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Elon Musk: Only a Carbon Tax Will Accelerate the World's Exit from Fossil Fuels

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Re: Elon Musk: Only a Carbon Tax Will Accelerate the World's Exit from Fossil Fuels

#91

Post by antimagic »

valvar wrote: post #4

Not that I disagree (in fact I strongly agree), but is Musk really the person we should be taking this from? It's a bit like taking investment advice from your bank, meseems. Not necessarily a bad idea, but you might want to hear with people who don't have an active interest in the placement of your money first.

You're getting cause and effect back to front - Musk started Tesla because he wanted to play a real part in reducing emissions. He is on record as saying so. So arguing for a carbon tax is just another effort in that direction, not an attempt to bolster his business.

Re: Elon Musk: Only a Carbon Tax Will Accelerate the World's Exit from Fossil Fuels

#92

Post by pzone »

adventured wrote: post #77
pzone wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what?

The parent is arguing for extreme subsidization to alter the market for electricity and vehicles (etc). They effectively want the government to spend a lot of money to bankrupt the fossil fuels industry and fossil fuel vehicles, with subsidies toward the generation of renewables and producing electric vehicles. They're wrong that spending is easier however. Republicans control Congress and the US made a massive mista…

I agree that a subsidy is infeasible policy. But it wouldn't be effective even if it were feasible to pull off.

Suppose the government gives out free Priuses. Well, then people are going to drive more. Even though some people may be driving more fuel efficient cars, it's not clear that total carbon emissions decrease.

Suppose the government provides free solar cells for everyone. Then people will use a lot more electricity. But solar cells require some carbon emissions to produce, and since people use so much more electricity overall, it's not clear whether carbon emissions decrease or increase.

Either way it's just a totally goofy thought experiment, since a carbon tax is exactly the right answer, and this subsidy idea is so misguided that it could possibly even increase carbon emissions

Re: Elon Musk: Only a Carbon Tax Will Accelerate the World's Exit from Fossil Fuels

#93

Post by alerkay »

danieltillett wrote: post #30

I used to think that carbon taxes were the way to go, but I have seen how effective the fossil fuel industry is at creating FUD. When you consider an effective carbon tax makes all their assets worthless it is not surprising that they will do whatever it takes to block anything other than a nominal carbon tax. There really is only one way to get past the fossil fuel industry and that is to buy them out. Given the ben…

Thinking about your post, I think you have a point there.

I noticed that in his speech, Elon Musk doesn't talk at all about what form the carbon tax should take.

In reality, if a carbon tax went into action, 90% of its effect would hit fossil fuel companies and nobody else.

Am I wrong? How do you implement a carbon tax then?

Re: Elon Musk: Only a Carbon Tax Will Accelerate the World's Exit from Fossil Fuels

#94

Post by tempestn »

sukulaku wrote: post #80

Elon might want to investigate the issue he's talking about: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQqPQ0i_fl0 >> Don't you hate when Fox News and the other MSM spin-meisters use simple tricks to skew and misrepresent data and statistics? How about when the World Meteorological Organization does it? Or NASA? Or the Journal of Climate? Or GISS? Join James for today's thought for the day as he shows you some of the grade sch…

His quibble with the bar graphs there doesn't make a lot of sense given that a Y-axis starting at 0 degrees is just as arbitrary as starting it at 13.4 degrees.

Re: Elon Musk: Only a Carbon Tax Will Accelerate the World's Exit from Fossil Fuels

#95

Post by danieltillett »

unchocked wrote: post #44
danieltillett wrote: post #30

I used to think that carbon taxes were the way to go, but I have seen how effective the fossil fuel industry is at creating FUD. When you consider an effective carbon tax makes all their assets worthless it is not surprising that they will do whatever it takes to block anything other than a nominal carbon tax. There really is only one way to get past the fossil fuel industry and that is to buy them out. Given the ben…

Wow, hadn't thought of that. I wonder how much carbon you can lock up by buying long term oil leases and sitting on them, and what the price per ton would be.

In theory all of it. The complication is quite a bit of the "underground carbon" is owned by governments, but these can also be bought off. The key is stop fighting the owners of carbon and start working with them.

Re: Elon Musk: Only a Carbon Tax Will Accelerate the World's Exit from Fossil Fuels

#96

Post by pzone »

alerkay wrote: post #88
danieltillett wrote: post #30

I used to think that carbon taxes were the way to go, but I have seen how effective the fossil fuel industry is at creating FUD. When you consider an effective carbon tax makes all their assets worthless it is not surprising that they will do whatever it takes to block anything other than a nominal carbon tax. There really is only one way to get past the fossil fuel industry and that is to buy them out. Given the ben…

Can you give us some explanatations about your text? What's a FUD? and a nominal carbon tax?

FUD stands for "fear, uncertainty, and doubt," referring to studies that question global warming

Nominal in this context means a tax passed just symbolically as a feel-good measure, i.e. a tiny and ineffective tax

Re: Elon Musk: Only a Carbon Tax Will Accelerate the World's Exit from Fossil Fuels

#97

Post by piokoch »

The question is who will pay that tax? In Musk vision governments should lower other taxes (which one?) and introduce carbon tax.

I am afraid that the devil is in the details and it may turn out that this tax will be paid mostly by car owners (rising delivery costs, so food prices would grow) or people in rural areas who use coal heaters. The poor will suffer most in such case.

I am also afraid that governments wouldn't do anything else to lower carbon emission - doing that would be stupid, they get more money thanks to large carbon emission.

I think it is time to figure out honestly, without any eco/anti-eco bullshit what it the best (clear, cheap and practical) way to produce energy.

I suspect this will never be done, as eco people would have to admit that nuclear energy is a viable option to go (I don't believe we can base modern economy on energy sources that depend on weather). Anti-eco people would have to admit that fresh air is something more important than coal mine owners interest (and coal mine workers interest too).

I really regret nuclear energy had such a bad press and, as a result, there weren't any significant innovation in that area (in particular how to reuse nuclear wastes).

Re: Elon Musk: Only a Carbon Tax Will Accelerate the World's Exit from Fossil Fuels

#98

Post by brandonmenc »

5ersi wrote: post #46
serge2k wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that a 10% increase in electricity costs is probably going disproportionately affect the poor?

The proposed tax is basically a spending tax, much like a sales tax. It would effectively raise the price of any products/services that rely on carbon-based energy to be made/delivered. Remind me: how does a spending tax disproportionately affect the poor? The tax goes into a local/federal budget, where poor disproportionately benefit from it (compared to what they put in). Also, the arguably biggest global challenge…

> how does a spending tax disproportionately affect the poor?

Because they need to spend more of their income in order to survive.

If you spend all of your income, a 10% sales tax reduces your income by 10%. If you only need to spend half of your income, a 10% sales tax reduces your income by 5% - or less, if the money you don't spend earns interest.

Re: Elon Musk: Only a Carbon Tax Will Accelerate the World's Exit from Fossil Fuels

#99

Post by danieltillett »

alerkay wrote: post #93
danieltillett wrote: post #30

I used to think that carbon taxes were the way to go, but I have seen how effective the fossil fuel industry is at creating FUD. When you consider an effective carbon tax makes all their assets worthless it is not surprising that they will do whatever it takes to block anything other than a nominal carbon tax. There really is only one way to get past the fossil fuel industry and that is to buy them out. Given the ben…

Thinking about your post, I think you have a point there. I noticed that in his speech, Elon Musk doesn't talk at all about what form the carbon tax should take. In reality, if a carbon tax went into action, 90% of its effect would hit fossil fuel companies and nobody else. Am I wrong? How do you implement a carbon tax then?

No you are right. The basic problem is it is much easier to block something new than bring in something new. By trying to fight the owners of carbon you are giving them all the power, because they will find it much easier to block a carbon tax than you will find introducing it. More fundamentally there is no good reason why most of the cost should fall on the owners of carbon rather than the whole community.

The cost of buying out Exxon and co would not be too bad given we can't stop burning carbon today and any change will take 20 to 30 years. We can basically buy an option today on the carbon to be produced 20 years from now and this should be much cheaper.

Re: Elon Musk: Only a Carbon Tax Will Accelerate the World's Exit from Fossil Fuels

#100

Post by danieltillett »

pzone wrote: post #55
danieltillett wrote: post #30

I used to think that carbon taxes were the way to go, but I have seen how effective the fossil fuel industry is at creating FUD. When you consider an effective carbon tax makes all their assets worthless it is not surprising that they will do whatever it takes to block anything other than a nominal carbon tax. There really is only one way to get past the fossil fuel industry and that is to buy them out. Given the ben…

This is a point which gets overlooked pretty often. It's the same as the value of taxi medallions in the Uber debate. Allowing Uber to operate in a city where technically only medallion owners were supposed to drive is actually really shitty to the owners of those medallions. You open it up, suddenly tell them that their investment is worthless because of a change in regulations. It's really unfair to them. Perhaps t…

Yes. I think we can say that the carbon owning companies are winning the fight so we need to do something different. Let's stop fighting them and let's start working with them.
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