Comments on: Holiday on Ice: What North Carolina and Indiana tell us about future oil and climate policy

By: loiz

loiz — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 21:23:50 +0000

Actually the carbon tax a`la Hansen is payed at the mining pit or import hub, and gets 100% redistributed flat to taxpayers as a fixed number, so the costs of implementing are trivial. This “tax” translates to a flat dividend.

By: karmath

karmath — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 04:33:19 +0000

The governments action towards the Nuclear Waste Fund is really poor and unforgivable.

By: karmath

karmath — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 04:31:35 +0000

Klaus points are nice and good. What the government has done with the Nuclear Waste Fund is really poor and unforgivable.

By: David Walters

David Walters — Sat, 10 May 2008 07:58:23 +0000

I haven’t made up my mind on the carbon tax. I generally agree that *repressive* taxes should be opposed. On the otherhand, taxing the profits of the oil companies…that could be different since it’s after the balance is due, so to speak and doesn’t effect the consumer.

I want to take up this issue of “no technilogical bullet” thing. Of course there is…

In no particular order, assuming the US, specifcally (but applicable world wide) had an actual *plan*, then the already proven, developed-in-the-1950s, LFTR would in fact be such a bullet. Why would it not be?

If the US had a real conservation plan; put the money it has now fighting for fossil fuels in Iraq into a Manhatten-style electrical storage system that can cheaply (relatively speaking) get over 200 miles to a single charge for an electric vehicle, then we cold go 100% atomic power.

The LFTR is *cheaper* to build than a regular LWR nuclear plant, the fuel is 4 times as plentiful, it producing only 1% of the waste of the above, it’s exlosion proof. We wouldn’t even need the carbon tax. We could eventually get to the point here we stop building ICE land transportation powered by fossil fuel and even ban their production down the road.

None of the candidates think this long term. None of them seem to have the imagination to raise this seriously. From atomic fission into your car in one swoop.

David

By: hapa

hapa — Thu, 08 May 2008 01:08:51 +0000

never seen a serious carbon tax proposal that doesn’t offset other taxes on ordinary people — sales tax, payroll tax, etc — or kick back a flat “normal use” refund — so the price only hits professional polluters.

By: Abgrund

Abgrund — Thu, 08 May 2008 00:00:36 +0000

The gas tax is basically the same as a carbon tax would be. It does very little to reduce consumption, it just bleeds the consumer and the money doesn’t go into offsetting the pollution or developing or providing better substitutes. If you want to change people’s behavior, you have to tax those who actually have choices.

Funny how the so-called “liberals” always support regressive, smash-the-working-man taxes. How about taxing the profits of the oil companies, instead?

By: Kirk Sorensen

Kirk Sorensen — Wed, 07 May 2008 22:07:53 +0000

Klaus raises good points. What the government has done with the Nuclear Waste Fund is really pitiful and inexcusable.

By: Klaus A

Klaus A — Wed, 07 May 2008 21:30:54 +0000

I am against a carbon TAX for a very simple reason. A tax is ultimately paid for by the rate payer. Basically everybody. It does not reduce CO2 if we continue to use coal and not replace coal plants. It just funnels money to the most inefficient entity known, the government, to dissapear there in political pork projects and “administration”. Therefore it does NOT increase available capital for alternate energy sources or lower their cost. Really the only function is to make everybody poorer.
IF the carbon levy were to be paid instead into a fund that finances research, development and building of effective alternate energy sources like the LFTR, then I would be all for it. But it has to be assured that politicians do not get their hands on it. As an example for an industry levy where they did, look at what happend to the fund paid for nuclear waste disposal.

By: Charles Barton

Charles Barton — Wed, 07 May 2008 21:09:41 +0000

Brad, India is largely surrounded by two nuclear powers, and Pakistan is very aggressive. The Indians are caught between a rock and a hard place because their military interests are served by nuclear weapons, and the Uranium suppliers want them to forgo nuclear weapons.

Kirk is right the the Indians are currently running reactors with different nuclear fuels, Including thorium cycle based fuel.

By: Brad Venner

Brad Venner — Wed, 07 May 2008 19:47:28 +0000

From American Scientist, Sept-Oct 2003

http://www.americanscientist.org/ template/ AssetDetail/ assetid/ 25710/ page/ 2

India’s attraction to thorium-based fuels stems, in part, from its large indigenous supply. (With estimated thorium reserves of some 290,000 tons, it ranks second only to Australia.) But that nation’s pursuit of thorium, which helps bring it independence from overseas uranium sources, came about for a reason that has nothing to do with its balance of trade: India uses some of its reactors to make plutonium for atomic bombs. Thus India refuses to be constrained by the provisions that commercial uranium suppliers in countries such as Canada require: They demand that purchasers of their ore allow enough oversight to ensure that the fuel (or the plutonium spawned from it) is not used for nuclear weapons.
India’s attraction to thorium-based fuels stems, in part, from its large indigenous supply. (With estimated thorium reserves of some 290,000 tons, it ranks second only to Australia.) But that nation’s pursuit of thorium, which helps bring it independence from overseas uranium sources, came about for a reason that has nothing to do with its balance of trade: India uses some of its reactors to make plutonium for atomic bombs. Thus India refuses to be constrained by the provisions that commercial uranium suppliers in countries such as Canada require: They demand that purchasers of their ore allow enough oversight to ensure that the fuel (or the plutonium spawned from it) is not used for nuclear weapons.