To those who have a memory that transcends more than a few weeks, recent events in the auto sector must induce a great feeling of irony.
Back in August of 2008, then-candidate Obama called for 1 million plug-in hybrid vehicles to be on the road by 2015.
To that end, then-candidate Obama called for:
*$4 billion in tax credits to American automakers to retool plants for the production of plug-in hybrid cars capable of 150 miles to the gallon;
*A $7,000 tax credit for consumers who bought early model plug-in vehicles; and
*Candidate Obama vowed that half of all cars purchased by the federal government would be plug-in hybrids or all-electric by 2012.
As both candidate and president, Obama has repeatedly raised plug-in hybrids as a vital technology for greening Detroit.…
Continue ReadingA few weeks ago, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) published a report on carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies for coal-fired power plants.According to CRS, commercialization and widespread deployment of CCS will require “demand pull” regulation, such as Clean Air Act New Source Performance Standards, combined with cap-and-trade or carbon taxes; and it will require support for “technology push” RD&D (research, development, and demonstration) via government grants, tax preferences, and loan guarantees.
CCS will not be deployed on an industrial scale without “demand pull” regulation, because burning coal with CCS will always be more expensive than burning coal without it. Yet “technology push” RD&D to reduce CCS-related cost penalties is also critical. Although CRS does not explicitly say so, it implies that if CCS costs do not decline dramatically, carbon caps or taxes would make coal generation uneconomic.…
Continue ReadingThe National Wildlife Federation released a report last week that began:
Overwhelming scientific evidence supports reducing carbon pollution* that causes global warming as much as possible and as quickly as possible.
Why such a stark verdict? Because…
Global warming is happening faster than predicted even several years ago, with many natural systems already seriously impacted.
This is an odd contention given that we are now in a multi-year period (12 years and counting) period during which time the global warming has been preceding much more slowly than the climate-model mean projections of the expected rate of temperature rise. And, what’s even worse (for the models anyway), is that the rate has now dipped near the lower bound of the 95% confidence range of model projections. If the slowdown continues much longer, it will be a clear indication that something is amiss with the temperature projections—and thus with alarming claims that depend upon them.…
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