GUEST OPINION: Slowing global warming

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

By Burke Baker PhD

There is a debate currently going on in Congress as to what is the best way to slow globalwarming. The debate is between a direct tax on the consumption of fossil fuels versus carbon cap and trade.

It appears that Congress is getting close to selecting carbon cap and trade, which may be politically more palatable, but a direct tax on the consumption of fossil fuels would be far more effective.

A direct tax on the consumption of fossil fuels is pretty self-explanatory -a tax on the consumption of gasoline, fueloil, coal, etc.

With cap and trade, the overall total amount of some emission, CO2 in the case of carbon cap and trade, that can be emitted, i.e., the cap, is set. Then each entity burning fossil fuels, such as a power plant, is given permits to emit a certain amount. One entity is then allowed to trade, i.e., sell, its permits to another entity who wants to exceed its own permits.

The proponents of carbon cap and trade often refer to the success of the sulfur cap and trade policies instituted a few years ago. Sulfur cap and trade worked because there was existing technology to remove SO2 from the burning of fossil fuels, known as SO2 scrubbers. For example, Power Plant X could get their costs defrayed for buying SO2 scrubbers to reduce their SO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels by selling the right to emit their allowed amount of SO2 to Power Plant Y, who wanted to burn fossil fuels without using that technology. So there was a net reduction in the total SO2 emissions even though the same total amount of fossil fuel was burned.

Unfortunately, there is no existing technology and infrastructure to remove, transport, and store the CO2 produced in the burning of fossil fuels. So as long as the same total amount of fossil fuel is burned, the same amount of CO2 is emitted. Power Plant X is not likely to want to proceed with a program to development new technology even if it were able to get its costs defrayed by Power Plant Y for doing so. Considerations of timing, skills, and chance of success would all argue against that idea.

The key technological point for any cap and trade policy is that it only works to encourage the use of existing technologies, not to develop new ones.
Carbon cap and trade might encourage the use of existing alternatives to burning fossil fuels by the big energy generators, but the existing alternatives for large scale energy generation are currently very limited, essentially only conventional nuclear reactors and to a much more limited degree, wind and solar. Carbon cap and trade might encourage the use of existing conservation technologies such as more extensive waste heat recovery, by the big energy users directly subject to the policy, but it would only be indirectly effective in promoting the use of the conservation technologies currently available to small businesses and individual users, as they would not be directly subject to the policy.

A direct tax on the other hand, would translate more transparently into the price everyone pays and thus is a better way to also encourage the use of the many existing conservation technologies available to small businesses and the millions of individual users, such as more efficient cars and appliances and more efficient businesses and residential heating and cooling systems.

Such across the board conservation would slow down the rate of burning of fossil fuels perhaps enough to permit the development of new alternative energy technology through projects funded by the direct tax in time to avoid burning the world’s remaining fossil fuels.

Finally, it should be mentioned that the direct tax would also provide funds for projects intended to develop the technology and infrastructure needed to remove, transport, and store the CO2 produced during the burning of fossil fuels. The concept, at least, is inherently attractive because it would permit fossil fuels to continue to be burned, but without the emission of CO2.

Such projects have been frequently proposed of late and are certainly deserving of examination.

However, the enormous amount of CO2 produced when fossil fuels are burned presents a number of huge obstacles to this approach, making it unlikely to ever be of much total significance in slowing global warming. JHW

Dr. Baker is a Chemical Engineer in Jackson Hole.

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GUEST OPINION: Slowing global warming | Planet JH News Article: General Environment

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