This all kind of presumes the subsidies this guy is talking about will remain forever. They won't. In fact they will probably end soon, confirming that EVs have finally gotten a toe-hold in the marketplace and rendering his argument mostly irrelevant.
Chris On Mon, Dec 21, 2015 at 4:03 AM, brucedp5 via EV <ev@lists.evdl.org> wrote: > > > 'The two sides will have to recognize where the other is coming from' > > > http://www.theenergycollective.com/jamesbushnell/2301833/economists-are-mars-electric-cars-are-venus > Economists are from Mars, Electric Cars are from Venus > December 16, 2015 James Bushnell > > [images > > https://energyathaas.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/screenshot-2015-12-13-16-03-50.png > Optimal EV Subsidies by County > > > https://energyathaas.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/screenshot-2015-12-13-17-02-10.png > A CO2 Abatement Plan for California, circa 2011 > ] > > I work at UC Davis, a University with at least two (that I know about) > centers devoted to research “aimed at developing a sustainable market for > plug-in vehicles.” I run into a lot of researchers and environmental > advocates who are completely dedicated to the mission of accelerating the > deployment of electric vehicles. They view electrifying a large share of > the > transportation fleet as one key piece of the climate policy puzzle. > > I am also an economist. The research coming out of the economics > community > has pretty consistently demonstrated that electric vehicles currently have > marginal (at best) environmental benefits. I run into a lot of economists > who are perplexed at the hostility these findings have generated from > pockets of the environmental community. > > I have followed and pondered these clashes for some time now, in part for > the entertainment value, but also because of what this conflict reveals > about how the different disciplines think about climate policy. > > As the Paris climate summit concludes, the spotlight has been on goals such > as limiting warming to 2 or even 1.5 degrees Celsius, and how the agreed-to > actions fall short of the necessary steps to achieve them. There has been > much less focus on where targets like 2 degrees Celsius come from, and what > the costs of achieving them would be. A lot of the policies being > discussed for meeting goals like an 80% reduction in carbon emissions carry > price tags well in excess of the EPA’s official “social cost of carbon,” > one > measure of the environmental damages caused by CO2 emissions. It is quite > likely that these different perspectives, about how to frame the climate > change problem, will define the sides of the next generation of climate > policy debate (if and when we get past the current opposition based upon a > rejection of climate science). > > Optimal EV Subsidies by County (from Mansur, et al.) > > To be clear, the research on EVs is not (for most places) claiming that > electric cars yield no environmental benefit. The point of papers like > Mansur, et. al, and Archsmith, Kendall, and Rapson is that these benefits > are for the moment dwarfed by the size of public and private funds directed > at EVs. Some have criticized aspects of the study methodologies (for > example > a lack of full life cycle analysis), but later work has largely addressed > those complaints and not changed the conclusion that the benefits of EVs > are > substantially below the level of public subsidy they currently enjoy. Not > only that, but Severin Borenstein and Lucas Davis point out that EV tax > credits are about the most regressive of green energy subsidies currently > available. > > Another common, and more thought provoking, reaction I’ve seen is the view > that the current environmental benefits of EVs are almost irrelevant. The > grid will have to be substantially less carbon intensive in the future, and > therefore it will be. The question is, what if it’s not? It seems likely > that California will have a very low carbon power sector in 15 years, but > I’m not so sure about the trajectory elsewhere. This argument also raises > the question of sequencing. Why are we putting so much public money into > EVs > before the grid is cleaned up and not after? > > This kind of argument comes up a lot when discussing some of the more > controversial (i.e., expensive) policies directed at CO2 emissions > mitigation. Economists will write papers pointing to programs with an > implied cost per ton of CO2 reductions in the range of hundreds of dollars > per ton. One reaction to such findings is to point out that we need to do > this expensive stuff and the cheap stuff or else we just aren’t going to > have enough emissions reductions. Since we need to do all of it, it’s no > great tragedy to do the expensive stuff now. > > It seems to me that this view represents what was once captured in the > “wedges” concept and is now articulated as a carbon budget. Environmental > economists call it a quantity mechanism or target. The underlying > implication is that we have to do all the policies necessary to reach the > mitigation target, or we are completely screwed. So we need to identify the > ways (wedges) that reduce emissions and get them done, no matter what the > costs may be. > > A CO2 Abatement Plan for California, circa 2011, from Williams, et al. > > According to this viewpoint we shouldn’t quibble over whether program X > costs $100 or $200 a ton if we’re going to have to do it all to get the > abatement numbers to add up. Sure, it may be ideal to do the cheap stuff > (clean up the power sector) first and then do the expensive stuff (roll out > EVs), but we’re going to have to do it all anyway. > > At the risk of oversimplification, many environmental economists think of > the problem in a different way. Each policy that reduces emissions has a > cost, and those reductions create an incremental benefit. The question is > then “are the benefits greater than the costs”? From this framing of the > problem, a statement like “we have to stick to the carbon budget X, no > matter what the costs” doesn’t make sense. Any statement that ignores the > costs doesn’t make sense. > > It does appear that to reduce emissions by 80% by 2050, we will have to > almost completely decarbonize the power sector and largely, if not > completely, take the carbon out of transportation. That’s just arithmetic. > How does one square that with research that implies such policies currently > cost several hundred dollars a ton? > > In particular, how do we reconcile this with the EPA’s estimates of the > social cost of carbon that are in the range of $40/ton? In their paper on > the lifecycle carbon impacts of EVs and conventional cars, Archsmith, > Kendell, and Rapson, using $38/ton as a cost of carbon, estimate the > lifetime damages of the gasoline powered, but pretty efficient, Nissan > Versa > to be $3200. In other words, replacing a fuel efficient passenger car with > a > vehicle with NO lifecycle emissions would produce benefits of $3200. That > puts $10,000 in EV tax credits in perspective. > > Many proponents of those policies no doubt believe that the benefits of > abatement (or costs of carbon emissions) are indeed many hundreds of > dollars > per ton. Or they could believe that costs of many of these programs are > either cheaper right now than economists claim, or will become cheaper over > the next decades. Some justify the current resources directed at EVs as > first steps necessary to gain the advantages of learning-by-doing and > network effects. Others make the point that the average social cost of > carbon masks the great disparity in the distributional impacts of those > costs. Perhaps climate policy should be trying to limit the maximum > damages felt by anyone, instead of targeting averages. How do residents of > the Marshall Islands feel about the US EPA’s social cost of carbon? > > All these are legitimate viewpoints. However, there is also the fact that > the quantity targets we are picking, like limiting warming to 2 degree > Celsius increase and/or reducing emissions by 80% by 2050, are somewhat > arbitrary targets themselves. It’s hard to claim that the benefits of > abatement are minuscule if we fall slightly short of that target and > suddenly become huge if we make it. This encapsulates the economists’ > framing of the climate problem as a “cost-based” one. Under this > viewpoint > we should keep pushing on abatement as much as we can, and see if the costs > turn out to be less than the benefits. If not, we adjust our targets in > response to what we learn about abatement costs (in addition to climate > impacts). > > This motivates so much of the economics research focus on the costs and > effectiveness of existing and proposed regulations. That community doesn’t > view it as sweating the small stuff. Under this framing of the issue, maybe > having a fleet of super fuel efficient hybrids makes more sense, even if it > results in higher carbon from passenger vehicles than a fleet of pure EVs > might. > > Or maybe EVs do turn out to be the best option. The two sides will have to > recognize where the other is coming from, or the next round of climate > policy debates may be as frustrating as this one. > [© theenergycollective.com] > > > > > For EVLN EV-newswire posts use: > http://evdl.org/evln/ > > > {brucedp.150m.com} > > -- > View this message in context: > http://electric-vehicle-discussion-list.413529.n4.nabble.com/EVLN-Economists-are-from-Mars-Electric-Vehicles-are-from-Venus-tp4679277.html > Sent from the Electric Vehicle Discussion List mailing list archive at > Nabble.com. > _______________________________________________ > UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub > http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org > Read EVAngel's EV News at http://evdl.org/evln/ > Please discuss EV drag racing at NEDRA ( > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA) > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... 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