatApe

michaels wrote: »

I think there is a market failure when it comes to GW because we apply the wrong discount rate to the future. Those who are currently alive make economic decisions base don their own futures. Two problems, those with most wealth and income have the shortest futures (are oldest) so their rationale isn't the same as that of the young who have a longer future but less financial clout. And then there are the unborn who might have a lot to say about keeping the planet going for more than 100 years but of course have no say at all.

Thus whilst I am a believer in market economics I think GW is a textbook externality where the markets can incorrectly price something for which there is no proper property rights structure.

[and that is before we even get into behavioural economics where again people fail to adequately consider the long term and negative outcomes]

I feel the total opposite of what you post is true

The discount rate depends in fact on how secure we believe the future to be

The discount rate 200 years ago was very high because the world was an insecure dangerous place. The discount rate today is more or less zero the financial markets believe the future is very safe very certain

The financial markets are enabling longer term investments
With zero rates the financial system is incentivising long term good
It's making wind farms solar farms etc much more economic than if the discount rate was say 5-10%

I would argue the financial markets are exactly aligned with a long term future


Humanity is still building it's house. We need 5 billion homes to house humanity and we are billions short. The green lobby want us to tend to our garden and we will tend to the garden we will make it more beautiful than you can imagine but many are saying let's first finish the half built house before we tend to the garden. We in the rich parts of the world have built our homes and we can indeed tend to our gardens and we are doing this but we're not going to go tend to the garden so much as to let the house decay in the process.

But given enough time we will have the productivity to do more or less anything and everything
The human story is just starting
Around 2050 humanity will have built it's home and will start en mass to tend to it's gardens
Not long after that we will enter a new age one which will take us post limits and we will enter the exponential boom

Martyn1981

1961Nick wrote: »

So what do you do? Do you base your economic decisions on the likely "market failure", your moral obligations, or do you try & cover both bases?

You take a moral and environmental stand and act. Especially since inaction, or less action will only cost more. If the defence is that it will cost others more, not us, then morality has failed.

When we sit around discussing alternatives instead of acting, then the trolls and those with self interests have already won.

There are many ways we can act, but the first is probably to stand up and be counted when faced with AGW denial, be it full blown, light, or spin. The more we kowtow to such actions, the more moral ground we lose in addition to low lying flood risk land.

Martyn1981

An article on carbon pricing and different models/ideas. These ideas look at ways to limit the damage as much as possible by applying the costs to the product, and often (as in the case of this US idea), returning the revenues to the populace:

Can A Carbon Fee Save The World’s Oceans? Senator Whitehouse Says ‘Yes”

The world’s oceans are overheating due to climate change, and their chemistry is being altered. Hundreds of millions of people who live along the coasts are now at risk, as is the entire network of systems that depend on the ocean. The ocean has absorbed over 90% of the heat from climate change and is the conduit for roughly 30% of human-caused carbon dioxide emissions.

That means without the ocean as a buffer, heating from climate change would already be, right now at this moment in time, intolerable for much of life on earth. Yet the oceans are still being destabilized by carbon pollution.

What is the answer to saving our oceans? Is it placing a price on carbon emissions so average global temperatures stay below 2º C above pre-Industrial Revolution levels?

There’s no doubt that every nation must sharply reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It’s the only way to lessen the severe threats to ocean and terrestrial life.

Of course, countries will need to adapt to many now unavoidable changes due to the climate crisis. That’s been made quite clear from the newest IPCC report. An increase 2º C above pre-Industrial Revolution levels will change the world’s oceans and frozen landscapes unalterably. Coral reefs will continue to die. Global sea levels could still rise another 1 to 2 feet this century as glaciers melt. Fish populations will shift to different regions to chase the habitat they need to survive.

We need to reduce carbon in the atmosphere so levels are much lower than an increase of 2 degrees C. Can carbon fees make such an impact that we could actually save the world’s oceans?

The American Opportunity Carbon Fee Act
Back in April, Whitehouse, along with Senators Brian Schatz (D-HI), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) reintroduced legislation to place a price on the emissions driving climate change and putting Americans’ health and the global economy at risk. The American Opportunity Carbon Fee Act would reduce the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions by an estimated 51% by 2029 compared to 2005 levels. It would simultaneously generate an estimated $2.3 trillion over 10 years to boost the economy and aid American workers and consumers.

The fee would start at $52 per metric ton of emissions in 2020—the mid-range of the Obama administration’s 2016 estimates of the “social cost of carbon,” which measures the long-term damage done by carbon pollution—and increase annually by 6% over inflation.

The fee would be assessed on fossil fuels when mined, processed, refined, or imported; on large emitters of non-fossil-fuel-based greenhouse gases; and on producers and importers of certain industrial gases with high global warming potential. It would be adjusted to account for methane emissions from venting, carbon dioxide from flaring, and other greenhouse gas emissions that escape throughout fossil fuel supply chains. The Treasury Department would assess and collect the fee, and impose border adjustments to level the playing field for manufacturers of energy-intensive goods.

My bold - I thought that inclusion was quite important, as US fugitive methane emissions (from fracking) are now being found to be much higher than previously thought, possibly in excess of 3%, which due to the higher GHG effect of methane v's CO2 (around 80x greater short term, around 30x over a century) actually results in gas use being worse than coal use in the US.

JKenH

Martyn1981 wrote: »

My bold - I thought that inclusion was quite important, as US fugitive methane emissions (from fracking) are now being found to be much higher than previously thought, possibly in excess of 3%, which due to the higher GHG effect of methane v's CO2 (around 80x greater short term, around 30x over a century) actually results in gas use being worse than coal use in the US.

This perfectly validates my argument that what we perceive to be known ‘facts’ change with the passage of time (or as I was inclined to put it ‘this decade’s facts are the next decade’s chip wrappers’). Few would have believed a decade ago that gas was worse in terms of GHGs than coal.

We have to be very careful with what we label as ‘facts’, as science continually proves itself to be wrong.

1961Nick

Martyn1981 wrote: »

You take a moral and environmental stand and act. Especially since inaction, or less action will only cost more. If the defence is that it will cost others more, not us, then morality has failed.

When we sit around discussing alternatives instead of acting, then the trolls and those with self interests have already won.

There are many ways we can act, but the first is probably to stand up and be counted when faced with AGW denial, be it full blown, light, or spin. The more we kowtow to such actions, the more moral ground we lose in addition to low lying flood risk land.

That's very noble Mart, but others may wish to hedge their bets. I guess for the majority of us, the answer depends on where we live & our economic circumstances. I live on a small island, surrounded by a lot of rising water, with many towns & cities located on the coast, and I know that the maximum contribution to a reduction in carbon emissions this nation can make is 1%. If I could be sure that the other 99% would act, and act fast enough, I'd be 100% onboard with the plan.

Current measures to limit AGW are haphazard & probably a long way short of the goal. One day the world may wake up to AGW & decide that a singular body is required to tackle climate change & that may work. Nations would pay a levy & action would be free of nationalist & political interference. That could mean that resources are targeted where they can provide the greatest return. That may mean that we pay for leasing a huge chunk of Brazilian rain forest rather that building a wind farm off the Welsh coast, but from a global perspective it makes sense.

GreatApe

JKenH wrote: »

My bold - I thought that inclusion was quite important, as US fugitive methane emissions (from fracking) are now being found to be much higher than previously thought, possibly in excess of 3%, which due to the higher GHG effect of methane v's CO2 (around 80x greater short term, around 30x over a century) actually results in gas use being worse than coal use in the US.

Most people think coal is just carbon but it's actually a mix of a huge (thousands) number of chemicals

We used to order coal by the millions of tons and had to blend coals from different parts of the world together to try and get something consistent to making coking coal. They were that different

Anyway what I'm trying to say is what about the emmissions from coal ?
Hydrogen carbon monoxide methane sulfur plus hundreds of other chemicals they are all given off in the mining transport and storage of coal. Plus most people don't know that coal isn't burnt in big lumps it's ground down to a powder and this powder is sprayed into coal boilers. This crushing takes energy and also releases a lot of crap

And the argument that methane is worse relies on methane being lost in the process. That is an argument to stop reduce the losses not to say methane is worse than coal

And humanity didn't switch to gas because of carbon dioxide worries. We switched to gas because overall it was cheaper. In the UK in the 1990s dash for gas gas prices in the UK were lower in real terms than they are in the USA today.

A CCGT is just so much more efficient than a coal plant
Not just in heat to electricity but also capital efficient space efficient size efficient water efficient staff efficient storage efficient etc

GreatApe

JKenH wrote: »

This perfectly validates my argument that what we perceive to be known ‘facts’ change with the passage of time (or as I was inclined to put it ‘this decade’s facts are the next decade’s chip wrappers’). Few would have believed a decade ago that gas was worse in terms of GHGs than coal.

We have to be very careful with what we label as ‘facts’, as science continually proves itself to be wrong.

Many confuse science which is about experimentation and mathematical proofs with studies which are about trying to figure out impacts of changing one or two variables in a multivariate problem

Science doesn't change often and most things are very well understood now

Studies change all the time because studies are by nature trying to discover very weak links
I take studies of climate or energy as seriously as I do studies about diet and health

Anyway irrespective of global warming and fossil fuels,
The UK will and should get a lot of its energy needs from offshore wind power

Wind and PV will become the #1 source of energy but they won't displace fossil fuels completely
Even Germany which started green in around 1995 is still going to be predominantly fossil powered 40 years later.

Martyn1981

JKenH wrote: »

This perfectly validates my argument that what we perceive to be known ‘facts’ change with the passage of time (or as I was inclined to put it ‘this decade’s facts are the next decade’s chip wrappers’). Few would have believed a decade ago that gas was worse in terms of GHGs than coal.

We have to be very careful with what we label as ‘facts’, as science continually proves itself to be wrong.

No. What it validates is that your earlier denials of the FF industry making things worse are a head in the sand (or optimistic as you like to say) view of what these industries are doing.

The facts here are that the fugitive emissions from fracking are far higher than the industry was admitting.

I've no idea why you keep trying to attack facts, and instead promote beliefs, such as the FF industry can be trusted!

Martyn1981

1961Nick wrote: »

That's very noble Mart, but others may wish to hedge their bets. I guess for the majority of us, the answer depends on where we live & our economic circumstances. I live on a small island, surrounded by a lot of rising water, with many towns & cities located on the coast, and I know that the maximum contribution to a reduction in carbon emissions this nation can make is 1%. If I could be sure that the other 99% would act, and act fast enough, I'd be 100% onboard with the plan.

Current measures to limit AGW are haphazard & probably a long way short of the goal. One day the world may wake up to AGW & decide that a singular body is required to tackle climate change & that may work. Nations would pay a levy & action would be free of nationalist & political interference. That could mean that resources are targeted where they can provide the greatest return. That may mean that we pay for leasing a huge chunk of Brazilian rain forest rather that building a wind farm off the Welsh coast, but from a global perspective it makes sense.

Morally, you should be on board with the plan already, and not making excuses. If the action involves investment in the Brazilian rainforest then that's fine, I'm not sure what your point there was.

Also I don't know what hedge bets mean, we know the problem, we know the solutions, and we know we need to act. We also know that the less we do today, the more we will have to do tomorrow, and the greater the total cost.

I'm struggling to find any depth in what you are saying, it seems to close to other arguments that are really just ways to delay action, at a time when delays are inexcuseable.

Once again, I find your 1% argument morally deficient, and I remain unclear why you need to keep making it on a green and ethical thread and board.

GreatApe

michaels wrote: »

I think there is a market failure when it comes to GW because we apply the wrong discount rate to the future.

Why not cool or heat the planet directly?

Imagine we found a new earth but it was a little too hot and we wanted to drop the temp 1-2 centigrade

How would we cool it?
Would we try scrub out the CO2 from this new planets atmosphere and CCS it?
Probably not. It would be far too slow and far too ineffective

We would likely vary the amount of sunlight hitting or being reflected from this planet

We could do that for earth too
I'm pro new energy sources whatever they may be
But we can actively move the temp too
Many options. One of the easiest seems to be aerosols in the upper atmosphere which mimic volcanic activity which does cool the planet. Might cost a couple of billion a year for a planet which will soon have a GDP of $200 trillion.

0.001% of world GDP or less than one dollar per family per year
The world spends more on lipstick