The economics of saving the world | 136 comments (136 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: The economics of saving the world (none / 1)

Indeed, that particular point was an incorrect rebuttal. However, it would mean producing vastly more electricity than we do now. So I'm back to asking for a realistic scenario that manages to have emissions just collapse within 10 years while producing so much more.

I am also puzzled by their point 5. If energy is pricier, which makes an intermediate good pricier when the producer passes on all of the price increase, he is not worse off per unit. So the impact of the price increase should exactly be the increase per energy unit times the number of energy units consumed. I don't see that Krugman makes a mistake there.

It must be pointed out that CO2 can also be emitted as part of the process itself, not energy consumption. So zero-carbon electricity would still require taking CO2 off the atmosphere to compensate for that.

Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed. Gandhi

by Cyrille (cyrillev domain yahoo.fr) on Thu Sep 25th, 2014 at 02:42:44 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: The economics of saving the world (none / 1)

The point 5 means that the costs will be higher in terms of sheer labour, time. In other words, you will need to work not days, weeks but months to earn a holiday trip, an iPad.

by das monde on Thu Sep 25th, 2014 at 03:12:51 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: The economics of saving the world (none / 1)

Er, no. The point 5 stated that price increases derived from higher energy prices would be much greater than the price increases of energy consumption.

I say that this is wrong and probably a misunderstanding of how the price of inputs impacts price levels in an economy.

Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed. Gandhi

by Cyrille (cyrillev domain yahoo.fr) on Fri Sep 26th, 2014 at 02:24:07 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: The economics of saving the world (none / 0)

price increases derived from higher energy prices would be much greater than the price increases of energy consumption

Where does it say THAT? I read only "When energy prices rise, that impacts all we do." We will all improve misunderstanding of input price impacts.

By the way, that same Archdruid is surely following this Krugman debate:

Heinberg was too gentlemanly to point out that the authorities Krugman cites aren't exactly known for their predictive accuracy

by das monde on Fri Sep 26th, 2014 at 03:56:19 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: The economics of saving the world (4.00 / 3)

Their points claims that Krugman greatly underestimated the price increase impact of a tax on CO2, when he did no such thing.

The studies he quotes may be wrong, but if there are externalities gains that are greater than tax * consumption, then the net result is a gain. That the price impact would be spread over everything we use rather than a single item makes no difference to its macroeconomic value. I think they are doing double counting without realising it.

Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed. Gandhi

by Cyrille (cyrillev domain yahoo.fr) on Fri Sep 26th, 2014 at 12:59:39 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: The economics of saving the world (none / 0)

If wind turbines and solar panels are sufficiently well made to outlast the time it takes for their output to repay the cost of construction then they serve to cap the cost of energy, as they have no fuel cost, only a maintenance cost. This would be even more impactful were they to be built with zero or near zero interest rate as government policy. With zero interest rate financing there might well be a positive EROEI after ten years. From a financial point of view they would be huge generators of free cash after they had repaid the cost of fabrication and installation.

Then part of that surplus could be used, conceptually, to invest in carbon negative processes, but it also would make the country possessing such infrastructure very competitive against countries still using 'cheap' fossil carbon energy - totally aside from considerations about contributions to saving the ecosystem. After the EU, the UK or the USA had built out their own energy infrastructure sufficiently the same production lines could continue to be used to provide the same equipment to countries unable to build such equipment - both energy generating and carbon sequestering processes. Continue until the possibility of a new ice age appears.

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Sun Sep 28th, 2014 at 11:08:01 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: The economics of saving the world (none / 0)

das monde:

In other words, you will need to work not days, weeks but months to earn a holiday trip, an iPad.

If the Ipad lasted 30 years (Veblenically!) would that necessarily be a Bad Thing?

If the holiday trip to far-flung destinations reunited you with distant family or provided an experience so profound or galvanising you would treasure it for life, partly because it wasn't crawling with ignorant boors there drunkenly despoiling the environment...

Make people value things more, or else the ecocide will continue gathering pace. That's the lesson I get from resource depletion.

In the same vein, building nukes so we can continue a throwaway lifestyle is like embracing the devil and the deep blue sea. (With its plastic pollution, algae runoff, jellyfish swarms, fish graveyards and Fukushima/BP 'events').

:(:(:(

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty

by melo (melometa4(at)gmail.com) on Sat Sep 27th, 2014 at 01:52:23 AM EST
[ Parent ]

The economics of saving the world | 136 comments (136 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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