That's why you put a price on carbon emissions. The free market isn't going to solve it. There's an abundance of clean energy out there (e.g. Ontario sells the U.S. massive amounts of electricity at a loss), the problem is that coal's price doesn't reflect the damage it does to the planet.
Very true, I was thinking of geographical and income differences but now Vs the future is a very good point. I've recently had a kid and there's a decent chance they could live to see 2100 which puts predictions for the century in a whe new context for me. It's simple maths so it shouldn't have taken having a child for that to feel so real but still.
I am not opposed to this, but I am curious how a government would arrive at a "price" of carbon emissions. How is the tax rate decided upon? Is it a political game of just enough to make renewable energy more attractive? Or is it as high as we can make it? It just seems like it would have no basis in reality.
Start low, increase steadily to meet emissions targets.
Canada recently introduced a carbon tax at the federal level (for provinces that did not price carbon themselves), and returns 90% back to those province's taxpayers via tax credits. This makes it a progressive tax; if you lived an emissions-free lifestyle you'd just get free money, if you're around average the rebate would offset the carbon tax, if you're a high consumer you pay more.
>I am not opposed to this, but I am curious how a government would arrive at a "price" of carbon emissions
The conventional approach right now is that you have a limited number of CO2 certificates that give a company the right to pollute. The number of CO2 certificates is reduced every year to meet a defined goal like avoid warming beyond 1.5°C. Companies are handed a certain amount of certificates depending on their size (prone to corruption). If they don't have enough certificates they must buy additional certificates. If they have too many they can sell them for a profit. Supply and demand determine the price.
The problem is that too many certificates are being handed out until now the price in the EU market was in the single digits and shot up to 25€ per ton. Because people are allergic to revenue neutral carbon taxes that are offset by redistributing the tax income the latest approach is to simply set a minimum price for CO2 certificates. People think they understand taxes but they certainly don't understand CO2 certificates. The end result is that there will be very limited redistribution.
> Companies are handed a certain amount of certificates depending on their size (prone to corruption).
Seems like it would make sense to replace the "hand them out based on size" step (I've heard "based on historical emissions" before as well) with "auction them off to the highest bidder".
This isn't revenue neutral, but you could make it so by then simply cutting some tax (personal income tax, most likely) until it is, if that's the goal.
If we want to hit zero emissions, the price should be set such that it exactly covers the cost of removing the CO2 from the atmosphere.
Of course, if it's cheaper to just not emit that CO2 in the first place (capture it or use a different process for whatever they're doing), companies can do that instead.
Yes, room temperature superconductivity would also be a good solution to the problem. If we have the ability to transmit power around the world without huge losses from where it is being produced to where it can be consumed then a lot of the problems go away.
I don't think transmission is a huge issue; plenty of opportunity to generate in situ. e.g. going back to Ontario exporting low-carbon energy, of its sustained generation ~60% is nuclear, 15% wind (largely on-land). There's no reason you couldn't generate both of those in the midwest where coal usage is highest. All that is needed is for coal to cost what it should actually cost.
Ah, I should have checked, I assumed it was mostly hydropower like BC and AB.
However, the problem still exists, you have countries in the middle east which politically will never be allowed civilian nuclear power (only 32 countries out of 170 odd actually have civilian nuclear power) but which could potentially produce huge amounts of Solar power during the day. If only they could then buy power from solar / wind / geothermal stations through the night, or continue producing through the night from energy stored in Molten Salt, Liquid metal batteries, Liquified Air etc.
