> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
> Behalf Of Deborah Harrell
> Sent: Thursday, May 03, 2007 5:22 PM
> To: Killer Bs Discussion
> Subject: Re: Cost of conservation
>
> > Dan Minette <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > > [I wrote:]
>
> <snip>
> > > I really do try to think about what I'm doing WRT
> > > energy consumption; I'll bet that if everyone did
> > the
> > > same or more (and there are those who make me look
> > > like a glutton!), it *would* make a significant
> > > impact.
>
> > Significant as in slowing down the rate of increase
> > in greenhouse gasses,
> > probably. But I don't think that it's as
> > straightforward as it might appear
> > to be on the surface. The costs/repercussions
> > inherent in people cutting
> > down energy use is not clear when we just look at
> > one person doing it...isolated from everyone else.
>
> No - rapidly changing from an economy based on planned
> obsolesence (?sp) to one based on retailing more
> permanent (let's say multi-generational) consumer
> goods would be very disruptive to our current way of
> life. Although some of us already don't follow
> fashion trends or change decor yearly, if everyone
> didn't, the clothing and retail furniture businesses,
> as currently organized, would collapse. There are of
> course many others - dishware, automotive, housing and
> so forth. It couldn't be safely done overnight.
That's only a fraction of what I was talking about. Even in the fairly
upscale neighborhood where I live, folks don't change furniture to follow
short term fashion trends. The fashion trends for home furnishings have a
5-10 year timeframe. Thus, if you want to sell a house with '80s décor, it
will sell at a discount for houses that have the latest décor (a problem we
are facing as we are looking at moving). This will cost us about 6k if we
decide to do it....and we're looking at whether it will be cost effective.
But, selling our house at 250k or so (it's a nice 3000 sq. ft. house which
would sell for much more in virtually every other market), we can see this
as a 2% cost on our major purchase.
I chose my house as an example because it dovetails nicely with the rest of
my argument. Let's look at what I am suggesting as a conservation measure
that would probably reduce our energy use, but not enough to qualify for
Kyoto, let alone a 80% reduction: increasing the tax on fossil fuel usage.
My proposal would add $5/gallon in taxes to the price of gasoline...roughly
equivalent to adding $200/barrel to the price of oil. Home heating costs
would increase about to about 3x the present costs; wholesale electricity
costs would more than double; while retail costs would about double.
Focusing on my house, several things would happen. First, its value,
compared to houses closer to the city center, would devalue. The cost fuel
for driving into Houston proper would, roughly, triple. In fact, the whole
Houston metropolitan area would take a hit, since its population density is
fairly low: 200 per sq/km....about the same as the entire United Kingdom.
Thus, the cost of living in Houston will rise compared to elsewhere.
So, my house would drop in value. I could probably afford it, but think
about all those who have to move after their house has gone below, not only
their purchase price, but the value of the mortgage. I saw this in the
mid-80s, which was at the heart of the S&L crisis of the time.....many many
institutions had productive mortgages turned into low value properties. At
the time, a virtually brand new 2200 sq. ft. house would be sold for 30,000.
I think the nation could handle this OK, and this is not what I mean by
drastic outcomes....that's why I suggested it. But, I also think that it
would do no more than stop the increase in energy usage. The US is growing,
and the per capita use would have to drop every year to flatting out usage.
We have data available from the last few years concerning energy use. In my
neighborhood gas prices have risen from about $1.10/gallon to
$2.50-$3.00/gal between 2000 and 2005-now. Yet, gasoline usage continues to
increase. So, I'd expect only a 10% or so decrease from the $5.00/gal. My
SWAG on the increase necessary to cut usage down enough to level off global
warming is the equivalent to a $25/gal tax....with similar taxes on
electricity, fuel oil, etc.
> > the means for cutting energy usage.
>
> No, unfortunately, I think that the pocketbook is the
> only swift way to alter people's behavior, unless you
> consider totalitarian government, which nobody here
> would find satisfactory. Personally, that means I'll
> have to find other ways to economize, because I can't
> change the distance I drive to the stables, ~ 50 miles
> roundtrip (and similarly to the library), so if gas
> goes to $4/gallon, I'll be eating a *lot* more rice
> and beans (which I already have 2-3d/week).
While going to $4.00 gal will hit you hard, the projections are that it will
not make much of a dent in consumption. What would you do if prices were
$8.00/gal or $28.00/gal?
Further, in such a world, we'd have to worry about methane production from
animals, planting vegetation that maximizes the reduction of CO2, etc. In
such a world, horses would be a luxury affordable by only the very wealthy.
One could add $5.00/lb to the price of beef and have a good amount of money
to pay for the animal tax for cows....by the same token, we would have to
have a comparable (depending on the relative methane production of course)
price for horses.
That's just one example, BTW. There would be a number of other areas, such
as computer use in business, that would become very expensive. As a result,
the productivity improvements that computers have brought would be
reversed....not completely, but enough to hurt the economy. Multiply this
in many ways, and I think you see the problem.
> > 2) Loopholes are always found. The popularity of
> > the Suburban turning into
> > the SUV craze is an example of this. It was exempt
> > from the mileage
> > requirements for cars because it was a truck...as
> > are SUVs. Closing all
> > such loopholes would require very complicated
> > legislation, which would also
> > apply in unforeseen ways....often working against
> > conservation.
>
> Would you give an example of that last statement? I
> personally favor taxing the snot out of luxury SUVs as
> there are much more efficient ways of getting
> groceries. Allowing company fleets tax breaks for
> having luxury SUVS is plain stupid. Now if you have a
> business which requires you to drive over
> unpaved/unimproved roads, like well-drilling or
> construction (not uncommon in the West), it is
> necessary to use *real* utility vehicles.
Well, I cannot anticipate just how people will find loopholes...well no-one
can. If they could, then legislation could be rewritten. Instead, let me
point out how loopholes have worked in the past and put together a general
feel for how they might in the future.
In '92, we were looking at replacing our mini-van. The heart of what we
needed was a vehicle we could use for long (3500 miles on the road) trips
back to see family on vacation. Mini-vans were running 24k, while larger
converted vans were running about 18k. There are a number of reasons for
the price difference, but part of it was mileage regulations. The mini-van
got about 20 mpg, while the van got about 12. We chose the van as the more
economical choice, even with the mileage thrown in. It served us better
also, but my mind was definitely on the cost. This was at least partially
due to the fact that mini-vans counted for EPA mpg ratings, and vans didn't.
You want to tax the snot out of luxury SUVs. How do you define one in such
a way that you don't either hit working trucks that need to be the size they
are or provide a loopholes for the next generation of SUVs? The tax will
prove a per-vehicle incentive for work-arounds that it equal to the value of
the tax. The market for light trucks (which is the category that includes
SUVs...and of which about half were SUVs) was about 9 million vehicles in
'05. SUV usage has dropped some, so let's say 4 million/year. If you slap
a 10k tax on SUVs (which may be more than what you are thinking of, but is
what I think of as "taxing the snot out of" that would mean a potential 40
billion/year value for a workaround. OK, that's not quite fair, because
demand would drop a lot, so let's say the cost/demand curve values the
workaround at only $10 billion/year. That's still enough to get many
people's attention....and to ensure that a lot of creativity will be used to
find/create loopholes.
The alternative is to tax every light truck....which would hit a lot of
folks who aren't wasteful....and force many companies out of business. The
gas tax is much less complicated than that....and it would be hard to find a
loophole in such a simple tax.
> > Having set this up, let's think of the cut that
> > would be required to stop
> > global warming. Elsewhere you suggested boycotting
> > China until they have a
> > more environmentally friendly policy.
>
> As someone pointed out, boycotting hasn't happened for
> their human rights abuses either, so I doubt that
> they're in much danger from my attempts to avoid
> purchasing goods from their sweatshops. [I wonder if
> the deliberate contamination of pet/animal food will
> fire up more anger here? It appears that melamine was
> *added* to increase the crude analysis protein content
> of the feed. As posted previously, in the past there
> have also been significant problems with contaminated
> drugs and infant formula (the latter only inside China
> itself).]
>
> Having an administration that rejected the Kyoto
> protocols out-of-hand certainly doesn't help. But I
> do think that we need to reduce our personal use of
> polluting energy...which is why I wrote that while
> research into renewable/sustainable sources ought to
> be a huge priority, we need a bridge, and that right
> now means <gag> nuclear. {BTW, kudos for not jumping
> all over that -- such self restraint! <grin>)
Thanks. I appreciated the fact that you were willing to reconsider your
position. But, since you mentioned it again, I will try to point out that
you are picking the better public health choice....even if there were no
global warming effects from fossil fuels.
The reason I say this is that, as a result of the criminal negligence in the
disposal of highly radioactive wastes in the late '40s and '50s, and the
good work on the correlation of air pollution and death rates, from health
reasons alone nuclear power is clearly the safer option. We know, in the
US, we lose thousands every year from air pollution related deaths:
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=663&tstam
p=200705
(The Phd meteorologist who runs this site seems to be a very level headed
scientist...more interested in good science than any political agenda).
One also notes at this website that the US is better off than many
countries, and that almost 1 million/year die from air pollution worldwide.
It's also worth noting that, even under Bush, air quality continues to
improve in the US, with a 15% improvement from '99 to '06.
In Idaho, radioactive waste remediation has become big business....one in
which friends of mine are involved. From my understanding, highly
radioactive waste was just dumped....in leaky barrels in shallow holes in
the ground in Idaho. This is a form in which contamination of soil and
ground water can easily occur. Yet, there are no indications that there
have been a noticeable increase in deaths due to this contamination.
While the present disposal plan isn't perfect, it is many orders of
magnitude better than this. The waste is placed in expensive barrels, and
put in a chamber in close to impermeable rock. It's not perfectly
impermeable, but the permeability is in the picodarcie to microdarcie range,
instead of the millidarcie range. So, even if we assume that the barrels
fail completely and totally....and the waste is just in the open in the
chamber, it would be very hard for any given radioactive particle to migrate
through the rock into water supplies. Impossible for any to be
transported....no.....but it's much more likely that the waste in Idaho
would be a risk....since it's at the surface.
> There are conservation and environmental movements
> inside China now, and there is even some action by
> that government, such as encouraging the return of
> bicycle use, as they've seen congestion/pollution rise
> with increasing auto usage. I understand that they're
> working to clean and green up Bejing for the upcoming
> Olympics -- perhaps that will inspire further action.
But, auto use is not the main problem; its coal fired electrical plants.
Last year, China didn't even meet it's modest goal of improving the CO2/GDP
ratio....which the US has been improving steadily and significantly over the
last 20 years. Yesterday, I heard a projection that China will, in 25
years, have twice the CO2 production of the US, Western Europe, Australia
and Japan in 25 years.
> If we don't start seriously conserving and reducing
> our use of polluting energy, and ramp up research into
> alternatives, I don't think society as we know it is
> sustainable.
Why not? There will have to be adjustments...particularly if the sea rises
1 meter by 2100....which is on the outside of the projections. There will
be winners and losers if the earth warms by the amount projected if nothing
is done....but every indication that I see points to the price of stopping
it being higher....and just as likely to be paid by the poorest in the world
as the price of doing nothing...also, I tried to point to an optimum
tradeoff for the next 50 years.
Dan M.
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