Because the actual harm done from emitting via gasoline usage is not dealt with under the current tax regime. I’d argue that any tax that exists does not encapsulate the cost of removing those emissions from the atmosphere. Considering it costs somewhere between 90 and 400/ ton (possibly more) to remove co2 from the atmosphere, I don’t see how the current tax regimes are quite enough but more importantly the economic harm that’s being done is not being addressed with those tax dollars.
In theory, you could tax gasoline to the level of true removal cost, but unless a market exists to actually remove the carbon it’s moot since the mechanism to clear the damage can’t exist without a functional market on carbon.
Thus, when you burn gasoline you are externalizing. As a result I cannot understand the desire to needlessly do this just so you can drive a superduty to your office job.
New York City has been losing residents for some time. This is not a supply and demand thing as much as easy money policy chasing hard assets. I’ll have to dig it up the numbers, but Manhattan many condos are vacant, and have been bought by foreign money who don’t live in nyc or investors looking to park assets.
Not in the us it doesn’t. The two cap and trade programs in the us do little to stop someone at the individual level from needlessly emitting - there is no economic signal to stop. Even some large emitters aren’t subject to any economic signals in rggi, and California has an odd habit of handing out allowances. In a more perfect world, you would be correct.
The question is why isn’t illegal to externalize on my and my kids life by burning gas as if it had no consequence beside being an asinine financial move.
Exactly. It’s a about a capacity for risk. Rich kids have plenty of capacity since they’re essentially backstopped. A poor kid has one shot, and if it doesn’t start paying out quick, that kid starves.
I find this type of logic to be inconsistent with the innovative culture of tech, and a fair bit hypocritical. On one hand, we have a new, fairly unprecedented technology (at least unprecedented on the scale on which it’s used) yet we are relying on tort law that predates the contemplation of anything of this magnitude. Why?
It was reasonable in 1990 that the mechanism that you suggest here would be highly effective in most cases. We are in uncharted waters now and unlike the titanic, I think we should proceed with caution.
I’m not sure there is enough play in demand elasticity to affect significant change relative to the amount of load difference you see. Furthermore the peaks are highly weather sensitive. Would love to be proven wrong though.
You would need utility scale storage to flatten the load curve. The peaks and super peaks are not going away until there is a viable storage mechanism with enough capacity. We are talking significant changes in demand between even the early afternoon and the super peak in almost all load areas (pjm California ercot). The other alternative is a massive buildout or behind the meter solar which theoretically could solve this issue.
I’m guessing here, but I think the number seems high because shale wells have short lifespans. The declines are much higher than conventional wells, and so there are a great many of them to maintain production as the wells decline. There are large a number of DUCs, or drilled but uncompleted wells. They maintain these so that when one well runs dry, another can be brought online to maintain production targets. Also it’s more economic to drill as many wells as you can as quickly as possible even if it exceeds targets because there are economies of scale when it comes to moving and leasing rigs that drill the wells.
This is probably true but not an excuse for the perverted behavior and incentives that result. If 90% of the students at Harvard aren’t in the top 10% but feel entitled to be and thus cheating becomes a more attractive solution than taking the medicine of reality - clearly the penalties for cheating aren’t quite high enough.
A margin call is not the same as a foreclosure. It’s quite different. You have a fixed payment with a mortgage. If the value of your house declined precipitously, that fixed payment stays the same. You enter foreclosure proceedings only if you cannot make that payment, and depending on the state, this takes some time. You might be living in your house for a year or more without making a payment while in foreclosure.
On the other hand, with a leveraged position in the market, if the value of your portfolio falls to a certain level, you either need to post more capital or your position is liquidated. If you are capital constrained, there is literally nothing you can do in the case of a leveraged position - your broker forces you out.
Regardless, if you keep making your payments, there is no way for a bank to force you out of your mortgage or call for additional capital due to a decline in value. This is the big difference.
I think this is wrong in terms of new build cost. Especially if you take away subsidies. As far as I know, local factors aside, wind gen costs around 1500/kw without storage. Solar is similar, and gas is around 1000-1200 for a combined cycle and 800 for a simple ct (which would likely be a peaker). If I am remembering correctly, Duke energy recently completed a combined cycle plant that came in significantly under cost - around 900/kw.
If you add utility scale batteries, you’re looking at much more for renewable. I’m not sure what type of storage you have in mind though. Add to that, the capacity factors are very high for gas, while notably low for renewable. This impacts payback severely and I’m not even sure if you can sell capacity against a renewable plant - I may be wrong here.
What type of renewable are you talking about and what type of storage? Also what are the new build costs you are referencing? Or are you simply saying that a utility scale battery costs less than building a peaker?
I hope you are right. I think nuclear power is probably the best thing that can be adopted. The new build costs are astronomical compared to natgas though and I’m not entirely sure why. We’re talking almost an order of magnitude the last time I looked - 1200/kw for gas vs 8000/kw for nuke. Gas costs have come down dramatically over the years while nuclear costs have increased. I hope this trend can reverse. Don’t know anything about the sealed reactor that you’re discussing though.
People might be singing a different tune in a few decades when the ground flood of their buildings are taking on water from rising sea levels and economic activity is ceasing due to environmental effects.
It’s a very idiosyncratic risk you’re taking buying a home. Looking at a primary residence as an investment is silly in my opinion. Treating it as consumption makes more sense.
I wonder if the fixed cost of reverse engineering would ever overcome the sheer number of devices you’d have to do this with through scaling geographically.
In theory, you could tax gasoline to the level of true removal cost, but unless a market exists to actually remove the carbon it’s moot since the mechanism to clear the damage can’t exist without a functional market on carbon.
Thus, when you burn gasoline you are externalizing. As a result I cannot understand the desire to needlessly do this just so you can drive a superduty to your office job.