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A federal carbon tax is imminent in the USA, and Exxon is pushing it

electrek.co

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Re: A federal carbon tax is imminent in the USA, and Exxon is pushing it

#51

Post by kmkemp »

rayiner wrote: post #41
kmkemp wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are typically competing multi-nationals that have market share to gain by diminishing their competitors, so you can assume that there will be lobbies on both sides for legislation that interferes with the free market.

There is no "free market here"--CO2 production is an externalized cost and not taxing it enables some companies (that use energy) to pass off part of the costs of their profit-making activities on everyone else.

My understanding is that externalized costs have nothing to do with a free market. Intervention is necessary in order to account for the externalized costs, which is an infringement on a free market. Are you saying that is incorrect?

Re: A federal carbon tax is imminent in the USA, and Exxon is pushing it

#52

Post by strommen »

mason240 wrote: post #42
strommen wrote: post #12

Exxon is probably pushing this because it will help their business. The #1 "victim" of a carbon tax is coal, which accounts for about 30% of our energy production. A carbon tax will redistribute this production to other sources, mainly natural gas (which emits 42% less carbon). Exxon does a lot of natural gas extraction, and virtually nothing with coal. Exxon is also working on carbon sequestration technology. Which…

I wouldn't call a 10-15% increase in the price of gas "little effect."

It's nowhere near enough to meaningfully affect demand. The EIA estimates[1] that gasoline has to get 25-50% more expensive to reduce demand by even 1%.

[1] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=19191

Re: A federal carbon tax is imminent in the USA, and Exxon is pushing it

#53

Post by RobertoG »

epistasis wrote: post #49
RobertoG wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Much of our society is multi-national corporations" I have problems with that statement. In my opinion, if we start forgetting we are a society of humans that, sometimes, use corporations as a tool for collaborating, we have serious problems. So, everybody, repeat with me: we want to maximize humans welfare. Corporations are tools.

That's exactly what I meant by that statement, corporations are tools for our collaboration. They are a dominant form of our economic collaboration. Nearly all of us invest in them in our retirement savings. Many of us work for them. Everyone uses their services. So they have a big role in our society, and they are a tool that can be used in good and bad ways. So in summary, I'm not sure what your problem was with th…

My problem was not with your comment specifically, but with a narrative trend I have observed where corporations, or also the economy, are the 'raison d'être' and we are the accessory.

It's something subtle in the public discourse (or not so subtle sometimes).

Re: A federal carbon tax is imminent in the USA, and Exxon is pushing it

#54

Post by oslavonik »

VLM wrote: post #26
CalRobert wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"and you're not cool if you don't drive a Tesla" Woe to the bicycle commuter, I suppose. Also, I think you forget there are huge chunks of the world where this is utterly untrue.

> bicycle commuter And I propose the e-bicycle conversion kits, generally for the price of a commuter class cheap bike the cost per watt of motor and cost per KWh lithium battery has been dropping by half every couple years. Today in 2016 you're looking at about two watts of motor power per dollar (so $500 kit would get you more than a horsepower, and riding on horseback seems adequately fast) and about $30 per mile…

> However my son is very interested in the mechanical work of assembling an ebike conversion, and it sounds like a fun teen boy and dad project to work on together

Sounds cool! Let me suggest (if you haven't thought about this already) to document all steps and publish it on a blog or something. Other interested dads, curious kids and DIYs in general will love it and might give a shot.

Re: A federal carbon tax is imminent in the USA, and Exxon is pushing it

#55

Post by CalRobert »

VLM wrote: post #26
CalRobert wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"and you're not cool if you don't drive a Tesla" Woe to the bicycle commuter, I suppose. Also, I think you forget there are huge chunks of the world where this is utterly untrue.

> bicycle commuter And I propose the e-bicycle conversion kits, generally for the price of a commuter class cheap bike the cost per watt of motor and cost per KWh lithium battery has been dropping by half every couple years. Today in 2016 you're looking at about two watts of motor power per dollar (so $500 kit would get you more than a horsepower, and riding on horseback seems adequately fast) and about $30 per mile…

ebikes are great!

I actually don't have one, though, but that's only because everything I do on a regular basis is within 2 miles. My ride to work on a normal pedal bike is 6 minutes.

I agree that cities are absurd for banning small 2 wheeled vehicles with little momentum while permitting large 4 wheeled vehicles with massive momentum (and with it, massive ability to mangle and destroy human bodies).

Re: A federal carbon tax is imminent in the USA, and Exxon is pushing it

#56

Post by noiv »

chris_va wrote: post #44

Everyone knows we need a direct carbon tax, it's just too convenient politically to be anti-tax. As a result, I think this is mostly a marketing problem. From the article, it looks like the current bill is "Climate Protection and Justice Act of 2015". I propose instead the "Save our Children Act". Hard to be against that.

... unborn children ... ;)

Re: A federal carbon tax is imminent in the USA, and Exxon is pushing it

#57

Post by oldmanjay »

fucking_tragedy wrote: post #10
DiabloD3 wrote: post #2

From what I can tell, this is a political maneuvering by the oil industry to not be nailed to the cross like the tobacco industry did: knowingly selling a highly toxic product that is conclusively linked to many disorders including cancer, and covering it up or minimizing it in the media for decades to continue profiting. Unfortunately, it's not going to work, and they will be ran out of business through the politica…

> You're not cool if you smoke, and you're not cool if you don't drive a Tesla. PM has been trading for more in the last 5 months than it has in the last 8 years. Cool to who? Tesla ownership is a sign that you have money to spend but are not informed enough to purchase a vehicle that's worth the money. You might be cool in tech circles, but people that know cars will roll their eyes.

I feel it's important to note that the entire world of "not car guys" spends pretty much every interaction with "car guys" rolling their eyes about everything. Generally speaking, people just don't care about being cool for the sake of subcultures.

Re: A federal carbon tax is imminent in the USA, and Exxon is pushing it

#58

Post by epistasis »

strommen wrote: post #52
mason240 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't call a 10-15% increase in the price of gas "little effect."

It's nowhere near enough to meaningfully affect demand. The EIA estimates[1] that gasoline has to get 25-50% more expensive to reduce demand by even 1% . [1] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=19191

The article linked to an Economist article on British Columbia's $30/ton carbon tax, where it seemed to have a much more significant effect:

>BC’s fuel consumption is also down. Over the past six years, the per-person consumption of fuels has dropped by 16% (although declines levelled off after the last tax increase in 2012). During that same period, per-person consumption in the rest of Canada rose by 3%. “Each year the evidence becomes stronger and stronger that the carbon tax is driving environmental gains,” says Stewart Elgie, an economics professor at University of Ottawa and head of Sustainable Prosperity, a pro-green think-tank. At the same time, BC’s economy has kept pace with the rest of the country.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/americasview/2014/07/british-...

I'm not sure I trust future projections much from the EIA; they are extremely conservative in terms of being unable to imagine non-fossil fuel energy. They've been consistently wrong on renewable technology as well:

http://cleantechnica.com/2016/05/15/us-eia-responds-cleantec...

I don't mean to diminish the excellent work they do. But for projections like this they must necessarily embody lots of opinion, and there's a good chance that their opinions embody the slow-change mindset of the energy industry.

Re: A federal carbon tax is imminent in the USA, and Exxon is pushing it

#59

Post by sf_rob »

strommen wrote: post #52
mason240 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't call a 10-15% increase in the price of gas "little effect."

It's nowhere near enough to meaningfully affect demand. The EIA estimates[1] that gasoline has to get 25-50% more expensive to reduce demand by even 1% . [1] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=19191

This is comparing miles traveled to fuel costs when it really should compare fuel consumed / person to fuel costs since MPG is not static.

I would bet with hybrid (and arguably electric) cars being as usable as their ICE cousins that the demand for transportation fuel will become far more elastic.

Re: A federal carbon tax is imminent in the USA, and Exxon is pushing it

#60

Post by 4ad »

Retric wrote: post #48
4ad wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the electrical energy comes from burning things that create carbon-dioxide as a side product. The only real alternative is fission, and the public opinion against nuclear is even worse than against oil. How do you solve this problem? Getting people and things moved by train is a great idea, but in the grand scheme of things we're dependant on oil for so many other things.

Well over 40% of US electricity comes from things that don't create carbon dioxide. Exact numbers are hard to come by because a lot of solar power for example never ends up on the electric grid.

I know this is very hard for this forum to consider at times, but the world is not only the US, and the question about what do with coal, oil, and gas is a global, not a US problem. United States is a somewhat lucky outlier when it comes to energy production. Unfortunately, even in other currently lucky nations, the public sentiment is strongly against nuclear power.

In 2013 91.6% of the energy cames from CO2 producing sources[1], and nuclear production is decreasing[1], having peaked in 2005.

The exact percentage, whether it's 91.5% or under 60% doesn't even matter though, what matters is that fossil fuel burning is increasing in absolute terms[1].

[1] http://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication...

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