Posts Tagged by externalities
Renewable Energy — Conservatives vs. Liberals?
| September 3, 2010 | Posted by Craig Shields under Renewables - Politics |
It seems that affection for renewable energy often breaks down across political (conservative vs. liberal) lines. I’m not sure I understand how this can be. Obviously, everyone cares about the quality of the planet we live on and leave to our descendents. So I’m guessing the fundamental issue is the cost of renewables.
But, as Tom Rooney points out in his recent article Why Conservatives Are Bad on Energy, the financial analysis of clean energy is largely based on misconceptions. A recent editorial in the Wall Street Journal referred to photovoltaic solar energy as a “speculative and immature technology that costs far more than ordinary power.” The author went on to point out that the only thing holding the industry together were subsidies. Didn’t this guy get the memo? A few weeks ago, the International Energy Agency said worldwide, fossil fuels receive $550 billion in subsidies a year — 12 times what alternatives such as wind and solar get. Read More
The Economics of Electricity Markets
| August 26, 2010 | Posted by Craig Shields under Renewables - Business |
In his recent article on Renewable Energy World titled Electricity markets are weird: why a carbon price isn’t enough, Sean Casten provides several scholarly reasons that establishing a carbon tax is tricky business. I encourage everyone to read this; it’s really worthwhile.
But at the end of the day, Mr. Casten seems to be to be splitting hairs. Where we are now is a million miles from where we need to be in terms of providing a level playing field for renewables. I simply ask Congress to get us into the right galaxy – then we can start talking about Pareto-efficient markets and cost/price causality. As long as the fossil fuel energy industry receives multi-billion dollar government subsidies, favorable treatment from the Bureau of Land Management, and immunity from the costs of the environmental damage it’s causing, I can’t see the reason to get too heavily into the microeconomics here.
We need to make wholesale changes in the way we view the costs of energy. Until that time, the energy industry is looking on at this discussion and snickering as they continue on their path of rape and ruin.
Liquid Ammonia as Fuel – Another Article
| July 17, 2010 | Posted by Craig Shields under Renewables - Politics |
Here’s another interesting article on liquid ammonia as fuel. The author, Dr. Paul A. Curto, a retired NASA scientist residing in Potomac, MD, has a wonderfully lucid writing style. Give me a Ph.D. who writes like a real person any day!
My only issue here — and it’s a criticism of myself as well, as I’ve done this many times personally — is the statement that liquid ammonia will create 30 million jobs. That’s not incorrect, per se, but it fails to address the question: Who’s going to hire these people? The government? Some blend of the public and private sectors? Why? By what mechanism can we create an environment in which there will be sufficient incentive for the private sector to embrace ammonia with a full-on commitment?
The answer, of course, goes back to the old “internalizing the externalities” argument. Until we, as a civilization, pay the full and true costs of the carbon-based energy we’re producing and consuming, there is no reason on Earth to considering any other solution. But making that happen is a political impossibility. How far we are away from looking at this issue fairly? The EPA and the DoE don’t even list ammonia as a fuel — that’s should give you some idea.
Having said all this, I think we need to agree that the Obama administration has really opened things un in terms of renewable energy. Obama’s popularity is falling — due, I believe, to the horrible compromises that have left no one happy: shoddy, half-way healthcare reform, ineffective financial reform, and a foreign policy that no one could possibly like. But a great number of new conversations — and even investments — are happening in the energy space that never, ever would have taken place a few years ago.
Cancer Rates and Fossil Fuels
| January 2, 2010 | Posted by Craig Shields under Renewables - Business |
Chip Aadlund writes:
CO2 is a problem and a huge one, but it doesn’t compare with chemical pollution. From 1973 to 1999 childhood cancers increased 26 percent. Acute childhood lymphcytic cancer is up 61 percent, brain cancer up 50 percent and bone cancer is up 39 percent. this does not include the problems caused by the chemicals leaching into food and water from containers causing dramatically reduced numbers of male babies along with reproductive issues.
Chip: Thanks very much for this. I’m reminded of some of my previous posts on the externalities associated with fossil fuels and how to quantify them. Ironically, it’s far easier to find numbers for the things that carry nowhere near the level of tragic impact as the things you’re talking about here. For example, we add up the cost of treating a case of lung cancer, but ignore the suffering of the victim and his family.
I believe that in 50 years the energy companies will be subjected to the aggression that the tobacco industry is receiving today in terms of class-action lawsuits and broad societal condemnation. We see it starting already, with pieces like 60 Minutes treatment of coal ash a couple of months ago. (This was the quintissential 60 Minutes hatchet job — but it’s a good sample of the scorn that’s coming down the pike — both fair and unfair.)
I point out to Chevron and its shareholders that the average wrongful death award in the US is in measured in seven figures; that adds up fast, people.
People talk about the high cost of PV, wind, geothermal, etc. But that’s only because most of the true cost of coal and oil is passed along to the family of some anonymous eight-year old kid slowly dying in a hospital bed. Given any even remotely fair-minded treatment of renewables, clean energy is the bargain of the century.
Thanks again for writing.
