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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (346843)	8/15/2007 2:41:30 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1574856

Cost Of Renewable Fantasies I've taken a look at the leaked Whitehall paper that spells out for ministers the likely costs to Britain of accepting the EU's fantasy target for renewable energy. It's part of the dismal Bliar legacy, the part where he spent his last few months jetting off to Europe and agreeing to everything they asked for- the Constitution, the abolition of the UK budget rebate (official cost £1bn, real cost more like £20bn), and this 2020 target for 20% of energy usage to come from renewables. Reading the paper (here) the first thing you realise is that it's even less well baked than the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). We estimated that costs British taxpaying consumers about £1bn pa, largely to the benefit of the big energy companies (see this blog). But this new policy is something else again. To start with, nobody has a clue how it fits with the existing ETS. The paper says: "The renewables target and energy efficiency measures risk making the existing EU ETS redundant, and prices prone to collapse. Given that the ETS is the EU's main existing vehicle for delivering least cost reductions in greenhouse gases, and the basis on which the EU seeks to build a global carbon market, this is a major risk." To impose one half-baked eco cost burden, Mr Barrossa, may be regarded as a misfortune; to impose two looks like sheer blithering incompetence. Especially when the second directly undermines the first. The new approach will also cost much much more than even the ETS. That's because, although ETS was implemented in an extraordinarily cack-handed manner, in essence it harnesses a market mechanism to seek out the cheapest and most efficient ways of reducing emissions, be that renewables or something else. Specifying a fixed quantified target for the proportion of energy use that must come from renewables means the Commissars not only want to set the target for reducing emissions, but also specify how that reduction must be achieved. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, they still reckon they know better than the market how to get stuff done. It is a return to traditional EU Stalinist planning. The paper says: "The costs of increasing renewable energy technology... is around three times higher than allowing flexibility in reduction options through emissions trading."... burningourmoney.blogspot.com adamsmith.org

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (346843)	8/15/2007 3:03:02 PM
From: Road Walker	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 1574856

re: Once there's a nice sub-luxury sedan for less than $50K that gets 40+/gal on the highway, I'm in. ------------------------------------------------------ That's not going to happen without a huge revolutionary leap in car engine technology. Oh yeah, a HUGE leap!!! automotive.com

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (346843)	8/15/2007 3:07:57 PM
From: combjelly	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1574856

"If we really want to reverse the trend in our CO2 emissions, we'd have to make significant sacrifices in our standard of living." Umm, so your claim is that to reduce the rate of increase, we need to make significant sacrifices. What is the basis for this claim?

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (346843)	8/15/2007 3:46:54 PM
From: SilentZ	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1574856

>That's not going to happen without a huge revolutionary leap in car engine technology. Why not? My car's already getting 33 on the highway if I keep it to 70 MPH. Even at 85-90, I get 28. Why can't we improve gas mileage by 20-30%? -Z