When the only tool you have is a hammer, the whole world looks like a nail. In other words, there is no problem that a bureaucrat can't solve, if only we would let them pass another regressive tax. That may well be the sum total of the creative thinking that has gone into the Obama
Cap-and-Trade plan. The Obama Administration proposes that companies buy a permit for each ton of carbon emitted, at an estimated cost, to start of $13 to $20 per ton. The permits could then be bought and sold. The theory behind this convoluted scheme is that it will somehow miraculously increase energy efficiency and renewable energy development.
Rather than focus on available technological solutions, let's burden hard working American consumers with another ill-conceived regressive tax! Who…
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Only one industrial country in the world has significantly reduced its carbon footprint, and that country is France. France, the sixth largest economy in the world, ranks 15th in
carbon dioxide emissions, behind pre-industrial economies like Iran and Indonesia. France has simultaneously, reduced its dependence on foreign sources of fossil fuels, coal, natural gas and oil. While we dither with small-scale experimental intermittent technologies like
solar and
wind in the United States, France has gone nuclear and clean. In 2008
wind and solar accounted for 1.1% of US energy needs and even if we meet President Obama's objective of doubling the amount by 2012, its contribution will still be inconsequential. In the best-case scenario for wind and solar, they might together generate 20%-25% of our clean…
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Coal, which is by far the dirtiest fossil fuel, generates half of the electricity in the United States and 82% of the carbon dioxide emissions created by power production. Since it is abundant and cheap, it is likely to continue to play a major role in electricity generation for the foreseeable future. In the rhetoric of its champions, The United States is the Saudi Arabia of coal. Despite the introduction of
wind,
solar and other clean technologies, the
Department of Energy in its Annual Energy Outlook 2008 projects a small, 0.03% annual increase, in coal utilization through 2015. Surprisingly, maybe shockingly, they expect that growth rate to accelerate to 1% from 2015 to 2030 unless there are restrictions on carbon dioxide emissions or new clean technology…
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