The Real Cost of Cap-and-Trade

Bernie Madoff would love this scheme!

trade and cap ,another crook of lies. in europe is has not worked ,take a look at all the studies by their own scientists. global warming is not fact ,just a numbers game .mr. gore so far has made over 100 million on this scam . oh, and wall street can't wait for this ,they see even more money to be made . the only ones who will pay ,will be the consumer .

There is always someone, most likely politicians and their friends, waiting to make money from legislation. This will be the same old crap dumped on taxpayers from our "trusted" leaders.

Just trying to wrap my arms around the whole cap&trade concept. Carbon based fuel is cheaper than other, less environmentally harmful sources of energy like wind & solar. That's because the carbon based energy technology is either more basic or already developed. So we cap the amount of carbon emissions each company can use, but they can buy some other company's unused allotment of carbon emissions, probably on a commodities exchange. This increases the cost of carbon based fuel, hopefully so that less developed technologies will be cost competitive to the point that companies start switching over. As they start switching there will be less demand for oil so the price will start going back down. Somewhere in there will be a point of equilibrium where it doesn't benefit a company to abondon oil for other energy. Technology development will then slow back down and we could get stuck in a very slow moving process.

The other alternative, that appeals to me, is for the government to put money directly into R&D to develop the technology that is lacking; more along the lines of NASA and military R&D. That way you'll give alternate energy the technology it needs to compete directly, on the open market, with oil and gas. Give it the means it needs to compete directly instead of giving it a crutch, so it can limp faster, and making oil and gas carry heavy weights to slow them down.

They won't stop using it even with higher costs if there are no readily available and affordable alternatives. Where are they? "Clean coal? Nuclear? Businesses being allowed to redefine what "renewable" even is? Duke Energy is said to be behind this bill to a great extent, ergo the pathetic emissions caps called for in it and free pollution credits. Personally, I don't think it matters what this government mandates, corporations will shake their heads yes to their faces and then work behind the scenes to do anything to not have to in any way effect their own profits even if it means fudging numbers regarding cap and trade. There will be rampant abuse of this system regarding reporting of carbon used, so what agency will actually monitor this? This government in this bill should be directly subsidizing NEW entrepreneurship in the real renewable energy sector to work to bring it down in price and make it available now instead of supporting "clean coal" and other corporate schemes.

http://www.carbontax.org/

The statement that Neocongo is making is that a proper functioning market requires a true costing of the products within that market. Hence, power should cost more. Note, I'm not sure how any "bla bla bla CAPITALISM bla bla bla" type individual can dispute this.

Passing on the cost of cleaner energy to the American consumer is the only way to remove the cost of dirty energy to the environment. And with higher energy costs, maybe Americans might start thinking collectively about using less.

I agree with an article that states " This cap-and-trade bill — actually called the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, or the Waxman-Markey bill — would mandate severe reductions in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. Since emissions are mostly generated by energy use (heating your home, cooling your groceries, driving to work, etc.), these targets would effectively mandate energy rationing. Since these targets are not based on economic or technological realities, there can only be one outcome: much higher energy prices.

Severe limitations on emissions could easily turn well-intentioned policy into an opportunity for shady moneymaking schemes at the expense of the environment and American households just like in Europe."

Plus when has anything that govt mandated gone down in price. That's reserved for the private sector.

@EarthDayBDay on twitter says "MikeAmundsen: FactCheck.org : "Republicans puff up the impact of a cap-and-trade program on the average family's.."

Damn slarabee, most thinking people identify liberalism with what you are saying. I don't know how long the kool aid drinkers are going to blame Bush for everything but to do so is just partisan bs. No wonder the country is so divided. It's the liberals.
The one thing I have learned is that EVERY estimate of expenses is deflated and EVERY estimate of revenues is inflated. Regardless of whose numbers one believes I would be very surprised if the actual costs were anywhere near the high or low. Frankly I think the actuals will come out higher than the worst case scenario but to dismiss them because they come from Heritage is to throw out the baby with the bathwater and cast doubt on the intelletual capability and honesty of those who do.
The fact remains that cap and trade WILL result in a tax, regardless of size, on the end user (us) and is completely unnecessary. The government will impose a tax on the upstream and this will trickle down to the end user. If this tax is merely 5%, think of everything we buy that may be subject to this and add 5%. There is virtually nothing that is produced without the use of energy.
This, like everything else this lying administration is doing, is about government control, pure and simple. Wake up and think.

There are costs to cap and trade and a carbon tax. Unfortunately, members of Congress of BOTH parties would rather work on appeasing corporations rather than working on a plan to bring grid parity to solar energy. But hey, just keep making this a partisan political issue because you just love bitching about the other side. There are people with no political affiliation who do see flaws with cap and trade that are valid, as well as a carbon tax. I myself believe it is much more necessary at this point to put a price on carbon through a tax considering that we don't have much time to get our ppm down. However, I at least can see that there are flaws with it as well as cap and trade. Ashame that the political partisans can do nothing regarding an issue but base it on us and them. No wonder even with the world melting around us we still can't get the guts to stand up and do what is right beyond the political pretentious children who have to fight each other everyday to out do one another. Cap and trade is neither Democratic nor Republican, and there are limis to what it will do especially when you consider how flawed and weak the rest of the climate bill is. But I don't expect to see anyone here discussing that.

I read an interesting article. It states that this cap and trade policy will reduce the amount any real science driven high technology based energy, such as nuclear, try and replace it with some of the lowest dense energy we have today ie. wind and solar. Anyway, it is to large to just copy and paste so I'll post the link. I think these greeneis should really look into nuclear as the futures energy source.

http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2009/3618cap_trade.html

And the republican spin machine keeps trying to delay progress. What Obama is pushing for is historic, not once has a cap and trade system on this scale been given the light of day in this nation. We can't let the republicans weaken this with falesehoods and lies.