Reply To: Cap and Trade

[Aeronaut]

Rezwan wrote:

Which brings me back to not throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Cap and trade – I need more info. It’s theoretically a market based solution to environmental problems, which seems worth looking into. Although “religiosity” seems to be clouding an investigation into it, both pro and con.

Rez, the most important thing to remember is that the rest of the world is doing the best they can with what they have. Two factors that will likely change that in the next 12 months are that the treaty will be fleshed out in more detail, probably not yet ratified, and Baby will have produced enough neutrons and X-rays per shot to show that profitable (predictable and easily repeatable in Baby’s case) fusion has arrived. If you think the holy war rhetoric is something now, 16 months from now are going to be the home stretch in a LOT of US elections. Think you know what a spitting contest looks like? You’ll need waders to get in the same room with the carbon and business camps.

I believe that we’ll get the best mileage by quietly approaching these combatants off-camera, so to speak, presenting FF as THE solution to their problem. No need to mention that it’s also their enemy’s ideal solution. ;-).

Even if this is preaching to the choir, every FF installed eliminates the burning of hundreds of thousands of tons of coal or its fossil equivalent over its 50 year(?) lifetime. Since energy demand will rise anyway, meeting that demand (and retrofitting with FF) will be the most cost-effective way to reduce future pollutants spewed. What is that, 5,000 to 15,000 FF’s for only 3 trillion dollars at low-production pricing?

This means that we can pitch with variations of “What IF FF delivers, according to the schedule published over two years ago?” to change the tool set in the carbon debate, since all it comes down to scientifically is how we as a planet make energy. The Repowering the Electric Utility Industry thread has some interesting projections about how fast just one utility could implement FF. If we can tap even a small amount of the pent up emotion of the carbon wars, Brian’s analysis that all forms of political resistance to FF would quickly vanish could come to pass before the first FF comes off the first assembly line.

So I see the carbon wars as a scam as well as an incredible time and emotional energy sink.