The Economic Benefits of Climate Legislation 21 comments
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By Michael Kanellos
A study conducted by the University of California, Yale and the University of Illinois coming Monday argues that both Ohio and Pennsylvania will experience both economic growth and job creation if the U.S. passes climate legislation.
The study could bear reading. Ohio and Pennsylvania are both heavily dependent on coal for their electrical power--electric cars in those states at the moment probably result in as many greenhouse gases as regular cars because of power plant emissions. Coal also provides a number of jobs in the Rust Belt. On the other hand, unemployment remains a huge problem and politicians like Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell have argued for years that the region can be revitalized by retrofitting factories to make wind turbines or energy efficient building materials. Serious Materials re-commissioned a closed factory in the state earlier this year.
Look what is happening in Michigan and Ontario, after all. If Ohio and Pennsylvania become supporters of climate legislation, the bipartisan dominoes begin to fall.
The study, though, is just that: a study, which invariably is subject to bias and criticism. Still, should be interesting.
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This article has 21 comments:
"In these areas [the Rust Belt], voters are going to be more willing to subsidize or underwrite legislation to attract new business. Solar and wind manufacturers will seek out these tax breaks and as time goes on they will get more generous. How generous can these programs get? When Taiwan wanted to build a chip industry, it created a tax credit structure so generous that for years behemoths like TSMC made more money after taxes in a profitable year than before because of accumulated credits. North Americans have been reluctant to go as far with their tax breaks as some foreign governments, but if the economy doesn't crumble, Midwest state governments will up the ante."
That's the scary bit. Perhaps North Americans have been reluctant to go as far with tax breaks as have places by Taiwan, but investment incentives have been used with abandon by many Midwest and southern states over the last two decades. For a good review of the trend, see Greg LeRoy's, "The Great American Jobs Scam" (greatamericanjobsscam.com), and Kenny Thomas's, "Investment Incentives: Growing use, uncertain benefits, uneven controls" (globalsubsidies.org/en...) Canadian provinces, by contrast, are at least part of a "no-piracy" pact -- i.e., they have agreed not to poach companies from one another with investment incentives
With all the extra money from the stimulus packages chasing new investments in cleaner energy, competition to attract investment is becoming fierce. As the people at Good Jobs First point out, the main winners in the competition among governments to offer larger and larger investment incentives are the companies that are the beneficiaries of these incentives.
It is certainly logical that a retooled Midwest would have a lot to offer new renewable-energy technologies, thanks to their central locations, skilled workers, and excellent transport connections. But the bargaining power over manufacturing location belongs to the companies, and until state governments agree collectively to restrain themselves in bidding against each other to attract big investors, there remains a big risk that the net benefits to the taxpayers of those states, and to the nation as a whole, will be significantly diminished.
Dave is correct about EV's though going deeper, ICE's only get 7% of their fuel's energy to the road because they rarely work at their eff running points wasting mucvh energy coasting, idling.
EV's get 20-60% of theirs depending on power source. From Coal 20%, from NG cogen, 30% and from wind, solar, river/tidal, 60% eff.
In fact my EV goes 65MPH on the energy needed to idle a ICE gives you an example. This is why EV's are our future.
RE is mostly labor and equipment making far more jobs the fossil fuels and is in real mas production, lower cost.
Just the rivers with kinetic hydro could replace all Ohio, Penn at 50% lower coal plants while making 2x's the jobs at about 50% lower cost. Not to mention wind, biomass, solar CSP for more jobs.
Both Ohio and Penn are toxic from coal and their air pollution even makes it down here to Fla poisoning us and everywhere in between.
Facts are we just need to put all coal's cost in it which a recent study puts at $63B/yr in pollution, health costs including 1,000's of deaths.
Just the mercury poisoning costs me personally $50-100/month in food costs as I can't eat the local fish more than 1/wk because of coal mercury poisoning. So by putting the full cost in coal instead of subsidizing it is a win, win, win not even including CO2 costs.
The electric car is charged up with the residual remaining available 10% of the electricity originally produced.
You need to reduce your elec efficiency numbers by some 90%.
Also I refer you to the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics that states there are NO perfect 100% efficient processes. That is why perpetual motion machines are impossible, Every step in the production chain has its losses, the fewer steps,the fewr losses.
combustion,centralized distribution, then battery charging, then driving the NET cost represents the true efficiency of the system, not the gross numbers of a mere sliver of the system repesented by your numbers.
PS there is no man made global warming. merely luddite lunacy and a con game to come up with new bxllshxt ways to tax us and make money out of fear, uncertainty, and doubt. FUD strikes again.
On Oct 24 08:49 AM Dave Marsh wrote:
> "electric cars in those states at the moment probably result in as
> many greenhouse gases as regular cars because of power plant emissions.
> " This is an incorrect statement, and surprising, coming from an
> entity call "Greentech Media". Electric motors using in EVs have
> a mechanical (thermal) conversion efficiency of greater than 95%,
> vs, combustion engine efficiencies around 25%. This inherent higher
> efficiency means that even powered by 100% fossil fuel power, an
> electric car will result in at least three times less CO2 per car-mile;
> the ratio just gets better and better as the percentage of source
> power from fossil fuel decreases.
SOLAR is the answer. Every 30 days the Sun radiates more free energy onto the earth than mankind has used throughout his history on this planet.
Every 30 days, Solar is basically limitless,clean,and reliable energy. All we have to do is harness it -as we are learning to do.
PPS Screw all the politicians they are luddites catering to the bread and circuses crowd,
On Oct 24 08:49 AM Dave Marsh wrote:
> "electric cars in those states at the moment probably result in as
> many greenhouse gases as regular cars because of power plant emissions.
> " This is an incorrect statement, and surprising, coming from an
> entity call "Greentech Media". Electric motors using in EVs have
> a mechanical (thermal) conversion efficiency of greater than 95%,
> vs, combustion engine efficiencies around 25%. This inherent higher
> efficiency means that even powered by 100% fossil fuel power, an
> electric car will result in at least three times less CO2 per car-mile;
> the ratio just gets better and better as the percentage of source
> power from fossil fuel decreases.
The energy used to extract oil is increasing rapidly as the easy-to-extract oil is declining rapidly. Building a 10 billion dollar oil rig to extract deep water oil uses a lot of energy in refining the steel, manufacturing, operation, etc. Then there's Canadian oil sands - ouch. As much as $50 of natural gas is burned for every barrel of oil extracted.
Going forward, the CO2 advantage of EVs will keep increasing as alternative energy sources increase, especially solar. PV solar is starting to “turn the corner” to become an economical source of energy. Prices have been dropping rapidly. So, by the time EVs become readily available (in about 5 years), solar will be much more economical. Solar and EVs go together like chocolate and peanut butter. I see newly retired baby boomers installing solar panels and buying plug-in vehicles. This will keep their monthly cost of living (from low electric and gasoline bills) to a minimum to match their new lower income. Retired people may use their car battery to level power from their solar panels so they don’t have to pay for electricity in the evening. Synergy is often overlooked when people try to forecast the future.
If gifting BILLIONS to experimental companies to produce a handful of jobs, while raising taxes and increasing regulation on everyone else - resulting in business closing/leaving in droves - is the success you speak of, then yes, success.
We have NO jobs. We have HIGH & growing taxes. We have incompetent leadership and parasitic unions, and somehow this is a win? I know of TWO "green" companies that came in, received hundreds of thousands in "help" and within the year were gone. One was a scam, who knows about the other.
Once the fed money goes away, and eventually it has to, we have NOTHING. After the legislature finishes raising taxes on the remaining businesses, we will have even less than that.
This "success" is an utter failure and I am completely confident that this "success" will be found across the country if this disaster is forced upon us.
AND, if the legislation was truly so "great" for job creation, mind telling me why it contains the funding for up to 2 years extended unemployment for the estimated 5-6 million jobs that will be destroyed by the increased taxes and costs on businesses that are attempting to compete with the third world?
Michigan has destroyed hundreds of thousands of jobs, now the handful created at a cost of thousands of dollars per job is considered a success. I guess that is what the green liars are crowing about.
Carter created the Department of Energy more than 30 years ago.
It was supposed propel us forward but became a monstrous decider of what could and could not be permitted. How's that working for us?
So long as we've got the politicians and big businesses lobbying for their favorite energy plans, guided by the likes of Obama, McCain, Gore, Pickens, we will get nowhere. It is obvious to me that "the plan" is the problem. We don't need an organized plan. We need innovation and free market principles.
by providing legislation so that ohio and pennsylvania could benefit from climate change bill (called CAP AND TRADE), you forgot about what the action would od to the rest of the country.
Did you ever read the CAP AND TRADE BILL? It's invasive, heavily taxed and will not allow people to sell their homes without paying to make changes.
Let the markets choose the best and most efficient power and we will have more innovation and more jobs every year. Allow government to try to steer energy policy and we will have, well, what we have now.
Halt, stopenzee dar. Show me zee papers ole man.
No papers!!!!.
Shootzen dem and tossen dem in dar ditch.
On Oct 24 09:12 PM NEOCON47 wrote:
> you got to be kidding usa here in america.
>
> by providing legislation so that ohio and pennsylvania could benefit
> from climate change bill (called CAP AND TRADE), you forgot about
> what the action would od to the rest of the country.
>
> Did you ever read the CAP AND TRADE BILL? It's invasive, heavily
> taxed and will not allow people to sell their homes without paying
> to make changes.
The questionable motive (Global Warming) aside, look at the results in Europe of using this concept.
Over the same period in which they have sought to use this idea to cut their carbon footprint, Europe's numbers have actually GROWN compared to the U.S. (just doing our thing using the power of markets and far less government) in the same time span!
Follow the flow of political power, for THAT is the goal that can be achieved with such methods, transferring power from the free individual to the shackled collective.
The "LYIN HAWAIIAN" is intent on selling us into SOCIALISM. his handmaidens the DIMLIBS of the dimocratic party are more then happy to do this.
The plan is to concoct a take over of the free market system by changing the accounting rules (institute MArk to Market) thereby ruining the balance sheets of all financial and insurance companies.
Then ride to the rescue by taking over companies, putting in payczars, drastically increasing government "benefit" programs,
debasing the U.S. dollar to the point where it is so weak the "carry trade" is now using U.S. dollars as itscurrency of choice- inflation is the cruelest tax of all on those who actually have accumultaed assets -
These increased government benefit programs will be paid for thru inflation and taxes by those of us who have accumulated assets, the benefits of these govt programs will go mostly to minorities, and illegal aliens who typically do not have any accumulated assets.
Some might rightly call it REPARATIONS, its time for us to enforce the U.S. Constitution, start visitng,writing and otherwise contacting each and everyone of our elected representatives in Congress and the Senate.- tell them we object to being sold into socialism and we intend to take our country back - the next election is in 2010 - and to the politicians, if you are not with us, then you are agin us, and we will vote you out of office. THEN DO IT before its too late.
PAYCZARS? We don' need no stinkin PAYCZARS.
Governent interference, we don' need no stinkin govt interference
Cap and trade? we don' need no cap and trade.
Free government heatlhcare for illegal aliens and minorities - we don' need no free government healthcare that the rest of us end up paying for
On Oct 24 08:44 PM optionsgirl wrote:
> While you all argue over the merits of various kinds of energy and
> production, it is beside the point:
> Carter created the Department of Energy more than 30 years ago.<br/>It
> was supposed propel us forward but became a monstrous decider of
> what could and could not be permitted. How's that working for us?
>
> So long as we've got the politicians and big businesses lobbying
> for their favorite energy plans, guided by the likes of Obama, McCain,
> Gore, Pickens, we will get nowhere. It is obvious to me that "the
> plan" is the problem. We don't need an organized plan. We need innovation
> and free market principles.
It is the growing disparity between the wealthy and the average person that is the problem with the US’s struggling economy. There have been giant advances in worker productivity in the last 15 years (thanks to computers, Internet, etc.), but that gain has almost all gone to the wealthy.
Economics tells us that the wealth of a country is built by the middle class, not the wealthy. The wealthy waste huge amounts of a country's resources by spending on luxury goods that do not increase a nation's productivity. What economic benefit does a wealthy person's third, fourth, fifth, etc. house bring to an economy. None. It fact it has a negative effect because it uses resources that increase the price of those goods, and it takes valuable real estate away from better uses. Sure, it puts people to work, but that is nothing more than welfare that the conservative cult zombies love to attack as a waste. It is welfare because there is little or no economic/productivity gain after the construction is done.
Leftfield, The solution is a balance between the public and private sector. There is a “sweet spot” with this balance. Right now the private sector is too strong (that’s what created this recent banking crisis). Back when Ronald Reagan (I know you worship this guy) came into office, there was too much public sector.
When the free market breaks down (which it does often), the public sector comes to the rescue. Without a strong public sector many technical advances would not have happened.
One of the great strengths of the US is the strong university system that creates highly skilled people that go into the private sector to invent things. Universities are mostly public funded. Universities also do basic research that is too risky and long term for the private sector (see the private sector break-down). The university system of the US was launched by the GI Bill after WW2. This government program gets top honors for creating the modern US economy (do some research on this one).
Attention! Conservative Cult Zombies everywhere! GET YOUR FACTS STRAIGHT! Stop listening to the OPINIONS and cherry-picked statistics of the conservative cult echo chamber! The conservative cult leadership has no other interest except grabbing power. Russ Limbaugh even admits this. When Obama came into office, he said that he will do everything he can to bring down Obama. Notice the lack of concern about making the US economy stronger or making life better for people.
On Oct 24 07:06 PM Leftfield wrote:
> In my lifetime, minimizing costs through practical, sensible efficiencies
> will always be more than eaten up by the inefficiencies and costs
> of ever-metastasizing monstrous blob that is government. The efficiencies
> from technological advance could have increased prosperity for the
> average American since the 60's. It is a testament to unconscionable,
> endless inefficiencies and costs mandated by intrusive government
> that have warped our society's rewards and values to make life so
> more difficult and dysfunctional that educated adults discuss how
> the government that broke our leg economically can provide some crutch
> of a program for this or that.
On Oct 24 08:49 AM Dave Marsh wrote:
> electric car will result in at least three times less CO2 per car-mile;
Dave,
You need to crack that Thermodynamics text again. An electric car charged by coal has inefficiencies of combustion (assume 33%), transmission line loss (90%), charging losses (95%), electro-mechanical conversion (you claim 95%). You multiply efficiencies in an energy chain giving roughly 27% efficiency for the coal charged electric car. I am just using rough numbers and would gladly defer to anyone who does have a textbook handy. To get the CO2 equivalents you need to count the carbon atoms in a BTU of coal vs. gasoline. Since coal is nearly 100% carbon and thermal efficiencies are in the same ball park I am thinking the coal charged electric car will put more CO2 in the air. This does not even take into account the environmental mess all the batteries are going to create. Listen to T. Boone Pickens and go LP. It is the quickest way to affect CO2 and air quality as an intermediate step. We need at least 30 years to build out a new infrastructure and that will not change no matter how many laws Congress passes.