Green Energy Eats Land

The Washington Post has a good article today on the brewing battle between the energy and the naturalist wings of ideological environmentalism. The problem is that no kind of environmentalist believes in tradeoffs -- they apparently believe that all good things can be had at once. The only reason the world is not a verdant energy rich paradise is due to the machinations of a cabal of greedy and evil capitalists. (OK. OK. That characterization may be a little harsh, but when you talk with them sometimes….) Anyway, this chart in the Post shows their problem: renewable fuels are land intensive which means that such fuels will displace large areas of nature.

In square miles per terawatt-hour per year electricity from biomass needs 210 square miles of land; wind, about 18 square miles; and solar photovoltaic is 14 square miles. Compare this to natural gas which takes 7 square miles; coal 4 square miles; and nuclear at less than 1 square mile. 

In contrast, the ever-increasing productivity of so-called corporate agriculture has meant that more and more land has been reverting to nature in the United States. Switching to renewable fuels could reverse that trend.

We at Reason have been predicting this conflict within the green movement for some time.

Heads up: Look for my article in the next issue where I compare the capital costs of building 1,000 megawatt power plants of various types (including carbon sequestration and renewables).  

Comments

[High Every Body]

Shilling for Big Manure!

[Ron Bailey]

HEB: Hey, the other guys shill for Big Compost! 😉

[Hazel Meade]

From what I can tell, biefuels are already on the outs with environmentalists by and large.

But the more salient point is that if biofuels were used, they would almost certainly be produced with genetically engineered crops and chemial fertilizers.

If they aren't being eaten for food, most of the arguments for organic die, and the mechanisms that work in favor of organics in the grocery store (food psychology) won't work at the pump.

[Defender]

Which is why the first of the 3 R's is the most important: Reduce.
We need to reduce the amount of energy we use.

[SpongePaul]

they are looking at the forest instead of the trees. If you take a field, plant hemp for the biomass ethanol, oil, seed, fiber. and in that field have the wind turbines, then you are generating wind energy, using a vacant field and also growing a large amount of biomass. i would use a tropical hemp that grows 15-20ft in a season.

[JP]

The problem is that no kind of environmentalist believes in tradeoffs -- they apparently believe that all good things can be had at once.

I see a similar thing going in global warming climate change discussions. They want to jump over cost-benefit analyses, and go directly from "there's a problem" to "we must do everything possible to solve it."

[345kV Line]

Just remember that as the earth continues to cool, this whole green energy movement will look sillier and sillier...

[High Every Body]

(including carbon sequestration and renewables)

Ah, that anti-carbonite subtext becomes so apparent now.

[High Every Body]

and go directly from "there's a problem" to "we must do everything possible to solve it."

I could tolerate doing the possible, but the enviroids want to start with everything impossible.

[345kV Line]

"Heads up: Look for my article in the next issue where I compare the capital costs of building 1,000 megawatt power plants of various types (including carbon sequestration and renewables)."

I look forward to that.

[SpongePaul]

off topic, but it just hit me. How to explain the global warming/cooling cycles of earth. first there is an atmospher high in c02 due to the volcanoes etc. this favors plant life, which thrives in high co2 environs. the plants give of the o2. slowly using up the c02 and turning the atmosher more 02. all the while the planet has been cooling due to the lessing co2 in the air. as time goes on, more and more animals come in, due to the high 02 content of the atmosher, plants die back, as the globe cools. animals emit c02, therfore increasing its content and lowering the o2. thus warming things and letting the warming and plants take back, rinse repeat. yeah its simplistic, but has anyone ever put them together before, lol

[Dello]

This is exactly why fossil fuels are the "perfect" fuel source: The work has already been done.

Nature took a bunch of grassland and squished it down into usable fuels over millions of years, and it's portable.

How can we possibly hope to come close to topping (or even matching) that by speeding the process up to a few weeks?

[No Name Guy]

Spongepaul

Some simple math, based on the factors Ron supplies, indicates you plan works out to about 16.57 square miles (both bio mass and wind on the same plot) required for the 1 terrawatt-hour per year.

Still doesn't come close to nat gas, coal or nukes.

Plus the wind part STILL depends on the wind, you know, actually blowing when you need the electricity.

[SpongePaul]

ha ha no name, yeah, it does use more land, solution, less people, lol

[treehugger]

Stereotyping doesn't help. I'm an environmental libertarian. Caring about the environment does not automatically mean anti-capitalism (although I'll concede that viewpoint is prevalent among some environmentalist circles).

If libertarians want to reach out to Liberals, we need to stop attacking and start explaining the alternatives to statist environmentalism.

[fyodor]

Which is why the first of the 3 R's is the most important: Reduce.
We need to reduce the amount of energy we use.

And we can do this -- without being poorer for it?

[5words]

Solar energy collector in space.

[treehugger]

Which is why the first of the 3 R's is the most important: Reduce.
We need to reduce the amount of energy we use.

And we can do this -- without being poorer for it?

If individuals and systems waste energy, then certainly cutting waste and encouraging efficiency is necessary and beneficial and will increase the standard of living.

Profit motive will always seek to eliminate waste. Government will always create and/or exacerbate waste.

[R C Dean]

If you take a field, plant hemp for the biomass ethanol, oil, seed, fiber. and in that field have the wind turbines,

You're gonna have turbines that don't do much, because by and large the good places for wind energy are bad places for growing crops.

As a West Texan, when I hear "crop", I wonder "water". How much water will be needed for these biofuel crops, and where is it going to come from?

[treehugger]

5words: Solar energy collector in space.
Two words: Space junk.

[R C Dean]

If libertarians want to reach out to Liberals, we need to stop attacking and start explaining the alternatives to statist environmentalism.

Unfortunately, the environmentally-friendly alternative to statist environmentalism is capitalism, which Liberals have an allergy to.

[Russ R]

"In square miles per terawatt-hour per year electricity from biomass needs 210 square miles of land; wind, about 18 square miles; and solar photovoltaic is 14 square miles. Compare this to natural gas which takes 7 square miles; coal 4 square miles; and nuclear at less than 1 square mile."

Do these figures fully account for all land uses beyond just the power plant?

Natural gas drilling covers plenty of land, as do thousands of miles of pipelines.

Coal requires mining, and miles of railroads for transportation.

Nuclear requires mining, transportation, processing plants, and ultimately, secure waste storage.

For all of the above, there must be land set aside for transmission lines... so those which can be located closer to demand centers will be more "land-efficient".

Are all of these factored into the analysis?

[crimethink]

In square miles per terawatt-hour per year electricity from biomass needs 210 square miles of land; wind, about 18 square miles; and solar photovoltaic is 14 square miles.

Right on about the biomass, but the land used for wind or solar may not be farmable anyway. Indeed, it may not even be land at all!

[treehugger]

Unfortunately, the environmentally-friendly alternative to statist environmentalism is capitalism, which Liberals have an allergy to.

Time to give Liberals an allergy pill. I was once a Liberal (now just a liberal) and worked for the National Park Service, a highly political and inefficient bureaucracy. Then I started exploring private solutions to conservation problems, such as land trusts. And I spread that message; I'm slowly making inroads with my statist friends, especially those who know deep down that the political system is irrevocably broken.

[High Every Body]

If libertarians want to reach out to Liberals, we need to stop attacking and start explaining the alternatives to statist environmentalism.

I thought we were reaching out with weed and pr0n?

[Tony]

This is exactly why fossil fuels are the "perfect" fuel source: The work has already been done.

Fossil fuel energy would be a lot less efficient if it weren't massively subsidized by the government not taxing it for the environmental harm it causes.

[BakedPenguin]

because by and large the good places for wind energy are bad places for growing crops.

This is true. Wind is most useful (for power) at high altitudes - mountains & hilly areas.

[Pro Libertate]

Well, if we had a robust and cheap space access infrastructure, we could actually build a solar array in GEO.

And we could bombard Texas with ice from Saturn's rings or from several other sources.

But, of course, we can't do any of this, because it's too expensive. Which is why the Pacific Gas and Electric-Solaren deal is mostly a fraud.

Fusion would be nice, too, though I imagine people would oppose it, despite the expected "greenness" of fusion power.

[ChrisH]

Put wind turbines and solar panels on the nuclear power plants.

Then, plant hemp all over.

I'm not going to harvest the hemp. I'm doing it... just 'cause.

[MikeP]

Fossil fuel energy would be a lot less efficient if it weren't massively subsidized by the government not taxing it for the environmental harm it causes.

Tony,

In dollars per something, what do you think the right value of that tax is?

[MayorOmalleySuxs]

Defender, I'll follow your lead -> Turn off you PC and quit wasting power.

What's that you say? Your use, just like Al Gore's using resources, is different, and you just meant that all us little people need to conserve.

[Urkobold?]

THE ANSWER IS SIMPLE, YOU FOOLS! IT'S ALREADY IN YOUR HANDS, YET YOU DO NOT SEE IT. TAP THE POWER OF PORN! YES, CAPTURE THE RAW ENERGY OF BATIN'.

CRISIS SOLVED, ENVIRONMENT SAVED.

[James Anderson Merritt]

It is all well and good to use land, if the land is otherwise useless. I have read proposals to site solar concentration and PV plants in vast, basically uninhabitable, mostly useless, apparently barren sectors of the American southwest. By some estimates, all the electricity necessary to run the American automobile fleet, were it converted to EVs, could be generated from such installations, leaving arable, habitable land untouched.

Would the biosphere be significantly disrupted if we were to do this? If not, why DON'T we do it? In any case, I think our best environmental minds should concern themselves for a while with understanding the environmental impact of putting large solar plants in desert regions. Using 14 sq. miles of desert to generate a Terawatt of electricity (one million Kilowatts) on average six hours per day would produce in excess of 2 billion Kilowatt-hours per year, which would power nearly 1/2-million EVs during that year (assuming 4 miles per Kilowatt-hour, which is fairly conservative). A total of 5,600 square miles of EV facilities would handle 200 million EVs. That would be a square of just 75x75 miles in one State, or several smaller squares in several States (share the load between, say, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, and Nevada, each donating a parcel slightly smaller than California's Colusa County, about 34 miles square).

The environmental PSAs on TV talk about how just changing one incandescent light bulb per household to CFL would be the equivalent of taking umpty-ump cars off the road. Desert solar on this scale could effectively take them ALL off the road, once the fleet had turned over into EVs (I concede that this could take many years, but then, so would construction of the power facilities -- the two transformations could occur together in a complementary fashion).

[P Brooks]

If libertarians want to reach out to Liberals, we need to stop attacking and start explaining the alternatives to statist environmentalism.

We have to get these people to admit there's no such thing as a free lunch. And that appears to be impossible.

[Ynot]

Fossil fuel energy would be a lot less efficient if it weren't massively subsidized by the government not taxing it for the environmental harm it causes.

Or maybe we could just stop taxing things because the government is the agent of the collective to punish the Morally Bad and go back to doing what we think is right because we have the choice.

No, I like the fascist stuff too.

[FTG]

Would the biosphere be significantly disrupted if we were to do this? If not, why DON'T we do it?

Because you might affect the Desert Tortoise.

Isn't conservationism great???

[SpongePaul]

You're gonna have turbines that don't do much, because by and large the good places for wind energy are bad places for growing crops.

As a West Texan, when I hear "crop", I wonder "water". How much water will be needed for these biofuel crops, and where is it going to come from?
__________________________
thats why i said hemp. it grows up to the tundra line and even slightly higher than a tree line on a mountian, it needs no pesticide and little water, it is a weed in the grass family after all. yes i know its not technically a grass. it is its own species, i am well aware of the genetics.

[Dello]

Tony,
"Fossil fuel energy would be a lot less efficient if it weren't massively subsidized by the government not taxing it for the environmental harm it causes."

What IS the cost of environmental harm caused by fossil, vs. bio, wind, solar, geo, etc.?

[aix42]

Mother Nature cannot be fooled, she's hardcore. Take a little off this end, she adds it back on the other.

The Nuclear/Hydrogen cycle makes the most sense to me. The waste is an issue, but it can be resovled. There has to be an economical way we can shoot that stuff into space. Todays rockets are still basically hydrogen/oxygen fuelled.

[P Brooks]

I have read proposals to site solar concentration and PV plants in vast, basically uninhabitable, mostly useless, apparently barren sectors of the American southwest.

What about the desert tortoises? and the gila monsters?

Species-ist!

[FTG]

Tony,
Fossil fuel energy would be a lot less efficient if it weren't massively subsidized by the government not taxing it for the environmental harm it causes.

You cannot value the supposed "environmental harm", so how can you tax it? Value can only be know at the point of exchange, otherwise you're just guessing, and I am willing to bet that a government official's guess cannot be better than mine or yours.

Before you wield the "externalities" canard, make sure you understand that the concept stems from a misunderstanding of how people value things. The concept has been debunked elegantly by Murray Rothbard.

[Paul]

I keep saying "energy density, energy density, energy density".

Hazel Meade:

From what I can tell, biefuels are already on the outs with environmentalists by and large.

Your sense is on. There's a growing backlash against biofuels with the hyper-green crowd. Basically, the honyemoon is over, and now they're scrutinizing the partner's bad habits.

Which actually is a good thing.

Oh and there was an interesting report recently on carbon sequestration techniques used in places like China, except the subtle (admittedly acknowledged) part of the story is that the carbon sequestration process wasn't permanent. CO2 was bottled and sold to other manufacturers for other industrial or food uses.

[High Every Body]

There has to be an economical way we can shoot that stuff into space.

[enviroid voice]
You are just going to pollute space as much as the earth is polluted now!
[enviroid voice]

[the innominate one]

"The problem is that no kind of environmentalist believes in tradeoffs -- they apparently believe that all good things can be had at once."

nice strawman - can it be made into biofuel?

[FTG]

Oh, by the way: Arguing that oil companies are being "subsidized" because they are not taxed for the "environmental harm" they supposedly create is a case of Begging the Question, i.e. a Fallacious Argument.

[1Word]

Stupid

[Paul]

I have read proposals to site solar concentration and PV plants in vast, basically uninhabitable, mostly useless, apparently barren sectors of the American southwest.

Got a location for ya.

[Respectfully]

"You're gonna have turbines that don't do much, because by and large the good places for wind energy are bad places for growing crops."

That is so wrong. The best wind is in the Dakotas, the breadbasket of the USA.

http://www.awea.org

[Paul]

nice strawman - can it be made into biofuel?

Only with massive subsidies.

[High Every Body]

You're gonna have turbines that don't do much, because by and large the good places for wind energy are bad places for growing crops.

Can't fool me with that one. I have been to Kansas!

[Urkobold?]

NO, THE INNOMINATE ONE, IT CANNOT, BUT THE PRODUCT OF GENERBATIN' CAN BE.

[FTG]

Stereotyping doesn't help. I'm an environmental libertarian. Caring about the environment does not automatically mean anti-capitalism (although I'll concede that viewpoint is prevalent among some environmentalist circles).

The best way so far that exists to take care of the environment is through the reduction of commons, through clearly defined property rights. However, many environmentalists also happen to be Marxists or Collectivists, which means they will never ever accept this solution - they will expect the State to coerce people into compliance, with the ugly consequences one can expect from a tyranny.

[FTG]

renewable fuels are land intensive which means that such fuels will displace large areas of nature.

People in the XIX Century saw this as OBVIOUS as they switched to coal, gas and oil through a MARKET SYSTEM. The people finding out this through "studies" are not being particularly clever, not more at least than past generations.

[Paul]

That is so wrong. The best wind is in the Dakotas, the breadbasket of the USA.

Not entirely*, at least depending on your perspective. Coastal areas and increasingly, out in the ocean itself are the best wind areas. The problem is building the wind turbines there. There's a project for a floating wind farm off the coast of Oregon with massive towers. Yes, even there it's running into opposition.

*

"Maps include installed wind power (no surprise, California is head and shoulders above the rest) and wind resource potential on both a national and state-by-state scale. It looks as if the coasts and mountainous states show the greatest potential for development."

Article here.

[the innominate one]

my lord URKOBOLD - I am willing to do my part, no matter how much my elbow hurts.

[ChicagoTom]

What IS the cost of environmental harm caused by fossil, vs. bio, wind, solar, geo, etc.

I don't know what it is, but it isn't $0 right?

[Tony]

You cannot value the supposed "environmental harm", so how can you tax it?

As a believer in an activist government, I don't particularly care whether we can price it accurately. I say price CO2-emitting energy production out of existence. Make green energy vastly cheaper in comparison.

But you can calculate environmental harm, and people have done it. An average of peer-reviewed estimates of the social cost per ton of carbon is $43. These estimates account for both the social harm and social benefits of climate change.

[Paul]

I am willing to do my part, no matter how much my elbow hurts.

Batin' elbow... man that's gotta hurt.

[Tony]

Oh, by the way: Arguing that oil companies are being "subsidized" because they are not taxed for the "environmental harm" they supposedly create is a case of Begging the Question, i.e. a Fallacious Argument.

I know for some reason you guys don't believe in negative externalities.

[aix42]

its all in the wrist. What are you guys doing to yourselves?

[John]

"As a believer in an activist government, I don't particularly care whether we can price it accurately. I say price CO2-emitting energy production out of existence. Make green energy vastly cheaper in comparison. "

Vastly cheaper by comparison to coal after you tax the hell out of it. That means we all pay much more for energy and are much poorer you nitwit.

Why don't you just tell the truth and say

"I favor government mandated poverty and expensive energy." Forty years ago liberal launched the war on poverty. Now in the 21st Century, they stand for enforced poverty and making sure everyone's, rich and poor alike, are worse off and have higher energy bills.

[aix42]

I forget, what is the consenses on a carbon market?

Air pollution is a commons issue, no?

[MikeP]

An average of peer-reviewed estimates of the social cost per ton of carbon is $43.

Yep. A little more than a dime per gallon of gas.

Do you really think that, if that "massive" subsidy were removed, renewables would become more efficient?

[Urkobold™]

MEDICAL ATTENTION FOR BATIN' ELBOW AND ALL OTHER COSTS ASSOCIATED WITH GENERBATIN' ARE TAX DEDUCTIBLE. FURTHERMORE, MANY STATES REQUIRE POWER COMPANIES TO PAY YOU FOR THE EXCESS POWER YOU CREATE!

GENERBATIN': NATURAL. FREE. RENEWABLE. MADE FROM LOVE.

[Anonymous]

social cost per ton of carbon

I didn't know people hated plants that much. Man versus nature, huh? The same old story!

[Paul]

As a believer in an activist government, I don't particularly care whether we can price it accurately.

We know. Now let's actually look for a solution.

I say price CO2-emitting energy production out of existence.

Impossible. Well, maybe. You go first, Tony.

So it now appears Bailey's "straw man" isn't so straw. Compare and contrast:

Bailey: "The problem is that no kind of environmentalist believes in tradeoffs -- they apparently believe that all good things can be had at once. "

Tony: "I say price CO2-emitting energy production out of existence."

[John]

"I know for some reason you guys don't believe in negative externalities."

Don't use a word unless you know what it means. In order to adaquately account for an externality, you have to know the cost of that externality. You admit in about six places you have no idea what the actual external cost of burning coal is. Unless and until climate science becomes 100% accurate we won't know what it is. Moreover, even if climate science is accurate, the externality of burning coal is the marginal cost inflicted on the world by our burning coal. If China and India are going to produce enough carbon to heat the world up on their own, then the marginal effect of our burning coal is going to be very little. To put it in simpler terms, if our not burning coal is not going to affect the climate in any significant way, our continued burning of coal has no externality.

[Pro Libertate]

The one thing I agree with in all of this is that a more diversified set of energy alternatives would be nice, even if some of those aren't as "green" as they could be.

[Anonymous]

To put it in simpler terms, if our not burning coal is not going to affect the climate in any significant way, our continued burning of coal has no externality.

This is called marginal analysis, something else beside arithmetic Leftists have serious problems with.

[High Every Body]

I don't know what it is, but it isn't $0 right?

Until you prove otherwise it is $0 as far as I am concerned.

[Paul]

Do you really think that, if that "massive" subsidy were removed, renewables would become more efficient?

He can't if he has a brain. Efficiency is efficiency. No matter how much you tax it. What he really means by "efficiency" is "cost". Energy has inputs and outputs, and you can't change those. If it takes more energy to produce ethanol than it produces, it's not efficient. No matter how many subsidies you add or subtract to it.

[FTG]

Tony,
As a believer in an activist government, I don't particularly care whether we can price it accurately.

You don't care if it can be priced accurately? Do you buy things without knowing how much they cost, or are you THAT cavalier only with other people's wealth?

I say price CO2-emitting energy production out of existence.

You're contradicting yourself - you just said you don't care how much it is valued, which means you would not care if the government valued CO2 emissions at close to zero, would you?

Make green energy vastly cheaper in comparison.

But that would not be the case. The true cost WILL BE LET ITSELF BE FELT, through some other way, like a lowering of living standards, more expensive food or lodging, et cetera.

But you can calculate environmental harm, and people have done it.

No, you don't understand: you CAN'T calculate environmental harm, because people that try are using as reference costs and prices that come from the Market System, but they fall prey of the same issues that affected economic calculation in Soviet countries: That their calculations were mere guesses!

An average of peer-reviewed estimates of the social cost per ton of carbon is $43.

Peer-reviewed means ipso facto that it is valid? Because the Bible has been peer-reviewed for ages, and yet that does not mean god exists, or does it?

These estimates account for both the social harm and social benefits of climate change.

Again, based on what? The people making calculations try to use pseudo-market valuations of value and cost that amount in the end to mere guesses. The price system is not an exact picture of people's valuations, only an approximation, an average of all the final valuations after trade. These researchers are GUESSING what the TRADE VALUE of an environmental harm will be - how can they do that?

[Tony]

John,

I just said that peer-reviewed studies have calculated a range of estimates on the social cost of climate change. Turns out the negatives outweigh the positives.

You're presenting the "we don't know everything, therefore we know nothing" argument. Even if we can't precisely calculate the cost of the externality, on what planet does that imply that the cost should be considered $0?

On China and India, I agree that any solution will have to be global in scope. But it's a global problem. And it will affect the people who benefit least from fossil fuel burning industries the most.

[FTG]

I know for some reason you guys don't believe in negative externalities.

I don't believe in positive externalities either, or in externalities at all. It is a canard, a red herring, created by an economists that still clang to the discredited Objective Value Theory. The Externalities hypothesis was debunked very elegantly by Rothbard, by indicating that the so-called "externalities" were actually guesses made by the same economists that hold the theory, a classic example of circular thinking. The greatest example given is the Free Rider problem, common in a Commons scenario, but Rothbard showed that with clearly defined property rights, the so-called "externalities" disappeared.

[Tony]

You're contradicting yourself - you just said you don't care how much it is valued, which means you would not care if the government valued CO2 emissions at close to zero, would you?

FTG, don't be dense.

[FTG]

FTG, don't be dense.

You didn't answer the question, Tony - it is clear you did not see the contradiction so: Who's being dense?

[MikeP]

Tony,

Can you explain how an environmental impact tax of 12 cents per gallon of gas makes green energy vastly cheaper in comparison?

[NAL]

What we need is a bunch of stationary-bike generators at all the prisons in the U.S. In leu of exercise gyms, you can let the prisoners generate electricity for us.

You could even make it voluntary with the incentive that they can shorten their sentences by some factor of the amount electricity they generate.

This can also be set up at various cites for non-prisoners who just want to contribute to society while keeping fit. "Honey, I'm going to go turn that
Klondike into kilowatt-hours," you'd say.

[Hacha Cha]

which biomass? cannabis? GM opium poppies? cover the US with them and nuclear power plants and our energy needs are not a problem.

[the innominate one]

Paul - Tony's a troll. troll = strawman

John - just because one doesn't know the exact cost of an externality, doesn't mean that one can't detect the existence of an externality

[Tony]

You didn't answer the question, Tony - it is clear you did not see the contradiction so: Who's being dense?

I'm saying that I don't care if the price represents some exact correlation. There is a goal here, and it's reducing and preferably eliminating greenhouse gas-emitting energy sources.

If someone is planning to nuke Omaha, you don't gather economists in a room to work on the cost-benefit analysis before doing something about it.

You're being dense because you think that because I said I don't care about the exact price that means I wouldn't care if the price were zero.

[MikeP]

You're being dense because you think that because I said I don't care about the exact price that means I wouldn't care if the price were zero.

Would you care if the price were only 12 cents per gallon of gas?

[EscapedWestOfTheBigMuddy]

Defender | April 16, 2009, 2:34pm | #

Which is why the first of the 3 R's is the most important: Reduce.
We need to reduce the amount of energy quantity of resources we use waste.

FTFY.

The march of technological progress pushes both ways on this, of course, but mostly in the right direction.

[Kreel Sarloo]

"We need to reduce the amount of energy we use."

Ummm...why do we need to reduce the amount of energy we use?

Now it's possible that if I were to reduce the amount of energy I use it might make me better off But that goes back to a virtue called thrift.

But the problem is that like chastity thrift is a private virtue. The benefits of it accrue to the one who practices it and noone beyond him is harmed by the breach.

This is something that selfrighteous busybodies seldom seem able to understand.

[Tony]

Kreel,

Not if thrift is in the service of protecting a common environment from harm.

And no amount of individuals being thrifty will do a damn thing to mitigate this harm.

[BakedPenguin]

There is at least one good reason to think about wind or solar home generation - if you are providing all of your own power, then the power company can't inform certain agencies about your power usage, if for some reason you use an 'unusual' amount.

Just sayin'.

[EscapedWestOfTheBigMuddy]

I tell you three times:

The big problem with space disposal of nuclear waste is the risk at launch. We can package that stuff to be safe in any reasonable (and many kinds of unreasonable (drink, twice)) train wreck. But it weighs a lot, and launch failures are more energetic.

Scary stuff.

Besides, there will come a time when we want it back: think of all those wonderful, rare isotopes. And you propose to just throw them away!

Wastrel.

[Zeus & Co.]

the Bible has been peer-reviewed for ages, and yet that does not mean god exists, or does it?

Actually, the Bible has received very little review from others gods, and to the extent it has been reviewed, we find a number of problems with the data.

[Ron Bailey]

Tony: I should know better, but with regard to the benefit cost analysis of nuking Omaha -- you have read On Thermonuclear War, haven't you?

innominate & treehugger: I DID say my characterization was "harsh."

[Hazel Meade]

FTG, the reason "clearly defined property rights" works is because the negative externalities become internalities when that occurs - the owner of the air, water rights becomes entitled to compensation for. Right now, we don't have property rights covering air and water, so there ARE negative externalities.

The carbon tax idea is sort of a workaround for the fact that establishing property rights for air and water isn't workable at the moment.

or are you THAT cavalier only with other people's wealth?

Yes, he is that cavalier with other people's wealth. I don't think Tony would hesitate for a second to admit that he would be totally cool with hiking a carbon tax to raise money for social welfare programs. Or just to fuck with the fossil fuel industry, for that matter.

Which does point out the problem - that barring some rock solid scientific measure, the tax is likely to be manipulated for political purposes. Alas. Tony doesn't see a fairness issue with that. Actually he doesn't see any fairness issues with the treatment of anyone that makes a "profit". Libertarians do. Government should be based on things like the equal protection of the law and such - not fucking around with the tax code to benefit your "sides" political clients.

[Russ R]

"Besides, there will come a time when we want it back: think of all those wonderful, rare isotopes."

If we want to maintain isotope diversity on the planet, then we must take every action to protect these endangered isotopes which today are only found in captivity.

It's only a matter of half-lives before they vanish forever.

[brotherben]

"aix42 | April 16, 2009, 3:44pm | #

its all in the wrist. What are you guys doing to yourselves?"

some men here, blessed by god with enormous junk, have to involve the elbow to get the proper length of stroke. My condolences to your wife.

[R C Dean]

SpongePaul, there's a difference between "can survive with little water" and "can produce a viable crop year after year with only rainfall."

I've, er, seen hemp grown. To obtain any size, it needs a good supply of water.

Just sayin'. Water needs are a burden imposed on the natural environment by plant biofuels that I've never seen anyone account for. Even people who love, LOVE, to bitch about how bad irrigation farming is for the environment.

[Hazel Meade]

FTG, don't be dense.

You didn't answer the question, Tony - it is clear you did not see the contradiction so: Who's being dense?

What he means is that the bigger the tax is the better. He doesn't care if it's an accurate reflection of the costs of pollution. More money for the government = better, in his mind.

Pretty straightforward if you ask me.

[JW]

As a believer in an activist government, I don't particularly care whether we can price it accurately. I say price CO2-emitting energy production out of existence. Make green energy vastly cheaper in comparison.

Good old Tony. Impoverishing us back to the Stone Age into the future.

[Reasonoid]

"Maps include installed wind power (no surprise, California is head and shoulders above the rest)"

No. The top five states in terms of wind capacity are:

Texas, 7,118 megawatts
Iowa, 2,791 megawatts
California, 2,517 megawatts
Minnesota, 1,754 megawatts
Washington, 1,447 megawatts

http://www.awea.org/publications/reports/AWEA-Annual-Wind-Report-2009.pdf

[Reasonoid]

"I say price CO2-emitting energy production out of existence. Make green energy vastly cheaper in comparison.

Cheaper by comparison does not mean affordable.

[Reasonoid]

"The one thing I agree with in all of this is that a more diversified set of energy alternatives would be nice, even if some of those aren't as "green" as they could be."

And as someone who works in Portfolio Strategy & Business Development for one of the nation's largest electric utilities, I just have to say that you are spot on.

[Reasonoid]

"There is a goal here, and it's reducing and preferably eliminating greenhouse gas-emitting energy sources."

Can you provide proof that greenhouse gasses are bad. They're GREENhouse gasses afterall and anything with the word green in it is good, right? Greenhouse gasses = plant food.

[Tony]

Cheaper by comparison does not mean affordable.

What if the taxes are used to subsidize green energy?

Bottom line for me, cheap energy comes with an environmental cost that is, to date, not factored in and therefore represents a de facto subsidy for cheap, polluting energy industries. This is on top of all of the other subsidies given by industry puppets in government.

[R C Dean]

What if the taxes are used to subsidize green energy?

I guess this is what they mean by impenetrable stupidity.

If it costs 100 bucks a watt to produce green energy, Tony, it costs that much even if the state gives the utility a check for 80 bucks a watt.

Subsidies don't lower costs, they shift them.

[Reasonoid]

"Good old Tony. Impoverishing us back to the Stone Age into the future."

Perhaps he could just move to the Swat Valley.

[Reasonoid]

"What if the taxes are used to subsidize green energy?"

Robbing Peter to pay Paul produces no value for anyone other than Paul.

[Reasonoid]

"Robbing Peter to pay Paul produces no value for anyone other than Paul."

And of course the politicians that Paul supports with his generous campaign contributions.

[MikeP]

Bottom line for me, cheap energy comes with an environmental cost that is, to date, not factored in and therefore represents a de facto subsidy for cheap, polluting energy industries.

Twelve cents for a gallon of gasoline, Tony. Twelve cents!

What is this green energy that you imagine becomes cost competitive with gasoline when the price of the latter increases 5%?

[Jordan]

This is on top of all of the other subsidies given by industry puppets in government.

Wow. How the fuck did you type that with a straight face immediately after typing "What if the taxes are used to subsidize green energy?" The sheer dumbassery apparent here is unbelievable.

[JW]

What if the taxes are used to subsidize green energy?

People walking by me are wondering why I'm banging my head on my desk.

This is a performance art piece you're doing, right Tony?

[Tony]

Jordan,

My whole point here is that I don't really give a shit how we get there. Saving the environment from permanent harm, and thus humanity from permanent misery, is more important to me than sticking to arcane taxation principles. The relevant phrase in that sentence is "industry puppets," not "subsidies."

[Jordan]

The relevant phrase in that sentence is "industry puppets," not "subsidies."

Yeah, because the guys who run green energy companies are all angels, as opposed to the Snidely Whiplash oil barons.

[R C Dean]

My whole point here is that I don't really give a shit how we get there.

Also known as Burning the Village In Order to Save It.

Can we fit one more acronym into the lexicon? BTVIOTSI? Because I have a feeling my fingers are going to get tired over the next few years if I have to type it out every time.

[R C Dean]

The relevant phrase in that sentence is "industry puppets," not "subsidies."

The latter are delivered only by the former. Does it really matter which industry? Is a Congressman giving T. Boone Pickens a subsidy for wind energy not an industry puppet, while a Congressman giving T. Boone Pickens a subsidy for an oil pipeline is an industry puppet?

[Paul]

No. The top five states in terms of wind capacity are:

Reasonoid, you've changed your argument. You started arguing about the best wind, now you've shifted your target to the top 5 producers of wind power. Those two things have nothing to do with eachother.

My response was to your comment on the Dakotas being the best place for wind turbines, ie best "wind". Coastal areas win...hands down.

http://www.windpoweringamerica.gov/wind_maps.asp

[Paul]

Robbing Peter to pay Paul produces no value for anyone other than Paul.

Everyone talks about robbing Peter to pay Paul, but I've never seen a friggin' dime. What gives?

[Hazel Meade]

Tony,

Here's a question for you. Suppose we could accurately price in the environmental cost of carbon, and it still turned out to not be enough to make so-called "green" energy cost-effective.

That is ... take the whole carbon footprint throughout the production cycle. Energy is going in at every point. If that energy is priced to include pollution costs - priced to include the total carbon footprint, then the total final cost is a reflection of the *actual* carbon footprint and it's associated costs, right?

What if it turns out that so-called "green" energy alternatives actually cost more, as a reflection of their total carbon footprints? What if it turns out that solar energy has a bigger carbon footprint, altogether, than oil?

Wouldn't the subsidies to so-called "green" companies be actually doing harm then?

Take biofuels - you can bet the political class is going to keep subsidizing them, cause Democrats love agricultural subsidies, and it wins votes in the Iowa caucuses.

Then your green energy subsidies will end up taking from lower-carbon sources to subsidize higher-carbon ones.

If the price actually IS an accurate reflection of downstream pollution costs, then what would the purpose of subsidies be? The market will already be favoring energy sources that *actually are* environmentally friendly, regardless of whether they are politically popular or whether anyone actually computes their carbon footprint. Hence the subsidies will simply be patronage mechanisms. There will be no environmental benefit to skewing the market in favor of some company, if the market isn't already doing it. It will effectively disrupt otherwise *accurate* price signals, thereby causing net *inefficiencies*, and *increasing* overall carbon production.

Markets are excellent mechanisms for finding global optima - if the price includes carbon costs, then the optima is going to reflect the minimal-carbon-producing point. Any skew away from that is by definition going to increase carbon production.

[robc]

COASE
COASE
COASE
COASE
COASE
COASE
COASE
COASE
COASE

Im not sure how many posts Tony has in this thread, but apply one of the above to each.

[Paul]

Take biofuels - you can bet the political class is going to keep subsidizing them, cause Democrats love agricultural subsidies, and it wins votes in the Iowa caucuses.

My prediction is that as the enviros get weak in the knees about subsidizing bio-fuels, the Dems will be soon to follow. I posted this link earlier, Hazel.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/22/business/worldbusiness/22biofuels.html

Governments in Europe and elsewhere have begun rolling back generous, across-the-board subsidies for biofuels, acknowledging that the environmental benefits of these fuels have often been overstated.

Biofuels are a fad. Unless they can dramatically increase the efficiency of production, along with dramatic decreases in--ahem-- externalities, large biofuel subsidies are finished.

[Paul]

Then your green energy subsidies will end up taking from lower-carbon sources to subsidize higher-carbon ones.

the only problem I see with this, is the ability to empirically prove this.

Environmentalists have historically turned a blind eye to certain inputs into so-called green energy. As a result, carbon emissions several steps removed in the inputs so-called green energy are easy to ignore.

I mean, they're not driving around, servicing these huge windfarms with plug-in hybrid trucks and cranes. The factory didn't build these frickin' things using windpower.

[JW]

My whole point here is that I don't really give a shit how we get there.

Yep, R C, impenetrable.

[Paul]

Another distortion of Green energy:

Windfarm company gets big subsidy from government which helps pay for 50,000 gallons of petrolium used for manufacture and servicing. Now that input is effectively erased from the books. The only way to find out if an energy source is efficient is to provide no subsidies and minimize taxation. Only then can you get closer to the true cost.

[Jack Thread]

Obama just told us on TV that 90% of the guns in Mexico come from the US.

Is this true?

He also says this necessitates searching Americans entering Mexico.

Can he do that?

[MikeP]

Obama just told us on TV that 90% of the guns in Mexico come from the US.

Is this true?

No. 90% of the guns that Mexican authorities send to the US for testing because they are suspected to have come from the US actually come from the US.

17% of the guns in Mexico come from the US.

[Reasonoid]

"Reasonoid, you've changed your argument. You started arguing about the best wind, now you've shifted your target to the top 5 producers of wind power. Those two things have nothing to do with eachother."

I was responding to whoever said California was #1. It's Texas. CA is #3.

I don't really think coastal wind farms will ever be a reality (think MA's attempt to get it going and the opposition they got from the Kennedy families. Something about obstructing the view), though I understand that from a wind availability standpoint, it would be a good place to put them.

I'll try to find a map of average wind velocity in the US, but mostly, the middle of the country are the windiest on terra firma.

[Tony]

What if it turns out that so-called "green" energy alternatives actually cost more, as a reflection of their total carbon footprints? What if it turns out that solar energy has a bigger carbon footprint, altogether, than oil?

Indeed, right now a lot of so-called green alternatives have a hidden carbon cost. I am in favor only of radical upgrades to the entire energy infrastructure, including by using nuclear.

Markets are excellent mechanisms for finding global optima - if the price includes carbon costs, then the optima is going to reflect the minimal-carbon-producing point

This is exactly what I'm hoping for.

[MikeP]

Well, since the price of gasoline already includes a transportation tax of between two and three times the consensus $43 per ton carbon tax, we can be pretty sure that the optimum choice for automobile energy is what we have today.

[perilisk]

"Profit motive will always seek to eliminate waste. Government will always create and/or exacerbate waste."

Profit motive encourages (tempered by irrationality and information deficiency within the profit-seeking entity's decision-making apparatus) elimination of waste internal to the system governed by the profit motive, e.g. business or household, but does not consider the waste external to the system, instead leaving it as an issue for their own profit-seeking decisions to address.

To the extent that the entities the profit-seeking entities interfaces with are governed by poor incentives, misinformation, or irrationality, it may be rewarded best by increasing waste in the overall system (e.g. Earth). Moreover, the profiteering entity itself may itself promote misinformation and irrationality in other entities (emotionally manipulative or outright deceitful advertisements, rent-seeking), as the waste and associated profit loss of these external entities is only of concern if there are expected repercussions, once moral issues are eliminated from consideration, as they must necessarily be in an entity governed solely by the profit motive.

[Hazel Meade]

Indeed, right now a lot of so-called green alternatives have a hidden carbon cost.

Yes, and your green energy subsidies are going to end up subsidizing those hidden carbon costs. The decisions will be made based on what is trendy and popular at the moment. For instance, instead of nuclear plants, the money will subsidize solar farms, regardless of whether nuclear has a smaller carbon footprint. Moreover, lobbyists will start gaming the statistics to try to get subsidies, so it may not even be so easy to get objective data on what the carbon footprint actually is.

It you rely on market pricing, the logic of price competition is inexorable. The higher carbon producing sources won't be able to disguise their hidden costs behind cheaper metering prices if they aren't getting subsidies, because price competition will cut rates down to the minimal point at which companies can turn a profit.

By definition hidden costs are "hidden". You can't just say "well we'll subsidize the stuff that doesn't have hidden costs". But, the hidden costs WILL still turn up in equilibrium market prices - if you allow the market to work. You can't be jumping in there with price controls and subsidies and specialized tax-break, or it will screw up the price mechanism.

[Suki]

Earth Day is just around the corner!

[Kevin Carson]

That's assuming that energy inputs per unit of consumption remain constant, when in fact artificially cheap energy inputs (the fossil fuel fix) have resulted in an extremely wasteful pattern of growth by extensive addition of inputs. Never mind lifestyle changes that will likely result from market forces when Peak Oil raises energy prices: most people living in mixed-use neighborhoods close to where they work and shop, buying most stuff from small factories twenty miles away instead of from China, etc.

Just consider the low-hanging fruit Amorey Lovins describes that could result in 80% energy savings with no substantial change in lifestyle. Two of the most prominent are industrial waste heat recycling through cogeneration, and passive solar heating and cooling design.

BTW, aside from repeated cutting and pasting of Borlaug's uninformed assertions, you have yet to describe a corporate agricultural method that even approaches the productivity of John Jeavons' biointensive method (i.e., feeding one person on 4000 sq. ft. of land).

BTW, also, where has nuclear ever worked without massive government subsidies at every step in the production chain from uranium mining to waste disposal to the underwriting and indemnification of liability for nuclear accidents? I understand nuclear is real popular in France, which is not exactly an exemplar of the Anglo-Saxon model of neoliberalism you seem to prefer.

[Hazel Meade]

where has nuclear ever worked without massive government subsidies at every step in the production chain from uranium mining to waste disposal to the underwriting and indemnification of liability for nuclear accidents?

When has nuclear ever not been subjected to undue harassment by activist anti-nuke lobbyists, and subjected to regulatory rules that deliberately bias the site and construction permitting processes against them?
The anti-nuclear activists openly brag about how they increased the cost of nuclear power to the point that it became less economical than coal.

[Hazel Meade]

BTW, aside from repeated cutting and pasting of Borlaug's uninformed assertions, you have yet to describe a corporate agricultural method that even approaches the productivity of John Jeavons' biointensive method (i.e., feeding one person on 4000 sq. ft. of land).

If you are talking about seeding multiple crops in the same field, you can get more yield per acre, but harvesting becomes an incredibly expensive and complex process. That's why it hasn't been adopted. When someone develops a combine that can automatically sort different crops then the market will adopt it. If you expect it to be done by manual labor then it isn't the amazing advance you think it is.

[MJ]

"Fossil fuel energy would be a lot less efficient if it weren't massively subsidized by the government not taxing it for the environmental harm it causes."

Not taxing is a subsidy?

Like freedom is slavery?

Ignorance is your strength, Tony.

[Kreel Sarloo]

"Not if thrift is in the service of protecting a common environment from harm."

I make a comment about selfrighteous busybodies and Tony shows up to provide validation.

MikeP, do you have a source on that 17% number? I'm not doubting you, it's just that I'm sure one of my "progressive" friends is going to cite that 90% crap sooner or later.

It's my impression that most of the weapons come from government arsenals, but, of course, I have no real evidence.

[MikeP]

You can search for "90% 17% guns Mexico" and you'll see that the top hits are from Fox News who first rebutted the notion.

For a more fair and more balanced take, down the search results I found an analysis by the St. Petersburg Times Truth-O-Meter, which generously found Obama's statement to be half-true.

We think the ATF number, presented in its proper context, provides legitimate and useful information to weigh when considering U.S. policy. We find the implication that the number could be as low as 17 percent is unrealistic because it assumes that every gun that has not been traced comes from somewhere other than the U.S. That's faulty logic.

But we think Obama also mischaracterizes the statistic some when he says 90 percent of the guns recovered in Mexico come from the United States. Not every gun recovered in Mexico is submitted to the ATF for tracing. And so Obama, and others can't know exactly what percentage come from the U.S. They can only speak to the guns successfully traced by the ATF. And so we rule Obama's statement Half True.

I report. You decide. But in my opinion, half truths used to gain a political end are lies.

[Kreel Sarloo]

Thanks, Mike.

Neither the 90% nor the "guns are coming from TX and AZ gun shops/gun shows" have ever rung true.

But apparently they do to people who believe that full auto M16s and AK47s are being traded in volume at gun shows. And that seems to be an awful lot of people.

Now, I would not be surprised if a lot of the handguns originated in the US, but that's a different matter and I'm not sure there's anything to be done about it. I mean we're already talking about what's already one of the most highly regulated supply chains in the country.

[Anonymous]

What purpose would it serve to maliciously fabricate the number of weapons entering Mexico through the US? It's not like people actually conclude that weapons beget violence and that declaring guns to be illegal will make them go away.

Oh, wait.

[MikeP]

The 90% vs. 17% debate is also covered by Jacob Sollum today and by Radley Balko a fortnight ago.

[Tony]

Not taxing is a subsidy?

In my opinion allowing industries to pollute common resources with impunity amounts to a subsidy.

[MikeP]

I want my twelve cents!

[James Anderson Merritt]

## I have read proposals to site solar
## concentration and PV plants in vast,
## basically uninhabitable, mostly useless,
## apparently barren sectors of the American
## southwest.

# What about the desert tortoises?
# and the gila monsters?

# Species-ist!

Well, what about them? What IS the environmental impact of solar installations in desert areas? The Alaskan oil pipeline warms its immediate vicinity, which has proven beneficial to local wildlife (assuming the pipe doesn't leak or rupture). Offshore drilling platforms and undersea pipelines serve as reef-structures, again to the benefit of local sea creatures as long as there are no oil-spills. Couldn't desert solar installations be beneficial to local species, as well as to us?

As I said above, I think environmentalists should attempt to answer the questions surrounding desert solar installations. If the answers indicate a generally benign impact, then perhaps we should pull out the stops and go solar -- a terawatt at a time is more than quick enough, not only to pace the public's adoption of EVs, and to allow ramping up of the solar industry to match demand for the raw materials of generation plants, but also to allow for an ongoing assessment of the environmental impact of desert solar installations.

[James Anderson Merritt]

# MikeP | April 16, 2009, 8:59pm | #
# Well, since the price of gasoline already
# includes a transportation tax of between two
# and three times the consensus $43 per ton
# carbon tax, we can be pretty sure that the
# optimum choice for automobile energy is what
# we have today.

This is an excellent point. And it raises an excellent question: Wouldn't some of the transportation taxes that we are currently paying be well disposed to create such things as desert solar power generation facilities, as part of the steps we take to encourage the adoption of alternative fuels? But wouldn't such facilities also be included in the class of things that we might expect to fund with a carbon tax (also, and perhaps most prominently levied against those same fuels that are already taxed)? Why pay twice?

It appears to me as if someone is just trying to manufacture more reasons and means for parting people from their money so that the elected elite and their bureaucratic minions can spend it as they please.

[MikeP]

Wouldn't some of the transportation taxes that we are currently paying be well disposed to create such things as desert solar power generation facilities, as part of the steps we take to encourage the adoption of alternative fuels?

Presuming that the 12 cent per gallon tax is already covered by the 36 cent road tax on gasoline, or even added to make a 48 cent road and environmental tax on gasoline, why are "we", contrary to the now accurate price of the fossil fuel, doing anything else to encourage the adoption of alternative fuels?

The price mechanism is the best way to optimize the problem. Put the environmental cost in the price. Get rid of all subsidies for all fuels. Problem optimized.

As for the use of the revenues of a carbon tax... If we call a third of the road tax the Pigouvian component, then we are done. It gets used for roads. Otherwise, the only good use of an additional carbon tax collected would be to offset other taxes in the general fund. Any other use is simply begging for a rent seeking pigfest.

[MikeP]

Incidentally, since coal puts out 25% more CO2 than gasoline per joule, your proposed low-carbon desert power plants are much better used to retire coal power plants than to supplant the excellent fuels that most transportation vehicles use today.

[MikeP]

...not that I think it would necessarily come out even close to cost effective in the case of coal. But, really, why go after gasoline?

[economist]

"Presuming that the 12 cent per gallon tax is already covered by the 36 cent road tax on gasoline, or even added to make a 48 cent road and environmental tax on gasoline, why are "we", contrary to the now accurate price of the fossil fuel, doing anything else to encourage the adoption of alternative fuels?"

I don't know if that really works as an argument. While the tax on gasoline theoretically reduces consumption, the roads it funds increase consumption more. And the government subsidizes road construction by procuring some of the funds from general revenues. I would be in favor of raising the gasoline tax to fully reflect the cost of the roads it funds, and to cut spending from federal revenues.

[economist]

I'm with Hazel Meade on the nuclear power issue. To say that the failure of nuclear power to catch on in the United States, with the massive blocks imposed by anti-nuclear activists and politicians, actually reflects its safety and efficacy compared to other forms of power generation, would be like using France (which is almost fully nuclear, albeit with massive encouragement from its government) to prove that nuclear power is the only way to go.

[Chad]

MJ | April 17, 2009, 7:27am | #

"Fossil fuel energy would be a lot less efficient if it weren't massively subsidized by the government not taxing it for the environmental harm it causes."

Not taxing is a subsidy?

His language was unclear. What he should have said is that not charging for the use of public property is a subsidy. In this case, a very big one. Coal's "free garbage dump" subsidies reduce its cost by at least a factor of three, and without them, it is more expensive than wind+pumped storage.

[Kevin Carson]

Hazel: Fine--leave unlimited civil liability in place, and remove ALL subsidies to nuclear, and we'll see how it does on its own nickel.

Likewise, eliminate government-granted patent monopolies and R&D subsidies on GM crops, and eliminate all restrictions on commercial free speech (like restrictions on labeling GM-free food, food libel laws, etc.), and we'll see how that works out for Bailey's beloved GM foods.

Biointensive is a further development of the raised-bed techniques used by market gardeners in NW Europe from the 17th century on. It relies on mulching and companion planting, closed-loop composting, and the use of green manure crops to build fertility.

Mechanized harvesting doesn't save labor from the standpoint of the consumer, if it takes more labor to earn the wages to buy store-bought produce than it does to grow and harvest it yourself. Bailey keeps asserting that corporate agribusiness is "more productive," when in fact it trades lower productivity per acre for superior productivity per man-hour, and small-scale production is more efficient per acre than large-scale production. That's a simple matter of fact, and one he refuses to acknowlege; his specific claim that corporate agribusiness is more efficient in land use, the one he made here, is simply FALSE.

[Duracomm]

Tony,

Belligerently ignorant greens like yourself are causing far more environmental destruction than the oil companies.

The biofuels you all demanded have double the CO2 emissions of the petroleum products they were supposed to replace.

New Studies Identify Change in Land Use Associated with Biofuel Production as Major Contributor of Greenhouse Gases,

Far Offsetting Benefits of Most Current Biofuels

Two separate studies published in the current online edition of the journal Science identify land use change-the conversion of rainforests, peatlands, savannas, or grasslands to produce food-based biofuels or to replace existing cropland diverted to biofuel crop production-as a major source of increased carbon dioxide emissions, far offsetting the presumed greenhouse gas benefits of using most current biofuels.

As an added bonus biofuel production is rapidly destroying the remaining rainforest habitat for endangered species of Orangutans in Asia.

Go Green go petroleum the environmentally friendly alternative to biofuels

[James Anderson Merritt]

MikeP: "Incidentally, since coal puts out 25% more CO2 than gasoline per joule, your proposed low-carbon desert power plants are much better used to retire coal power plants than to supplant the excellent fuels that most transportation vehicles use today.

"...not that I think it would necessarily come out even close to cost effective in the case of coal. But, really, why go after gasoline?"

I'm not "going after" gasoline. Rather, the idea was to help vehicles become non-emitting. It just so happens that vehicles overwhelmingly use gasoline and diesel.

One side-effect of a concerted push for solar would be to stimulate research and optimization that, within the 20-30 years or so it might take for the nation to rollover to an EV fleet, could markedly lower the cost of solar and improve our ability to capture and economically store solar energy (or other variable renewable energy sources, such as wind) for use when the sun doesn't shine.

Over a decade-or-three conversion period, coal-fired plants could indeed be shut down as the new solar plants went online, because there is already a lot of additional capacity in our grid. Right now, the coal plants have to run day and night. If a significant number of solar plants could go online, the coal plants would need to run only at night -- or, more realistically, some of them might be able to shut down entirely, cutting emissions. At some point, the country's increased electric demand from normal growth plus the increased demand from conversion/replacement to/with EVs would necessitate additional system generation capacity. Then we couldn't shut down coal plants without putting other plants online IN ADDITION to the new solar farms. I wouldn't be surprised if someone hasn't worked out that crossover point already, but I'm thinking it is at least 10-15 years in the future. That's a fair amount of time to develop the relevant technologies and drive down costs.

Finally, I wanted to say that these ideas I am presenting are offered as ways to try to mitigate harm, and derive some actual lasting benefit from the taxing and spending that seem almost inevitable now. If you're a libertarian, you can 1) withdraw from the world, 2) do what you can to mitigate the harm caused by the current system, or 3) try to change the system to something it properly ought to be. I spent a lot of time in previous decades trying to head-butt the brick wall of #3, and that is still the right thing to do, in many cases, as the wall sometimes crumbles, or at least fractures. But more often these days, I go back and forth between approach 2 and approach 3, as circumstances provide relevant opportunities.

That is to say, if we can't keep the Statists from confiscating the wealth, we can at least do what's possible to minimize their squandering of it, that we might accrue the benefits of true investment. It's a very melancholy capitulation to the world-as-it-is, but unless you can show me Galt's Gulch, there don't seem to be too many other options. In that spirit, I entertain the solar scenario I have described here.

[economist]

"Coal's 'free garbage dump' subsidies reduce its cost by at least a factor of three, and without them, it is more expensive than wind+pumped storage."

Not saying you're wrong (don't jump down my throat-I'm one of the AGW moderates here), but could you please provide a link or citation?

[economist]

"do what you can to mitigate the harm caused by the current system"

I'd really love to take this approach, but the powers-that-be aren't even inclined to use lubricant during the ass-rape.

[economist]

And Kevin Carson-citations!

[Kevin Carson]

economist: The comparative labor time required for home gardening plus canning, versus earning the wages to buy from the grocer, comes from Ralph Borsodi's experiments along those lines. He found that with all costs internalized (including amortization on the kitchen range, electricity costs, the labor involved priced at an average wage, canning supplies, etc.), the home produce cost about a third less overall than the store-bought equivalent. His argument was that while mass-production industry was considerably more efficient than home production in terms of its internal unit production costs alone, that wasn't enough to offset the enormously increased costs of distribution and marketing. The internal production costs of home manufacture were final costs, because the product was consumed on-site. See Flight From the City, and The Distribution Age.

Jeavons' bio-intensive methods are described here:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/04/13/HO126062.DTL

You might also check out this, which Bailey continues to refuse to address (not nearly as fun as phoning it in with more regurgitated agribusiness talking points): http://www.ns.umich.edu/htdocs/releases/story.php?id=5936

[Kevin Carson]

Economist: Re the issue of subsidies to roads, trucks are specifically subsidized because--while heavy rigs are the primary source of roadbed damage--they pay only about half the fuel tax that goes to the Interstate.

As for congestion pricing of urban freeway access for cars, tollgates would be a much more efficient method of tying price to marginal cost.

The way it works now, the genius traffic engineers and urban planners (acting as useful idiots for the real estate developers and the rest of the growth mafia that controls local government) propose a new highway bypass to "relieve congestion" on the old highway bypass. Never mind that the old bypass was created to "relieve congestion," and the main reason it's congested now is that it immediately filled up with NEW traffic generated by all the strop malls and housing additions that sprang up at every single cloverleaf of the subsidized highway. And never mind that the new bypass will itself just generate new traffic.