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DrumBeat: August 21, 2007
Posted by Leanan on August 21, 2007 - 9:04am
Topic: Miscellaneous
Gasoline demand is finally slowing: Is $3 gas the reason?
American motorists may have finally eased up on the gasoline habit.After years of strong demand despite record high prices, there's evidence that the rate of growth in gas consumption is easing. Whether last spring's spike above $3 made a difference, the recent credit worries have crimped demand, or if the decline is merely a statistical blip remains to be seen.
But one fact is clear. Demand for gasoline in the United States grew just 0.4 percent in the latest four weeks from a year earlier, according to the Energy information Administration, which polls refineries and wholesalers to gauge the amount of fuel sent to filling stations, down from 1.4 percent growth just five weeks earlier.
The average rate of growth over the last decade or so is about 1.5 percent, according to the federal agency.
The Brother-in-Law on Your Couch Vision of the Apocalypse
Ok, it isn't the apocalypse, but whenever I point out to people that to a large degree hard times means consolidating housing, living with family and friends and taking in refugees you happen to be related to (by biology or friendship), I get a great deal of resistance. I suspect some of us are better prepared to deal with purple-haired mutants invading our neighborhoods than we are prepared to deal with the basic reality that hard times often look like your brother in law, his kids and spouse sleeping on your living room couch for three years. And I get the frequent impression many of us would rather face the mutants, given the choice.
Mexico halts Coatzacoalcos oil shipments due to Dean
Mexico suspended crude shipments from its Coatzacoalcos port in the state of Veracruz as powerful Hurricane Dean approached the area, a port official said Tuesday."There were two shipments scheduled (for Tuesday) but they have been suspended," said port official Juan Jimenez, referring to state oil monopoly Pemex.
The other two of Mexico's three major oil ports -- Dos Bocas and Cayo Arcas -- were closed on Monday as the hurricane hit Mexico's Caribbean coast.
The three ports ship the bulk of Mexico's crude exports, which are mostly to the United States.
Gulf to Japan VLCC freight hits four-year low partly due to Opec cuts
The world's main crude export route sank to a four-year low last Tuesday, hit by strong fleet supply, long-standing Opec cuts and refinery maintenance in Asia, according to brokers and analysts.The Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC) route from the Gulf to Japan struck W50 - its lowest level since October 2003, according to Reuters data.
Warming Will Exacerbate Global Water Conflicts
"People are really starting to panic for water," said Arthur, whose father started drilling wells in 1959. They must drill ever deeper to tap the sinking water table. "Eventually, the water will be so deep the farmers won't be able to afford to pump it," he said. "There's only so much water to go around."As global warming heats the planet, there will be more desperate measures. The climate will be wetter in some places, drier in others. Changing weather patterns will leave millions of people without dependable supplies of water for drinking, irrigation and power, a growing stack of studies conclude.
US castoffs resuming dirty career
Some townspeople in this 19th-century mill village on the Connecticut River celebrated when workers began tearing down a shuttered coal-fired power plant this year. First, they dismantled the towering boiler. In June, the smokestack that belched hundreds of thousands of tons of heat-trapping gases into the air came down. Last month, workers hauled away the five-story steel skeleton, leaving just a concrete silo as a reminder of this local icon of global warming.But the demolition is hardly a victory in the battle against manmade climate change.
Virtually every piece of the 2,600-ton plant is being shipped to Guatemala to be rebuilt, girder by girder, to power a textile mill that sells pants, shirts, and sportswear to the United States. It could last, and continue to pollute, for another 50 years.
FOR THOSE WHO dream that high oil prices will help drive America toward a brave new world of clean energy, the MacKay River project in Alberta, Canada, offers a glimpse of the future.
'Gasoline is going -- alcohol is coming. And it's coming to stay, too, for it's in unlimited supply. And we might as well get ready for it now."Those words might have come from President George W. Bush, or just about any member of the U.S. Congress, or every major presidential candidate from both parties. All are euphorically drunk on ethanol (a fancy name for grain alcohol), seen as the miracle fuel that will simultaneously solve our global warming problem and end our reliance on foreign oil. Actually, though, they were uttered by automotive pioneer Henry Ford nearly a century ago.
Simple and cheap: Nepal's application of science
Almost unnoticed, Nepal is developing simple and cheap technologies that make the best of local resources and don't damage the environment.
The point of this discussion is this: no isolated model of the economy, climate, or resource production can hope to completely capture the workings of any of these complex systems. Not only are these systems profoundly non-linear (and unstable) but they all interact with one another forming a much larger (and much more unstable) mega-system. That is not to say that we shouldn’t try to model complex systems, just that we must be prepared for rapid, uncontrollable collapse of the system in ways that a model cannot possibly predict....We cannot know the exact path of failure, but we can make one solid prediction for the future: the system will fail.
Do EIA Natural Gas Forecasts Contain Systematic Errors?
In the July, 2007 issue Public Utilities Fortnightly, we published the article “Gas Market Forecasts: Betting on Bad Numbers.” This research addressed the question: are systematic errors built into the EIA natural gas (NG) forecasts, causing them to err repeatedly the same direction? It is widely recognized that over the past decade EIA forecasts for NG differ substantially from actual outcomes.
Venezuela's multibillion-dollar natural gas pipeline project is on hold—the news affects Chavez's power, his neighbors, and Petróleos de Venezuela,
Iran seeks foreign oil investment
Iran appointed a new deputy oil minister for international affairs on Monday as part of a government reshuffle. Hossein Noghrehkar-Shirazi, who will take over responsibility for liaison with foreign companies, was appointed by the acting oil minister, Gholam-Hossein Nozari.
Iraq needs $100-150 bln for reconstruction: Finance minister
Iraq needs at least $100 billion to rebuild its shattered infrastructure after four years of violence and lawlessness following the U.S.-led invasion of 2003, Finance Minister Bayan Jabor said on Monday.
"Injection Risks Tremors, Pollution'; 'Green' sounds toxic alarm; 'Tests negative'
Chairman of Green Line Environmental Group Khaled Al-Hajri accuses Kuwait Gulf Oil Company (KGOC), a subsidiary of Kuwait Petroleum Company (KPC), and Saudi SAK Oil Company of planning to inject approximately 9 million cubic meters of chemical toxic wastes into the ground in close proximity of Wafraa farms.
Philippines Researching Nuclear Power To Avert Energy Crisis
Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has approved a proposal to study the utilization of nuclear power to cut the cost of electricity in the country.
Eskom will decide by year-end whether it will proceed with a new 100MW facility powered entirely by the sun.Concentrated solar power (CSP) is a relatively new technology worldwide, but it has the backing of the World Bank because it is the only zero-greenhouse-gas-emission technology that has the potential to rival coal-fired power as a low-cost solution to the energy crisis.
No electricity on this Nebraska farm means many hot days
It's a lifestyle that most people left behind decades ago as air conditioning evolved from an expensive luxury to a household requirement on the humid Plains. A recent survey by the Lincoln Electric System found that 98 percent of the homes it serves are air-conditioned.Even many senior citizens who grew up without air conditioning recoil at the thought of living without it.
Pemex abandons oil rigs as Dean nears
Mexico's state-run Pemex oil company abandoned its offshore oil rigs just ahead of Hurricane Dean, evacuating more than 18,000 workers and shutting down production in its main oil-producing region.Pemex officials said they expected the Category 5 storm to weaken somewhat as it crosses the Yucatan Peninsula, but still pack winds of up to 100 mph Tuesday when it reaches the Campeche Sound, where 80 percent of Mexico's oil is extracted.
Shell Suspending GoM Personnel Evacuations
Due to high confidence in the Hurricane Dean storm track over the next several days, we are suspending any further personnel evacuations at this time.Shell operated production shut-in as a result of Hurricane Dean was approximately 39,000 barrels of oil per day and 97.5 million cubic feet of natural gas per day. No further production shut-ins are expected in regard to Dean and we will begin to bring production that was shut in due to long lead times back on line.
As it so happens, I've recently been investigating the question of what kind of civilization we would need to have if we wanted to live without fossil fuels, and I wanted to know how we are currently using oil in order to understand how to live without it.Using government data detailing the use of oil, in dollars, the conclusion I came to was this: over 90 percent of petroleum in the U.S. is burned by internal combustion engines. So the question needs to be reframed: would it really matter if we couldn't use internal combustion engines?
BNP: No real commitment to energy issues by Labour!
Ending the UK’s dependence on finite reserves of oil and gas should be the priority of any government serious about keeping the social and economic fabric of the country in tact. Much of the country’s energy imports are sourced from unstable regimes in the Middle East and central Asia and Russia is worryingly flexing its new found muscle as the world’s leading distributor of gas. Add to that the impact of Peak Oil which the BNP first brought to readers’ attention about five years ago; the UK’s continued dependence on imported fossil fuels is the Achilles Heel of our society.
The Federal Reserve seems to be manufacturing an impressive supply of "greater fools" to go along with the dribs'n'drabs of credit that it is dropping into the sucking chest wound that the economy has become for the body politic. The Fed's idea, I suppose, is that if they lend a little money to the geniuses who engineered the latest (and probably last) bubble of the cheap oil age to cover their present losses, then the US economy will "right itself." What I think they don't get is that finance has virtually become the US economy — if you subtract it, there is nothing left besides hair-styling, fried chicken, and colonoscopies. By "righting the economy" do people mean the ability to keep running a transparently fraudulent set of rackets that have nothing whatever to do with financing real productive activity?
SEC Official: Mulling New Oil Reserve Booking Guidelines
The Securities and Exchange Commission is considering changing the rules for how oil and gas companies book their reserves, a top SEC official said in a speech last week.Reserves are oil companies' most important assets, and a modernization of the rules could mean billions of barrels of oil and trillions of cubic feet of natural gas may be able to make it onto balance sheets, potentially triggering a revaluation of the sector.
Saudi Ministry of Petroleum clarifies report on Jizan refinery
Saudi Arabia said it would invite bids for the building and operation of the planned Jizan oil refinery in the fourth quarter and denied reports that Aramco had been asked to help do the job....The plant will have the capacity to process 250,000 to 400,000 barrels per day and the kingdom wants the plant to be privately owned.
Shell, Dow eye China's refining sector
Lured by huge opportunities in the Chinese oil product market, Shell has come back to the country's refining sector through its participation in the Nansha greenfield refinery, a refining branch of China Petroleum and Chemical Corp's (Sinopec) Guangzhou Petrochemical.
Hurricanes Favor Some Energy Companies Over Others
During a five-week stretch two years ago that produced hurricanes Katrina and Rita, energy equities were among the biggest winners in a flattish market otherwise spooked with concern about the effects of higher energy prices.While virtually all boats in the ocean of petroleum stocks rose amid 2005's unprecedented battering to Gulf Coast petroleum infrastructure, there were some standouts within the vast network of companies that explore for oil, service wells and refine and distribute petroleum products.
Young Chinese worried about global warming, but want cars
Most of China's urban youth are concerned about global warming, but not enough to forsake the luxury of owning a car or other perks of being rich, state media said Monday, citing a survey.According to the survey of 2,500 people aged on average 30 years in cities across the country, 76 percent said they did what they could to save energy, the China Youth Daily reported.
However, with monthly income averaged at 2,977 yuan (392 dollars), 76 percent would like to buy a car once they have enough money.
Heathrow climate change protest draws to a close
Climate change activists demonstrating against proposed expansion at Heathrow, the world's busiest airport, began leaving their camp near the aviation hub Monday after a week of protests, officials said.
Scientist unveils plan on climate change
A New Mexico Tech scientist believes he has found a way to head off dangerous climate change. Oliver Wingenter said the idea is simple — fertilize the ocean so that more plankton can grow.
Islands emerge as Arctic ice shrinks to record low
Previously unknown islands are appearing as Arctic summer sea ice shrinks to record lows, raising questions about whether global warming is outpacing U.N. projections, experts said...."Reductions of snow and ice are happening at an alarming rate," Norwegian Environment Minister Helen Bjoernoy said at a seminar of 40 scientists and politicians that began late on Monday in Ny Alesund, 1,200 km (750 miles) from the North Pole.
"This acceleration may be faster than predicted" by the U.N. climate panel this year, she told reporters at the August 20-22 seminar. Ny Alesund calls itself the world's most northerly permanent settlement, and is a base for Arctic research.
A new Round-Up has been posted at TOD:Canada.
Nope, That's Not Money
The WSJ has another story on Russia's floating nuclear power plants. You can read it if you go in through Google News.
Haha... From the first paragraph:
How convenient... You know, I'm going to start using this defense in support of my own presuppositions. It's unbeatable.
If a former vodka salesman who spent 6 years in jail says so it must be true.
The debate at the national level right now among Democrats is between a Carbon Cap and Trade System and a Carbon Tax. I've read both sides of the issue and I'm still not sure which would be more effective in the short and long term.
Sen. Boxer seems to support a Cap & Trade system, while Rep. Dingell supports a straight up Carbon tax.
What do you guys think? Which is better to stave off global warming? Which is better from a Peak Oil perspective?
The politicians still haven't got it.
After the first shock, the OPEC Embargo in 1973, the U.S. should have increased the gasoline tax by $0.25. After the Iranian Crisis, another $0.25 should have been added. After the 1980's tanker war and Saddam's invasion of Kuwait, another $0.50 should have been added. That total of $1.00 should have been doubled to $2.00 per gallon by now. I place blame directly on people like Ronnie RayGun, who had the great opportunity to keep prices high in 1986, after KSA flooded the market and drove the price of crude down to $10/bbl, but chose to sit back and enjoy the ride for another election cycle.
Once we know for sure that we are past Peak Oil, it will be too late to use the tax mechanism to limit consumption as the price of oil is likely to skyrocket. The only hope then will be gasoline rationing and a massive campaign of conservation and building of alternatives. All of Samuelson's "wedges" will be options. The Democrats still don't get it. They can't just say "NO" to the kids that are throwing tantrums about the "high" price of gasoline.
E. Swanson
"I place blame directly on people like Ronnie RayGun, who had the great opportunity to keep prices high in 1986, after KSA flooded the market and drove the price of crude down to $10/bbl, but chose to sit back and enjoy the ride for another election cycle."
Ahhh, Black_Dog, but maybe the flood of cheap oil during the 1980s was part of a Reagan administration plan to bankrupt the Soviet Union?
I've heard that claim before. However, I suggest that the Soviet system failed in large part because of their excessive expenditures on their military, instead of attempting to satisfy their consumer demands and basic needs. Also, the proliferation of the fax machine made it nearly impossible for their secret police to monitor the activities of their dissidents. The basis of their ability to control their population was lost. Ever wondered where their news organization Interfax began? Unfortunately, information technology appears to have caught up with the Revolutionaries again (except in Iraq). Smile!! That lady with the cell phone stuck in her ear is really taking your picture...
E. Swanson
Perhaps they amount to the same thing, since FSU got so much of its money from energy and then spent so much on military. When energy prices tanked and the military kept its share, poof. It seems as well that the degree of environmental devastation from military (and oil) within the FSU was larger than anyone thought - just as is so in our southwest. [Mike Davis "Dead Cities"]
cfm in Gray, ME
Arkansawyer
"The result was the most monumental non-nuclear explosion and fire ever seen from space," he recalls, adding that U.S. satellites picked up the explosion. Reed said in an interview that the blast occurred in the summer of 1982.
"While there were no physical casualties from the pipeline explosion, there was significant damage to the Soviet economy," he writes. "Its ultimate bankruptcy, not a bloody battle or nuclear exchange, is what brought the Cold War to an end. In time the Soviets came to understand that they had been stealing bogus technology, but now what were they to do? By implication, every cell of the Soviet leviathan might be infected. They had no way of knowing which equipment was sound, which was bogus. All was suspect, which was the intended endgame for the entire operation."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4394002
Kinda like CDO's in Money Center Banks today.
Now that the US has offshored most of its manufacturing capabilities, has the thought not occured to anyone that a similar trick could be played on us?
I am sure that the thought has occured to the Chinese, if nobody else. I wonder if the lead paint and pet food scares were just trial runs? Testing us to see how good & fast we are at detection?
Everyone under 40 has been raised on TV programed to produce 'pure' consumers. It's everyone under 40 that's throwing tantrums, from the ones that ripped off the younger one's with ARMs because they are not being bailed out after commiting fraud, to the younger ones being told to blame, not the '80s college crowd that ripped them off, but the liberal generation that came before. None of them were ever taught how to reason, how to critcally think. Therefore they are just thrashing around demanding to be bailed out, demanding SOMEONE to make everything better, looking for someone to blame and burn at the stake. A very sad state of affairs. I have some things to say to them. Yes, you have been lied to. Yes, you have been ripped off. No, there is not enough for everyone to have everything. No, there is not enough for everyone period. The world is used up. There are VERY HARD times ahead. Ther is no one who can save you. There will be no salvation. Your world is over. Bite the bullet, pull it together and live. Throw your tantrums and break things and die.
"Therefore they are just thrashing around demanding to be bailed out, demanding SOMEONE to make everything better, looking for someone to blame and burn at the stake."
Oh, my God! I just described pre-WWII Germany. Oh, sh*t.
Wow, how much more proof do you need to know that we're going to become a Nazi state?
Seriously, weren't you just pontificating about the lack of critical reasoning abilities?
"'Therefore they are just thrashing around demanding to be bailed out, demanding SOMEONE to make everything better, looking for someone to blame and burn at the stake.'
Oh, my God! I just described pre-WWII Germany. Oh, sh*t."
On which note, isn't it reassuring to know that Britain's most repellant political party (featured in: "BNP: No real commitment to energy issues by Labour!") is at the forefront of warning of the consequences of peak oil. They will certainly find someone to blame - probably anyone they don't classify as British.
doctorbob, you beat me to it.
For US readers, the BNP is the British Nationalist Party, a very right wing and very Peak Oil aware political party.
If things get bad maybe many more people won't find it so repellent ... they didn't in pre-war Germany. :-(
Xeroid.
Heck - even VERY right wing doesn't state it...
...BNP leaders have sympathized with the Nazis on many occasions and their candidates often run on the idea that people with brown skin should be "sent back where they came from"
This is why it is worrying that mainstream politicians ignore Peak Oil, to me. Cos when people like the BNP start being right people will start asking, well what else are they right about.
--
When no-one around you understands
start your own revolution
and cut out the middle man
Does this mean that praying to dog isnt going to save them? If they lose faith, get no more cheap gas, cant afford the latest consumer electronic gadgets, are not able to purchase Chinese junk at swell-mart, then what is left for them? Their lives are ruined! What will they do when frozen pizza and pop tarts are gone from the shelves? I see an outstanding opportunity for a new deity...The F 150 In The Sky.
Does this mean that praying to dog isnt going to save them?
No, but if you want dogs attention, offerers of meat work well.
Everyone under 40? I'm under 40, and I'm not asking for anybody to bail me out. Actually, none of my friends, most of whom are under 40, are asking or even need anybody to bail them out. As far as I've been able to tell, the people being foreclosed on aren't screaming out to be saved. No, instead, the banks, mutual and hedge funds, pensions, and other large financial institutions are. Guess what? Those guys are run by the 80's college crowd and the liberal generation that came before.
- Scott
"Try sour grapes; you might like them."
Don't worry artaxt - the boomers get cranky every now and again on here and start ragging on those of us younger, and then when we point out any culpability they may have in anything they tell us we're whining and blaming them.
They're the most pampered and pandered to generation in history. You gotta take it with a pinch of salt.
But in Cid Yama's defense... I am having to hire 20-somethings... and I am shocked by the lack of critical thinking skills and general get-up-and-go... and their frightening levels of consumerism - in broad brushstrokes. Of course the boomers were running the education system for these kids - so it's hard to see that they get a free ride on that one either...
Personally... I really enjoy the input of the older folks on here cos they tend to know more than I do about so many things that will be important in the coming years. I have a lot to learn from them, and try to. But it will have to be those younger than 40 that pick up the pieces... and there is plenty of blame to go around - just attacking the younger generation while overlooking any responsibility for why the situation is as it is, well it's just daft.
We cannot ALL be completely useless, surely?
--
When no-one around you understands
start your own revolution
and cut out the middle man
It was really the WW II generation that planted the seeds of our destruction.
At least some of the baby boomers tried to stop the wars.
The 20-somethings today are just sitting there staring at Cheney and Iraq, without a clue what to do about them. Here's a clue: start breaking some stuff. That scares them.
Blaming generations is completely stereotypical. Each generation contains both good and bad.
Actually the seeds of our destruction were planted at least as far back as the 18th century. Think about it: our great-great-great grandparents, the ones who slaved away in the mills of the Industrial Revolution, were really very evil people.
"Everyone" was a poor choice of words, and because of my using it you missed the point of what I was saying. Television allowed for broad indoctrination across the board. Not just political, but corporate.(Are my teeth white enough?, can others 'smell' me?, What will other people think of me?, etc.) They created a painful self-consciousness among the population that can only be temporarily relieved though consumerism. Another thing television did was substitute for reading. Critical thinking is first encountered through the written word. What television did was create a default to 'talking head' experts who tell them what to believe. Lacking a foundation to determine the veracity of what the 'talking heads' are saying, debate has devolved into quoting 'talking heads' at each other, the 'talking heads' 'rightness' being directly tied to their popularity.(and usually their popularity directly tied to 'air-time') I said 'those under 40' as those were the ones exposed from birth to this process after the corporations understood and refined it. These are the people that will find it hardest once consumerism is no longer possible. No blame or criticism being applied. Just raising the red flag that the world is used up. Anger, scapegoating and seeking out the 'best' 'talking head' to save them are counterproductive to ultimate survival, and those under 40 have this history that will make it twice as hard for them to survive.
and who exactly controlled the levers of power and education during this period - that gave you first the generation X slackers (my lot) and now the generation Y i-don't-know-what-to-call-them (in their 20's and lower now)
at the end of the day boomer votes gave us Reagan and Bush I - i think it is easy to overstate the liberal part of the 60's and claim credit for a whole generation of liberal minded people when the votes show otherwise - a significant group who did much no doubt - but not everyone in that generation was liberal by a long chalk... and the decisions they have made are still ones that haunt us today with Peak Oil and Climate Change
but the sad truth is that certainly at the younger end of that spectrum you mention (i have to say i find it less and less as you get up to the thirties and closer to forty, but it's still there) the average young American is not going to do much about this - I see a frightening lack of agency in their behaviour and increasing amounts of programmed automatic consumer behaviour...
i just don't see enough of them changing quickly enough
--
When no-one around you understands
start your own revolution
and cut out the middle man
"at the end of the day boomer votes gave us Reagan and Bush"
The Liberals born before 1958 are still Liberals. There were not and still are not many Conservatives among our generation. Our generation focused on self actualization and attainment of inner validation. Our generation became comfortable with themselves and not swayed by advertising emphasizing external validation. (Worrying about what other people think about us or "Keeping up with the Jones".)
It was the votes of those born before around 1938 and those born after 1958 that voted Republican. When I was in college in the early '70's, the Young Republicans' office was a closet. There just weren't many of them and they were seen as something deviant and disgusting. The Boomer generation had nothing to do with Reagan or Bush coming to office.
What if we don’t get our act together in time to avoid serious consequences? What would that be like? Would the Already Experiencing It Countries go the way of Katrina? Who would be next? A 1st, 2nd, or 3rd world country? Would those who could, leave? Where would they go? Where would you go if you were one of them? Would the other countries let them die and then harvest any remaining resources? Might there be a new kind of ‘resource war?’ Interesting times… indeed.
The trouble with cap & trade is that it is too easy for the govt to set the cap too high, rendering the whole program worthless.
It is also easier to reset the carbon tax rates quickly if new scientific data indicates that more drastic reductions in volume are needed.
Last year the EU nations issued 15% too many and the price of the permits collapsed.
I remember an article recently proposing to set the carbon task at a varying level dependent on the amount of global warming, the equatorial tropospheric temperature measured by satellite IIRC.
A straight carbon tax means increasingly pricing poorer people out of the market. If you have to have a carbon tax, make it revenue neutral, ie reduce payroll taxes accordingly. IIRC, AlanFBE and WT support this.
Personally, I support Cap and Trade. But only if it has a similar redistribution measure, eg "Contraction and Convergence, or "Cap and Share" .
I have an even better idea to make it revenue neutral. Figure out how much gas each licensed driver uses each year and mail them a check for the amount of gas tax they pay.
For example, 1000 gallons/year and $1/gallon, mail every driver a check for $1000. That way, everybody that drives gets involved. If you do a payroll tax rebate, you cut out the non-working, unemployed, retired and low wage people completely out of the picture.
Why did you cut off non-drivers? I see your idea, but this way people will buy junk cars and not drive them just to get their $1000 check. Better yet split the tax revenue per capita - everyone over 18 would be getting the same amount. This way non-drivers will be fairly awarded for not driving and not polluting altogether. In addition the carbon tax will also increase bus and rail tickets as well as electricity rates. Not only gasoline.
Cap and Trade, along with 'Carbon Offsets' are the 21st Century equivalents of Papal Indulgences.
the 21st Century equivalents of Papal Indulgences.
Carbon offsets, maybe, but cap and trade? If carbon is capped (and the cap is reduced each year) then FF prices will increase until non-carbon alternatives are cheaper. How is this an indulgence?
How is this an indulgence?
Have you heard about accounting tricks? Enron anyone? The Cap & Trade system gives the participants the inherent incentative to overallocate allowances or invent offsets. This is its major flaw, because if there is will, corporations (and lawyers) find a way... A tax you can not escape because it is way too straightforward.