Guest “Just Say No” by David Middleton
A $240 PER GALLON GAS TAX TO FIGHT GLOBAL WARMING? NEW UN REPORT SUGGESTS CARBON PRICING
11:50 AM 10/08/2018
Michael Bastasch | Energy Editor
- A new U.N. report suggests a $240 per gallon gas tax equivalent is needed to fight global warming.
- The U.N. says a carbon tax would need to be as high as $27,000 per ton in the year 2100.
- If you think that’s unlikely to ever happen, you’re probably right.
A United Nations special climate report suggests a tax on carbon dioxide emissions would need to be as high as $27,000 per ton at the end of the century to effectively limit global warming.
For Americans, that’s the same as a $240 per gallon tax on gasoline in the year 2100, should such a recommendation be adopted. In 2030, the report says a carbon tax would need to be as high as $5,500 — that’s equivalent to a $49 per gallon gas tax.
If you think that’s an unlikely scenario, you’re probably not wrong. However, it’s what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s report, released Sunday night, sees as a policy option for reducing emissions enough to keep projected warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius.
[…]
From SR15…
In summary, new analyses are consistent with the AR5 and show that the price of carbon would need to increase significantly when a higher level of stringency is pursued (high confidence). Values vary substantially across models, scenarios and socio-economic, technology and policy assumptions. While the price of carbon is central to prompt mitigation pathways compatible with 1.5°C-consistent pathways, a complementary mix of stringent policies is required.
104 = 10,000
| Carbon tax per ton of CO2 | ||||
| Recent price | $25.00 | $30.00 | $27,000 | |
| Gasoline per gallon (retail) | $2.50 | $0.22 | $0.27 | $240 |
| Natural gas per mcf (residential) | $10.91 | $1.33 | $1.59 | $1,434 |
| Propane per gallon (residential) | $2.50 | $0.14 | $0.17 | $152 |
| Heating oil per gallon (residenial) | $3.07 | $0.25 | $0.30 | $270 |
| Kerosene per gallon (retail) | $3.29 | $0.24 | $0.29 | $260 |
| Coal per short ton (Powder River Basin) | $12.10 | $52.52 | $63.02 | $56,720 |
Effects of carbon tax on specific fuels
Just say NO! MAGA!
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That’s the end game with carbon taxes. Take away everything people have, and then further increases will result in people turning off the heat in their houses, and not driving to work, say, 1/2 the time so as to cut CO2 emissions in half, or whatever percentage the totalitarians believe is ‘just right’.
and not driving to work, say, 1/2 the time
======
already happening in China. In major cities people have 2 cars. One with an odd license number, the other even, so they have 1 car to drive every day.
Nothing to do with CO2. Even with 12 lane highways each direction, stacked 3 and 4 levels deep, and with half the cars off the road, still bumper to bumper 24 hours per day.
And still lots of growth to come, with more people in rural China likely headed for the cities than the entire US population. Chongqing city for example has 30+ million, way more than the entire population of Australia.
GB, swell idea:
“already happening in China. In major cities people have 2 cars. One with an odd license number, the other even, so they have 1 car to drive every day.”
and no need for expensive cars – scooters are everybody’s darling.
https://www.google.at/search?q=Southeast+city%27s+motor+scooters&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwjA1IvDvoPeAhVCk6QKHTSxCjEQ2-cCegQIABAC&oq=Southeast+city%27s+motor+scooters&gs_l=mobile-gws-wiz-img.3..30i10.86682.90297..92089…0.0..0.283.1105.0j5j1……0….1………33i10._1__KHry2Fs&ei=be7BW4DqMMKmkgW04qqIAw&client=ms-android-samsung&prmd=minv&biw=360&bih=560
Of course there will be many exemptions, lots of tax credits, but otherwise it is back to the world economy c. 1859.
Oh no, it’s back to 1859 energy usage but with ten twenty times the population.
What that really means is reducing ( decimating ) the world population to back to pre-industrial levels.
I’m sure we can count on the AGW alarmists who favour this solution to do the right thing.
I suspect the rest of the world will simply say “No means no”.
Indeed, wiping out half the population is a desirable goal in their worldview (which makes Thanos the hero of Avengers Infinity war for them).
And with everybody knowing what they have lost in terms of wealth, health and liberty.
It’s one thing to live in 1859 an not know any better, another to live like it’s 1859 and know how you could be living.
Leftists are already opting to not have children. Too much bother and responsibility…
If only they would, and at the same time, STOP trying to “indoctrinate” everyone else’s.
Are they really? Some leftists, like Eric Holthaus talk that talk about not having children, but they don’t walk the walk (IE they have children despite all the talk about how they wouldn’t be having children).
And even if all the leftist stop having kids, they’d still be trying to indoctrinate the children of everyone else.
I fail to see the relevance of your post.
fail to or don’t want to?
Sorry to be pedantic, but strictly speaking “decimating” would only reduce the population by 1/10.
historically, that is correct. However, language evolves over time, and the word has more recently be used as:
1.kill, destroy, or remove a large percentage or part of.
•drastically reduce the strength or effectiveness of (something).
“plant viruses that can decimate yields”
rather than:
2.
historical
kill one in every ten of (a group of soldiers or others) as a punishment for the whole group
like organic was a chemical term spawned in 1831 pertaining to molecules containing carbon, but in 1947 it came to mean such vague things as natural, healthy, harmonious, free of ‘chemicals’ ..
I like when specific words retain their original meaning, it helps prevent confusion and prevents the mischievous from claiming things they have no right to .. such as the left claiming liberalism and redefining certain mid-20th century Italian and German socialist practices as ‘right wing’ – you get my drift I’m sure.
but sure, linguists recognize languages have served to both communicate and include, and to to obfuscate and exclude.
Yeah, it would be nice if words didn’t change their meanings over time. Unfortunately, only dead languages have such static meanings.
So you are saying that because some people use a word incorrectly, we should all use the word incorrectly?
OK
It takes just as long to say IPCC as it does the word ‘hypocrisy’, but you can save a bit of time when keyboarding.
Does the IPCC even know what a reality check is?
No, of course not.
that’s the one they get from governments with lots of zeros ..
It will require considerable use of fossil fuels to enable this tax to be paid. Do I detect a certain circular glitch here? (sarc.
Simply madness.
That is almost as funny as watching the two major Parties in Australia trying to dance around the report that says the world should stop using coal by 2050. Labour has promised twice the level of emission target as the Libs but can’t go near the “stop using coal by 2050 policy” because of all the union workers (who they supposedly represent) that work in the coal industry. So it like the above statement would be a political suicide if ever uttered by either party.
I hope the green nutcase media pick it up and hound the politicians about it because it is sheer entertainment value 🙂
How about of all the low-income people who might just die from hypothermia or winter -related illnesses when it comes to ‘heat or eat’?
Maybe the two parties (which are joined at the hip) could answer that one.
That is a sacrifice they are prepared to make for the sake of Gaia.
Part of the idea, though the Eco-Nazis will never admit it outside of closed doors.
Yes, I always love a good politician-in-a-corner game! LOL
Oh, but the United Nations cares deeply for poor peoples, indigenous peoples, anyone who falls into a self-actuated group that identifies with White European Oppression.
So some of those egregious taxes of course would pay for the Poor not to work, not to progress. They would however have unlimited access to reeducation camps, new blue canvas tents and UN prepaid anonymous cell phones.
Of course.
GoatGuy
$27,000/ton translates to $13.50/gal
Don’t believe anything where the article ends with “MAGA”
i’d like to see your math on that please.
US units are not my native tongue, but I understand 1 ton is 2000 pounds, so $27K/ton is $13.5/pound of CO2-e. The EIA website tells me 1 gallon of what you call gasoline produces 19.6 pounds of CO2-e, so price per gallon will be $13.5*19.6 = $265 or thereabouts.
It’s metric tons… 1 metric ton = 1,000 kg.
Flunk math much?
8.89 kg CO2 per gallon of gasoline
1,000 kg per metric ton
$27,000.00 per metric ton CO2
$27.00 per kg CO2
$240.03 per gallon gasoline
While it only goes up to $50/to of CO2, this widget will do the math for you.
http://www.rff.org/blog/2017/calculating-various-fuel-prices-under-carbon-tax
Just interpolate between $25 and $30 and multiply by 1,000… you’ll get $240/gal.
In my defence where I live a metric “ton” is spelt tonne. But perhaps in the spirit of MAGA I’ll let you have your way 🙂
In MAGA-land, it’s a metric ton. In metric-land, it’s usually called a tonne.
Thanks HAS, I was wondering where the burdened math degree holder got his erroneous $13.50 figure from. $13.50 is the per pound of CO2 price not the per gallon price (1 gallon of gas does not equate to 1 pound of CO2).
Even when I ignore your duff maths, I’d say 1 cent extra on a gallon would be too much.
A carbon tax will never be needed. End of.
>>
$27,000/ton translates to $13.50/gal
<<
This reminds me of a joke statement where an author claimed that drinking scotch on the rocks would use more calories raising ice water to body temperature than would be gained from the alcohol in the scotch. Therefore you could lose weight by just drinking scotch on the rocks.
His math was wrong because he used the standard calorie for raising ice water to body temperature and failed to use the large calorie (which is used to measure food energy content) for the scotch. A large calorie is 1000 standard calories.
Jim
But… That works for bourbon… Right? //Sarc
I don’t believe anything bizarre little Trump haters say…so far I am 100% accurate to have done so. MAGA.
That’s ton of CO2, not of gasoline.
I note as a curiosity that as I understand it MAGA-land shares pure imperial with only two other counties, Liberia and Myanmar.
Actually I stand corrected. Myanmar is the only country to still use the Imperial system, USA and Liberia use the “US Customary Units” system.
Electric vehicles? Road tax based on cost to produce electricity (fossil) and the mileage driven?
What will that do to the cost of transporting food?
Government also seems to detest “people out of place” – always locatable. Personal transportation makes it nearly impossible to count their little ducklings.
But can’t modern cell phones be used to track people?
They’re not satisfied with that; they also want to LIMIT where you can go, the better to enable them to run your life for you as they see fit in their infinite wisdom.
I have three, does that mess up their census?
We live in interesting times.
The truth is that progressive fuel taxes would definitely lead to the “buying public” changing their outlook and expectation as to what fuel is preferred for powering their vehicles, busses, heating their food, houses, recharging their smart phones, computers, and lighting their lights.
And, while $27,000/ton taxation is spectacularly egregious, it highlights a point: when the cost of a product that we dig today from the ground for less than $15 a barrel on the average, is forced to ‘cost’ the industries and consumers using its refined products as much as Sperm Whale oil ($27,000 a barrel), well … guess what. People will definitely use something else.
Even when the price is has fewer “clown zeros”, perhaps more along the lines of $250 to $1,000 a barrel through taxation and the almost inevitable squeezing of its supply through natural means, even then … the real world up charge will cause behavior change.
I’m frequently guilty of recalling the Oil Embargo of what was it, 1973? When OPEC decided they really, really didn’t like Israel winning so handily the war that they had started. The embargo was comprehensive, it was sizable, it was fairly long, and it was utterly politically motivated. And no one — worldwide — could do one dâhmned thing about it.
Here in the US, the price of gasoline rose so fast, so far, that the old gas pumps were unable to be adjusted to the full over-$1.00-a-gallon price. Prominent hand-written pump signs said, “Pump charges half, final price doubled on payment”, or some such.
The net effect though was to give a HUGE shot-in-th-bûtt to the tiny-car industry, and to the propane-retrofit industries to modify existing vehicles to take the WAY cheaper propane and use it effectively. The tiny-car manufacturers couldn’t keep their spiffy tin cans in stock.
The moral of that story was: imposed taxation — in this case an embargo — caused decade-long permanent consumer-product-interest change. You couldn’t sell one of the late 1960s “tuna boats” if you tried.
Just saying,
With fewer clown-zeroes, a progressive and significant tax changes consumer sentiment.
Which… if that’s what we’re trying to do… gets the job done.
GoatGuy
With fewer clown-zeroes, a progressive and significant tax changes consumer sentiment.
Which… if that’s what we’re trying to do… gets the job done.
===========
The arab oil embargo had HUGE unintended consequences and didn’t accomplish the primary aim.
The oil embargo didn’t help the arabs and hurt Israel. It didn’t bring peace and prosperity to the middle east. Rather, Israel is still there. Much of the arab world is in ruin or living in abject poverty under tyrannical rule despite untold trillions of dollars in oil revenues.
So pretty much you can be sure the one thing a carbon tax will NOT DO is get rid of carbon.
It would develop a whole new underground oil/oil economy. One similar to Joseph Kennedy Sr.’s scotch importing business an the myriad other rum-runners and Appalachian bootleggers during the prohibition of the Volstead Act. Some of my kinfolk were the latter.
If the UN thinks they could “impose” such a tax, they have another think coming. The colonists rebelled against George III for a penny tax on tea. The American spirit hasn’t been beaten out that badly, and we have resisted the small arms treaty for a reason. The UN is pushing that piece of work explicitly so they could then impose this kind of balderdash on the world. This is also why gun control is a central plank of ALL “progressive” parties around the world.
UN “Diplomats” have been complaining there is too much violent crime in NY for many years, I wonder how they would like an active armed insurrection targeting them as a replacement!
Your post appears to be predicated on the presumption that “the job” needs doing. What if it doesn’t?
GoatGuy, I think it was around ’73 during the embargo that the EPA imposed it’s first auto emissions requirements here in the US. In order to meet them, since the EPA didn’t have the foggiest idea what they were doing, the auto companies had to cut gas mileage almost in half, burning twice the fuel per mile in order to reduce the specified one or two emissions products. I was in a traveling job at the time and remember that when renting an automobile you were lucky if it made it past the sidewalk and into the street before it quit running. I think I averaged one car out of three or four that I had to return within the first 15 minutes or so. Needless to say, you had to plan ahead for that possibility.
Yet the price of gas then came down, even though the oil price did not.
The problem was short term supply, not oil price. The government simply caused a massive panic that led to panic-buying. Most of the problems could have been easily avoided.
The OPEC embargo had two lasting, positive consequences. It motivated President Reagan to skip the phase-out of price controls on domestic oil production and do away with them in one fell swoop. That ended the oil “shortage” we had endured through the 70s, permanently. In the process, it served as the most conclusive, irrefutable proof of the disastrous effects of price controls and the salutary effects of eliminating them.
+42
They’re going to regulate us back to the horse and buggy. So progressive of them. Thank you sir! May I have another?
Just say NO!
“$240 per gallon gas tax equivalent”
Nicht nur nein, aber scheisse nein!
Doch kann wir nicht! Das ist ein scheißmal zu viel!
This will also pay for the UN to move to their new offices off planet – Elysium
Is that in inflation adjusted dollars? If not, we’re talking $500 per. Are they saying wind and solar aren’t up to the challenge? I think so.
Oh, but it’s worse than we think – those prices don’t take into account the “subsidies” that will be given to lower income classes, which means, accounting for the “transfer payments” plus government wastage, that we’d probably be paying double those numbers BEFORE we consider inflation.
The only way that will happen is with a steady inflation of 9-12%. Inflation would knock of 3 or 4 zeros from those numbers.
Expecting double digit inflation is not realistic. The average inflation is historically 2-4%.
Sometimes the Climatist’s claims and behaviors are so bizarre and outlandish that you wonder what planet they are on, or even in what universe they reside. The answer is neither, because congratulations, you’ve just crossed over into the Climate Zone, where nothing is as it appears, or as claimed to be, and where reality is whatever they wish it to be at that particular time and place.
I love it when they let the cat out of the bag and tell the truth of what it might mean to follow their crazy ideas.
It means making us all poorer, not wealthier. And most of the Greens are OK with this, because they think that it would only be a bit poorer, and “all” doesn’t include them anyway.
Such a gigantic tax would be equivalent to outright banning a product and making it illegal. The only people thereafter who would use it would be those who got it on the black market to avoid the tax.
Such a tax would not raise ANY money for anything. No one would buy it, no money would come in from the tax. You might as well make oil illegal to use.
“You might as well make oil illegal to use.”
That is the green’s intention.
One of the more amusing internet things
https://www.mcc-berlin.net/en/research/co2-budget.html
Are you getting your share only 17 years to go.
Some ‘poor and vulnerable’ people will certainly starve to death. But look on the positive side: there will many times more ‘poor and vulnerable’ for the UNFCCCP to take care of. So they can do much more virtue signally than is currently possible.
For a bunch of people who think that technology is our savior, they sure are ignorant about energy technologies in the near future. They act like they don’t even exist, yet Moltex Energy wil be prototyping their molten salt small modular reactor in a few years and it is as complete and perfect a “solution” to lowering CO2 as their exists. Add the enormous numbers of electric cars that will be rolling down the highways in just a few years ( the world’s automakers have over 300 electric car vehicle models either ready to produce or available within a few years, AND they all , except for laggards Tesla and Nissan, will fast recharge to 80% in 10 minutes, using the defacto standard CCS charging protocol ). So, when battery prices drop below the magical $100 per kWhr, Voila!!!! YOU ARE THERE, STUPID, with no need to tax anyone for anything with regards to energy production/usage. At levelized costs of less than 4 cents per kWhr and the ability to mass produce the Moltex reactors in factories, why is any sane person even talking about subsidies for wind and solar?
So, when battery prices drop below the magical $100 per kWhr, Voila!!!!
===========
A 20 gallon gas tank hold 660 kWr of energy, cost $60 (US) to fill, and can be recharged near infinitely.
A 660 kWhr battery would still cost $66000 even at $100 per kWhr, would cost $66 to fill at $ 0.10 per kWhr retail electricity and would only last about 1000 charges.
1000 charges at $66000 per would buy you approximately 22000 gallons of gasoline, which is about 1100 fills for your gas tank.
In other words, the cost of the battery at $100 per Kwr is more than the cost of the gasoline to fill your gas tank for the equivalent energy. And you haven’t yet bought the electricity to fill the battery 1000 times!!
Not quite fair. An IC engine only gets 25-30% of the thermal energy in fuel out as useful work. An electric motor extracts a much higher percentage of the battery’s charge as useful work. IIRC, you should re-do the calculation based on a 220 kWr battery.
An IC engine only gets 25-30%
========
Looking at engine efficiency alone is also misleading. The electric vehicle has a huge weight penalty (battery) as well as charge/discharge in-efficiencies.
A typical small car weighs about 3000 pounds.
A 660 kWhr gas tank when full weighs about 150 lbs full and probably well under 50lbs empty. This is completely practical and should give a range of close to 500 miles.
A 660 kWhr lithium battery weight about 30,000 lbs full or empty. Try this in your 3000 lb car!!! This is why electric cars have such pitiful range and are so expensive to make. You need beefier suspension to carry the extra weight, which itself adds even more weight. It is a vicious cycle, requiring exotic (expensive) materials to solve.
re-do the calculation based on a 220 kWr battery.
========
using tesla’s numbers the 220 kWhr battery should weigh about 5000 lbs. and the 20 gallon gas tank (660 kwhr) might weight as much as 200 lbs.
even in a 5000 lb SUV your 220 kwhr battery will not come anywhere close to replacing the 660 kwhr gas tank, because of the vehicle weight will almost double, requiring double the power and double the suspension strength. you will either need to raise the price or cut the range or both.
Electric car production is limited by the availability of lithium at a reasonsable price. Electric cars will never exceed more than a few percent of the total, barring the development of a cheaper battery technology.
(Insert Dr. Evil asking for one hundred gazillion billion dollars meme here)
Damn! I should have included a Dr. Evil video! I’ll edit the post.
Everyone working at the UN/IPCC are of course conscious of the fact that if they came up with a ‘nothing to worry about’ scenario they would all be putting their jobs at risk as there would not be a purpose in their existence. It is time this body was done away with as by definition they are always going to put a totally one sided ‘catastrophe’ slant on any international problem that lands on their desks to ensure their jobs are safe, and ready for the next catastrophe. It is time the UN was relieved of its attempt to rule the world and for nations to withdraw their support. Perhaps we can hope that Mr Trump might have this in mind for when he gets elected for his second term The interesting news is the MSM seem to have given the report some but limited coverage and even the biased BBC have dropped the subject from today’s bulletins. I was also pleased to see that the English Daily Telegraph gave the subject only seven column inches on page 15 in Tuesday’s edition.
The problem is that if gasoline prices rise to $240 per gallon the price of electricity will rise to about $8 per kWh, because the price of both tends to follow the rule of energy equivalent in a competitive market.
For example, the US market is reasonably competitive. A gallon of gasoline cost about $3 and has 33kWhr of energy. About $0.11 per kWhr. And the retail price of electricity is about $0.10 per kWhr.
So, there is not much difference between gasoline or electricity in price for the equivalent amount of energy. This is in spite of all the taxes that are levied, the market drives the costs, supply and demand up and down until you pay the same abunt for the same amount of energy.
This pretty much guarantees that the carbon tax will not do much more than raise the price of electricity. And if one looks around the world that is pretty much what people are discovering.