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The Fake Factory That Pumped Out Real Money

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Re: The Fake Factory That Pumped Out Real Money

#91

Post by aoeuasdf1 »

tomjen3 wrote: post #34
RockyMcNuts wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sorry, what? A tax is simple, like a sales tax or VAT, and there is a strong incentive to collect it at a centralized source that is pretty easy to monitor. How is that complex vs. creating a new commodity in the form of carbon credits, and checking that the emission is backed up by credits? At best, cap-and-trade is equivalent to a carbon tax plus some corporate welfare to return the tax to the polluters. In the mos…

You still have to check if everybody has paid their emission tax. Also a tax has to be high enough to offset the average cost of lowering Co2 emissions (since you force everybody to lower their emissions), whereas in a cap-and-trade system the price will the the lowest cost to lower the emissions, since anybody who would pay a higher price will be better of buying the emission permissions and anybody who can save co2…

I think you're confused about the mathematics here - cap and trade for cap (C tons) is EXACTLY equivalent to some carbon tax (T dollars) in the behaviors it incentivizes.

Re: The Fake Factory That Pumped Out Real Money

#92

Post by pepesza »

ars wrote: post #87
Retric wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But 'producers' are not the polluters, it's consumers driving cars that are polluting. The goal is not to punish everyone, it's to get them to make other choices.

> it's consumers driving cars that are polluting. Cars are not the problem, there is no one thing that is the problem. Simply being alive and doing things uses energy, there is no way around that. And BTW if you do the math a bicyclist (in the US, eating a typical US diet) emits more CO2 per mile than a small car. Assumptions: The bicyclist is riding in addition to any exercise, the riding is not exercise, and the bi…

> And BTW if you do the math a bicyclist (in the US, eating a typical US diet) emits more CO2 per mile than a small car. Assumptions: The bicyclist is riding in addition to any exercise, the riding is not exercise, and the bicyclist eats normal food. A bicyclist who prefers organic, or local, would definitely emit more (both of those emit more CO2 in the growing than regular food).

This result is useless since it makes impression that those miles are interchangeable while they are not. No bicyclist will make same amount of miles per unit of time as car driver. Bicyclist will make other choices: living closer to the job, working remotely, etc.

Re: The Fake Factory That Pumped Out Real Money

#93

Post by aaron695 »

shard972 wrote: post #85
edkennedy wrote: post #72

Other hilarious and frightening "business ideas" with US government issued carbon credits: Dumping giant piles of iron sulfate into the ocean in Northern Canada: http://www.timescolonist.com/news/local/haida-readying-for-s... Driving a train full of biodiesel across the border and back again numerous times while never unloading it: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/biofuel-credits-behind-mystery...

I tried to find a follow up to the iron sulfate story but couldn't find one, would be interesting to hear what happened.

Evidence seems like it worked. Much as people didn't want it to.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/haida-gwaii-o...

Re: The Fake Factory That Pumped Out Real Money

#94

Post by jacquesm »

wbl wrote: post #70
rayiner wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As California's attempts to tax mileage of hybrid and electric vehicles proves, if you create an additional source of revenue for the government, tax levels will bear no relation to the harm they're designed to compensate for. It becomes just another way for the government to raise taxes without admitting to doing so.

The gas tax was set to charge for road wear, not carbon externialities

And VAT in Europe was only created to rebuild after the war.

Tax repeals are very rare, once they're worked into the budget they are there to stay and usually will expand to pay for other things besides the reason they were originally created.

Re: The Fake Factory That Pumped Out Real Money

#95

Post by lmm »

rayiner wrote: post #23
fsargent wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cap and Trade and a Carbon Tax are equivalent in outcome. Cap and trade would impose fees on everyone regardless of how much it costs them to lower emissions also. The problem with Cap and Trade is that it targets the large scale emitters rather than the item desired to be limited. Imagine that you had five major producers putting out 30% of airborne carbon, and 50,000 minor producers putting out 70%. The cost of adm…

As California's attempts to tax mileage of hybrid and electric vehicles proves, if you create an additional source of revenue for the government, tax levels will bear no relation to the harm they're designed to compensate for. It becomes just another way for the government to raise taxes without admitting to doing so.

Hybrids aren't necessarily emitting substantially less.

Re: The Fake Factory That Pumped Out Real Money

#96

Post by lmm »

blaisio wrote: post #21
jacquesm wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that's precisely the problem. As soon as you start selling something totally abstract in lieu of something that was presumably produced all control mechanisms fail. Which is why I'm not a fan of these constructs. Even a legitimate biofuel producer will see better margins on the RINs than on the fuel...

I think you just don't understand how a cap and trade system works. You should try doing a google search to read up on it. It's confusing at first, but there's nothing inherently uncontrollable about it. The only reason these scams are allowed to happen is the EPA doesn't have enough manpower to constantly watch over every facility to make sure fuel is actually being produced.

How does producing a bunch of biofuel achieve anything? Why is that something we want to incentivize? If this was about credits for sequestering x tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere then I can see how that should be worth a credit, but I don't see how it makes sense to single out biofuel any more than anything else those crops could have been used for.

Re: The Fake Factory That Pumped Out Real Money

#97

Post by crottypeter »

pepesza wrote: post #92
ars wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's consumers driving cars that are polluting. Cars are not the problem, there is no one thing that is the problem. Simply being alive and doing things uses energy, there is no way around that. And BTW if you do the math a bicyclist (in the US, eating a typical US diet) emits more CO2 per mile than a small car. Assumptions: The bicyclist is riding in addition to any exercise, the riding is not exercise, and the bi…

> And BTW if you do the math a bicyclist (in the US, eating a typical US diet) emits more CO2 per mile than a small car. Assumptions: The bicyclist is riding in addition to any exercise, the riding is not exercise, and the bicyclist eats normal food. A bicyclist who prefers organic, or local, would definitely emit more (both of those emit more CO2 in the growing than regular food). This result is useless since it mak…

> No bicyclist will make same amount of miles per unit of time as car driver.

Have you never seen urban traffic?

Re: The Fake Factory That Pumped Out Real Money

#98

Post by crottypeter »

ars wrote: post #87
Retric wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But 'producers' are not the polluters, it's consumers driving cars that are polluting. The goal is not to punish everyone, it's to get them to make other choices.

> it's consumers driving cars that are polluting. Cars are not the problem, there is no one thing that is the problem. Simply being alive and doing things uses energy, there is no way around that. And BTW if you do the math a bicyclist (in the US, eating a typical US diet) emits more CO2 per mile than a small car. Assumptions: The bicyclist is riding in addition to any exercise, the riding is not exercise, and the bi…

What about CO2 emitted by the driver? They are respiring too.

The real issue with emitted CO2 is not the quantity at the exhaust-pipe versus the quantity exhaled by a cyclist. The CO2 emitted by the cyclist was absorbed by plants in the preceding months. The CO2 emitted by the car was absorbed by plants in a previous era of the earth. The cyclist allows you to leave the oil in the ground keeping the contained carbon out of the atmosphere.

Re: The Fake Factory That Pumped Out Real Money

#99

Post by crottypeter »

emp_zealoth wrote: post #89
EnigmaticLion wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source? This study says bicycling is way better than cars: http://bikeportland.org/2011/12/12/new-study-compares-bicycl...

I would be rather wary of bike endorsing studies posted on sites called "bikesomething" just as I would be wary of "rightwingnut.com" publishing studies on immigration or any other contentious issue.

In this case there isn't even a link to rightwingnut.com though.

Just a claim that you need to do math. Parroting climate-denying, anti-intellectual nonsense is worth calling out.

Re: The Fake Factory That Pumped Out Real Money

#100

Post by dmurray »

josinalvo wrote: post #86

Nevermind the scam. How is the system supposed to work? A company produces biodiesel and can sell, separately, the biodisel and the RIN. A fuel company can buy the RIN instead of biodiesel, and, in theory, that would mean that another fuel company bought the biodiesel, and is using more biodiesel and less petroleum. Correct? What if, instead, the biodiesel is used in a previously non existent or previously carbon neu…

The biodiesel was meant to be equivalent to regular diesel, so it could be sold at the same price, but more expensive to produce. So a "previously non existent or previously carbon neutral industry" wouldn't have any reason to switch to biodiesel, unless it was already good for them to switch to regular diesel.
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