Does Cap & Trade Doom our World?

Jim Hansen, the director of of NASA’s Goddard Flight Center in Maryland is one of the country’s primary researchers on the causes of climate change. His work is grounded in science, and he’s very worried about carbon levels and their effect on global weather and water. He wrote an article posted on the Huffington Post today that caught my attention. One of the primary issues with the climate change debate has been the scientific underpinnings. There is considerable disagreement over cause and effect, but I for one am always willing to listen to a logical argument. Mr. Hansen’s topic this morning was the absolute worthlessness of the Waxman-Markey Cap & Trade bill. I agree. He points out several inconvenient truths about the bill, including:

. It guts the Clean Air Act, removing the EPA’s ability to regulate CO2 emissions from power plants
. It sets meager targets – 13% less CO2 emissions in 2020
. It sabotages carbon reduction by providing fictitious offsets by which others are paid to preserve forests, while logging and deforestation will simply be moved elsewhere.
. It has no provisions for preventing insider trading by participants.
. It provides no pricing structure for carbon, which allows no foundation for an understanding of the mechanisms for carbon reduction and cost/benefit analysis
. It is “astoundingly inefficient”

What has been passed is clearly a profiteer’s paradise with literally no benefit to the environment. Mr. Hansen then goes on to discuss setting a specific carbon fee which would be the equivalent of perhaps $1.00/gallon of gasoline. He discusses greater efficiency in the devices consuming energy. He then discusses  a dividend for carbon reduction. I can agree with much of this as well.

I strongly agree that we must  become much more efficient in our consumption of the world’s resources. Whether it is fisheries or minerals or forests, we now live in a time where we know for certain the earth’s resources have hard limits. We must dig and drill deeper to find minerals and materiel, and we are overfishing our oceans.  We are throwing away as much as we consume. These are facts, not politics. As a matter of common sense and at the very least, we must ensure that the lungs of our planet, the forests and phytoplankton and bacterioplankton, are preserved in order that life on the planet may continue.

As the global population increases or even if it stabilizes, the demand for resources simply because of the transition of so many economies into higher technology and better living conditions cannot be accommodated for much longer unless we become more efficient. Look at computer technology. The cost drops exponentially as we implement better and lower cost manufacturing methods and materials. But even there, many of the environmental dictates make little sense because they were driven not by hard data, but by bureaucracy and politics similar to Cap & Trade.

Let me use an example. In the 1960’s and early 70’s certain chlorinated solvents were used in the manufacture of electronics as cleaners and developing solutions. They were highly efficient, safe and could be recycled, but there was a concern because of atmospheric damage. These materials were slowly phased out under the Montreal Protocols. The replacement was first milder solvents, and then water based solvents, and with each changeover, the chemical efficiency was reduced substantially. Instead of releasing chlorinated hydrocarbons into the atmosphere, greater and greater quantities of energy and water as well as other materials which have their own deleterious effect on the environment, were used. The characteristics of those original solvents are well known. They are the most efficient and lowest cost technologies in this case. Would it not be better to make the original process much more efficient and improve recycling? At a 10X efficiency improvement? 20X? Sometimes innovation can be both more cost effective and better for the environment. We need to do better.

Cap & Trade will, along with the growing energy demands of our world, put a huge strain on power generation. The use of coal has gone from 1485 million tons in 1965 to 2929 million tons in 2005 (source: BP). Cap & Trade can only eventually force the closure of the most inefficient plants in a logical world. However, the world is not logical. The developing world overwhelmingly uses coal and is not about to stop any time soon. The two largest users, China and India, refuse to have anything to do with Cap & Trade. So where does that leave us? That is the crux of the issue. Even under aggressive timetables carbon dioxide reduction goals will not be met under this legislation. But someone’s going to get rich, which I am sure was the intention all along. You see, the oligarchs in Washington and on Wall Street really don’t care as long as they get theirs. The planet may die but they will be seated in the First Class lounge of the Titanic.

The shift to alternative energies will place a massive demand increase on the electrical power grid. For the long term, this is the only solution. The increase in demand by electrical devices alone will ensure this, and if personal transportation goes electric, the demand and strain on infrastructure will increase exponentially. We need more efficient energy and we need it fast. Nuclear is the only real option long term for the world’s infrastructure. It is also the cheapest technology. Nuclear can also generate hydrogen cheaply as an alternative to oil from a virtually limitless supply of water, and hydrogen burns clean. And yet little has been done to accelerate implementation of the technology. It is clearly the the best solution, and with accelerated work on safer, more efficient new technologies we can meet the need to reduce carbon missions and increase the overall available power to the requirements necessary to build a better world. But in Washington, Bonn, Rome, London, and Moscow, there is only silence.

When I see an old airplane taking to the skies I stand in awe of the men who built it. It’s durable, and like they say, they just don’t build them like that anymore. But planned obsolescence is part and parcel of commerce today. The environmentalists talk about recycling and green materials, but the reality is that in most cases this construction simply reduces the durability of the product and we throw it away more quickly. Look at a Weber barbecue built 10 years ago and one built today. The more recent vintage will almost certainly end up at the dump much sooner. Better product quality and lifetime is another area for improvement.

Politics is driven by knee jerk response in many cases. Mass propaganda machines whether in commerce or politics stand ready to sell a product or candidate and the facts and relative merits are immaterial. Many campaigns have become Orwellian in their deception. Cap & Trade is one of these. The Chinese and Indians understand this and will have no part of it. If Mr. Hansen’s numbers are correct, we may all die as a result. The G 8 meeting this week only stands the United States up to ridicule for our sophistry.

President Bush began the process of rebuilding and adding to our nuclear infrastructure. It takes 10 years to complete a plant, and there are only a few in the early stages. In most cases ground has not yet been broken or permits obtained. It will be years before we see a single watt of clean cheap power. In the meantime, under the new administration, nuclear power has fallen out of favor. Nary a word has been said.At a time when there is urgency for a number of reasons, our Congress is enacting legislation that is both venal and ineffective. The same hucksters responsible for the mess on Wall Street have another opportunity to cash in.

We have a defining moment ahead of us. Do we use common sense, hard work and ingenuity to find the solutions or do we leave it to the sophists and market speculators? We need a new Manhattan Project. We need a sense of urgency that we can gather around as a country. We are in the midst of the worst recession in decades and Congress is pissing away trillions of dollars on vapor and pork. A clean efficient energy infrastructure and common sense invention will benefit the planet and our economy, leaving a better world for future generations.