Big differences seen compared to EIA estimate.
Documents (link to PDF) obtained from the U.S. Treasury under the Freedom of Information Act by the free-market Competitive Enterprise Institute were released on Tuesday.
The U.S. Treasury Department admits that a “cap and trade” system for regulating greenhouse gas emissions could cost every household $1,761 a year. According to the CBS News story, “the equivalent of hiking personal income taxes by about 15 percent”.
This comes in way over claims that the EIA says:
The Climate Bill Will Cost You Just 23¢ a Day, EIA Analysis Shows. This works out to $83.95 per year. Big difference.
CEI Director of Energy and Global Warming Policy Myron Ebell on the accumulating evidence on the costs of cap and trade:
“The bill’s proponents talk about protecting consumers while intermittently acknowledging that cap-and-trade can only reduce greenhouse gas emissions by dramatically raising the price of energy derived from coal, oil and natural gas.
President Obama said during the campaign last year that ‘under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.’ Dr. Peter Orszag, now head of the White House Office and Management and Budget, testified last year when he was head of the Congressional Budget Office that ‘price increases would be essential to the success of a cap-and-trade program.’”
Jeff Green (16:40:59) : Solar thermal is viable today and has room to save money on construction through future R&D.
Jeff, I agree that there are lots and lots of viable alternatives if the price is high enough and the time to convert long enough:
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/03/20/there-is-no-energy-shortage/
What your posting shows is that you do not see those two dimensions of the problem. Time and money.
IF the AGW thesis plays out as you say, we don’t have time for “future R&D” to lower costs. If it does not play out as you say, then we don’t need to trash our economy in order to save it…
Plug-In cars are becoming viable. With manufacturing experience many of the costs will come down with time and experience.
Yes, and this is EXACTLY why your solution will not work. The lead time to convert the fleet is over a decade and near 20 years. That is outside the time you allow. The costs are presently astounding. Do the math…
We can not produce enough Copper each year to build all the electric cars in less than 20 years. Trying to do so will increase the cost of copper so much that your price will rocket, not drop. Ditto windmills and powerlines. Oh, and did you know there are TWO places that mine lithium for batteries? And it is hard pressed to keep up with laptop demand?
Smart Grid is being developed now. Again that is just a matter of time. It will be good to go from the dumb grid to the smart grid.
And just how does a “smart grid” make all the electricity? Re-arranging the deck chairs does not keep the ship afloat. Take the coal out, the “smart grid” will have nothing to redistribute. Oh, and you do realize that it will take a decade or two to ‘replace the grid’?
Smart Grid will help take care the intermittency of both solar and wind.
Only if it has some OTHER source of power to redistribute. Will that be coal? Natural Gas? Nuclear? If so, when will you be building that added capacity?
Utility scale energy storage is viable today. This is one of the keys to 80% clean energy by 2050.
Not that I’ve seen, other than a couple of small scale pumped water storage systems. And there are not very many convenient lake sized mountain tops in the country…
Oh, and you have allowed for the 20% or more energy loss in storage have you not? You will need to have a lot more generating capacity to allow for the losses in storage. Electricity is not efficiently stored and recovered…
I suspect that you have very limited technical skills. Ask a power engineer about these things before you believe you know about them.
(FWIW I have managed multi-million dollar construction projects and done long lead time build outs. One included a 750 kVA power feed. The normal lead time for the single transformer alone is 2 years. Now multiply that by millions of them suddenly desired…)
What?? It’s warmer on average in the Arctic (you forgot a “c”), than the rest of the world?? What you’re saying is if the average temperature in, say, Seattle is 66f, then it’s higher than 66f all throughout the Arctic? Surely you jest.
gtrip (18:28:39),
Thanx for pointing out that Jeff Green is boosting the hits at WUWT. Twenty million hits, comin’ up!
Now that ‘Jeff Green’ is a self-admitted Troll, it’s best to not respond to his deliberate scientific illiteracy — as tempting as that is [and I should know].
[And a message to the odious “tamino”, who desperately reads each and every WUWT post: how does it feel to be a loser, loserboi? You’re behind this, ain’tcha? heh]
Jeff Green, man up, and admit your diaphanous theory is wrong. Hate to take all the meaning out of your life, but Co2 does not drive climate change. I have lived off the grid and can build a sod hut. What are you gonna do? Let’s both go camping for a year, and we’ll see how you make out. My guess is that it wouldn’t turn out so good for you (and most “greenies). Be careful what you wish upon humanity. As soon as “crap and enslave” starts hitting “Joe Average” in the pocketbook hard, you and the hockey team ( and any who pushed for it) should have to answer to all of us.
Jeff Green (16:48:40) : Economists have added up the dollars and cents of acting now or acting later.
Acting now is about .1 to .5% of GDP
Acting later is about 20% of GDP
I’m an Economist (degree from U.California) and I say your numbers are a load of cow pies. This is a case of “What number do you want me to make up?”, not reality.
There is no cost of “acting later” since there is no action needed. Someone made up a number and you believe it.
You also have no time interval on your numbers. 20% over how many years? Starting and ending when? Your dimensionless numbers are meaningless and useless.
Message to Obama: “You Lie!”
Whoops, there I went and done it, now I will get spankings by Pelosi in front of Congress. Yikes!
Folks, NOTHING IN, NOTHING OUT … UNTIL WE RID OUR COUNTRY OF THIS CORRUPTION!!!
We are making a mistake using trillions to describe items like the GNP, federal deficit, and cost of cap and trade. The better way to express one trillion is one thousand million, or even better one hundred thousand million. Most people have no concept of the enormity of one trillion. Its continued use for fiscal and economic matters quickly immunizes the public in the same way continued repetition of the big lie will lead to it becoming the truth.
To put C&T (Emissions Trading Scheme) in perspective, consider it to be an excise tax of 15% to 20% upon every level of commerce starting with extraction of crude oil, natural gas, coal, and minerals, the cost refining or processing into fuels and elements, the cost to build facilities for and to produce energy, the costs of manufacturing and distribution of all products including transportation through all stages to the ultimate consumer, the costs of transportation by carriers of goods and persons including all personal uses, all service business revenues, the value of all retail transactions, and the value of all goods and services that are purchased or consumed by individuals. The taxes imposed at every level of extraction, manufacture, transportation, distribution, and retailing will be passed on to consumers.
The various government and liberal leaning organizations’ estimates of C&T costs and impacts vary from wishful thinking to spin to outright false misrepresentations. They are entitled to the about same credibility as GISS and NOAA weather and climate data and model projections.
C&T will bankrupt the US regardless of what if anything is done to reform health care. Taxing our energy will destroy our economy and export millions of jobs to China, India and Brazil where they will continue to use low cost fossil fuels to produce cheap energy until future technological advances provide cheaper sources regardless of the consequences.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hansen,_James
Notable awards
United States National Academy of Sciences,
Carl-Gustaf Rossby Research Medal
Smokey (18:26:42) :
Jeff Green (18:23:25):
“James Hansen won the prize.”
Which prize? Specifically
Stern is the one with the 20% number. But his projections for future consumption growth are ‘way, ‘way too low.
He proposes spending 1% of GWP (1.8% by the developed countries) per year. That’d be around half of world growth in a good year. (And this ain’t no good year.) Compound that loss and it’ll cost us one heck of a lot more than 20% of GWP per year by 2100!
Lomborg, OTOH, suggests spending 0.05% on research and mitigation, which makes a lot more sense and is far more affordable, though not what one would call “cheap”. (L. also ran the cost-benefit analysis for other ways to spend the money proposed for AGW. Bottom line, you could spend that dough and save many, many millions of lives HERE AND NOW.)
Relax everybody! The world of the future has all the answers: clicky.
Smokey (18:39:25) :
Actually Smokey, I am sure that Jeff Green loves it here. At least he gets some responses that the moderators allow. Over at CP they get about 6 comments per article, unless of course they mention Palin, Fox News, or Big Bad Oil, etc. I find it amusing that Joe Romm spends so much time writing his blog and all he gets is the same 5 or 6 poster’s that have comments ALLOWED on his site. And I am sure that he thinks that that is a dialog! Romm doesn’t even discuss climate change over there anyway, he just discusses what government needs to do about it. But what would you expect from a wonk hoping to impress his funding body; The Center for American Progress Fund…a big time Liberal Progressive PAC.
gtrip (18:28:39) :
[And his claim of a six degree rise in global temperatures by 2100 should be filed away with this years hurricane forecast. Even with the warmest ocean temperatures ever recorded in the history of mankind, the hurricanes aren’t buying it]
You only want the science that fits your world view.
Below is a MIT study saying they have come to 10 degrees Fahrenheit or 6 degrees centigrade.
http://climateprogres.org/2009/05/20/mit-doubles-global-warming-projections-2/
evanmjones (18:54:27) :
Stern is the one with the 20% number. But his projections for future consumption growth are ‘way, ‘way too low.
He proposes spending 1% of GWP (1.8% by the developed countries) per year. That’d be around half of world growth in a good year. (And this ain’t no good year.) Compound that loss and it’ll cost us one heck of a lot more than 20% of GWP per year by 2100!
Lomborg, OTOH, suggests spending 0.05% on research and mitigation, which makes a lot more sense and is far more affordable, though not what one would call “cheap”. (L. also ran the cost-benefit analysis for other ways to spend the money proposed for AGW. Bottom line, you could spend that dough and save many, many millions of lives HERE AND NOW.)
I agree – I wish I had something constructive to say – the collosal diversion of resources away from actually doing something useful, helpful and empowering for the under-developed world by the AGW Myth and it’s promoters – just leaves me gobsmacked.
David Ball (18:39:33) :
[Jeff Green, man up, and admit your diaphanous theory is wrong. Hate to take all the meaning out of your life, but Co2 does not drive climate change. I have lived off the grid and can build a sod hut. What are you gonna do? Let’s both go camping for a year, and we’ll see how you make out. My guess is that it wouldn’t turn out so good for you (and most “greenies). Be careful what you wish upon humanity. As soon as “crap and enslave” starts hitting “Joe Average” in the pocketbook hard, you and the hockey team ( and any who pushed for it) should have to answer to all of us.]
Off grid is totally cool. Solar? wind? Did you self install? Microhydro?
Below is a MIT study saying they have come to 10 degrees Fahrenheit or 6 degrees centigrade.
But that’s assuming the most aggressive scenario from positive feedbacks. Yet that is what has not been panning out. In fact, feedbacks appear to be negative.
If that’s so, only the direct CO2 warming will be left (if that) and that is well under 2C for doubling down.
And that assumes continual increase of CO2 output and no tech breakthrough, which is not likely, considering the recent historical record. (In fact, that would be making much the same mistake Malthus made. At least M., to his credit, had the good grace to recant in later years.)
Monckton asserts that all four parts of the forcing equation are exaggerated by about a factor of 2. If true, that would render the overall warming effect under 10% of that which is proposed by the IPCC.
There’s also a LOT of dispute over CO2 persistence.
Curiousgeorge (18:18:13) :
[@ur momisugly Jeff Green: From up thread you said: “As much as you don’t want to hear it, government is the only answer.”
Question: What form of government are you referring to? Be specific, please]
Voluntary standards failed under the Bush administration.
Democracy.
Thank goodness.
“NOAA has declared warmest sea temps warmest ever for summer and august. Water has a higher thermal mass than land.”
NOAA is measuring the sea surface temperature (the second “S” in “SST”), not the temperature of the mass beneath it. The buoys that measure the temperature beneath it show no increase, and maybe even a decrease.
Jeff Green (19:09:15) :
…
You only want the science that fits your world view.
Below is a MIT study saying they have come to 10 degrees Fahrenheit or 6 degrees centigrade.
http://climateprogress.org/2009/05/20/mit-doubles-global-warming-projections-2/
Jeff – And the MIT Computer model is an accurate representation of reality based on what…
(BTW: I’m a professional software engineer).
I would suggest that the models can only tell you what they are programmed to tell you.
How many model runs before 1998 predicted static temperatures for the decade from 1998 to 2008? REF: http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_Aug_091.jpg
And before you claim the GISS is the reliable dataset vs Satellites. Are you aware that 91% of the ground stations in the US have error bars of at least 1 degree Celcius and 69% of at least 2 degrees Celcius. REF: http://www.surfacestations.org/
The UN IPCC Claim a warming signal in the 20th century of 0.7 degrees celcius. How is that justified when the ‘best” network in the world is so inaccurate?
You don’t have the instrumentation/data to justify your claims of warming, so you resort to model runs and predictions 90 years from now that can’t be validated.
When you turn up with some real measurable science that is based on empirical data that can be independently verified, then I’ll be impressed.
I agree – I wish I had something constructive to say – the collosal diversion of resources away from actually doing something useful, helpful and empowering for the under-developed world by the AGW Myth and it’s promoters – just leaves me gobsmacked.
Another way of thinking about it is that for every billion dollars of wealth wasted (or, worse yet, never created), babies starve. We are at a very real tipping point. An economic tipping point. With a potential for “runaway growth” that will result in huge, ubiquitous affluence and god-like technological advance.
We must not blow that.
In fact if we do flush all that away, we will be far less able to solve AGW (if it even requires solving, which I doubt) or any similar problem that comes down the pike.
I did it the way it would have been done in the past . I know first hand why life spans were very short. Do you have this delusion that living off grid was easy? You can not bait me. Our discussion will go in the direction I want it to. Reason being; that I am not allowed to post on the sites you frequent (Open Mind) my (snip). I will admit that I may be wrong, but before we can discuss it, you will have to acknowledge that you may also be wrong. Or go away.
Jeff Green (19:09:15) :
Why link to Joe Romm’s babbling here? If you want to link to the M.I.T. study, do so in the first place.
You say: ” You only want the science that fits your world view.”
I say; how do you even know what my world view is (hell, I don’t even know what my world view is)?
If I link you to a study that shows that pigs can fly, would you believe it just because it was a study? That is what we see with these “study’s” that you throw at us. This is also a reflection of our educational system. Our belief that every child should get a college education and our policies that make it happen is the reason for some of these “study’s”. Your NYU study you mentioned earlier was done by a bunch of lawyers using data from a slanted AGW data base. So why should that be believable?
I don’t think that really care much about climate change; I think that you are just all about climate change legislation and what it can mean to the advancement of your religion; and that is faith in government to take care you from cradle to grave.
Sorry, last post should be directed Jeff Green,….
Jeff Green. Well, at least you tried to answer one of my questions: where are the batteries? You think we will all have our car batteries accepting power from the grid. Did you ever think that most people would prefer to keep their batteries charged by the alternator in the car, so it will be ready to start the next morning, rather than drained to heat last night’s dinner? The average house uses about 700 kilowatt hours per month, or 24 per day. Assume that the battery only has to supply the electricity for 16 hours, and that the battery has a capacity of 100 ampere-hours at 12 volts. This is equivalent to 1.2 kwh, vs. 16 kwh needed. And, you would have to have a converter to upgrade the battery’s 12 volt DC to 120 volts AC for use in the house, as well as a converter to bring the 120 volt AC line voltage down to the battery requirements of 12-volt DC. The losses in a transmission line are proportional to the square of the current times the resistance, but the power transported is proportional only to the current times the voltage. So by going to very high voltage, using a transformer, you can tranport the same power at a lower current, and thus less loss. I don’t hear you or the other proponents talking about details like these, only grandiose wishful thinking. Look in a high school physics book for the fundamental relationships!