Carbon Economy–Huge Changes in America
David Ginter | Aug 21, 2009 | Comments 5
I’m currently sitting outside looking over the rolling hills of a Central Kentucky farm. Today has been overcast but pleasant. Despite the serene setting, I’ve had something nagging me in the back of my mind. I typically avoid watching the mainstream news but a recent internet search has revealed an alarming silence on a new bill that, for now has passed through the House of Representatives and awaits a vote in the U.S. Senate. The bill will not only have enormous consequences on American businesses and American households, but will also have major effects on the every nation in the world. Anyone interested in entering the business world, law, engineering, science, or finance needs to pay attention.
Senators Waxman and Markey introduced a bill called the “Waxman-Markey Climate and Energy Bill”, which was zazzed up by publicly naming it the “American Clean Energy and Security Act,” on June 26, 2009. The heart of the bill is a carbon cap and trade system. It should be noted that both Obama and McCain promised to pass a cap and trade program during their campaigns for president, with just a couple of differences. When Obama was on the campaign trail he spoke very intelligently about the prospects for a cap and trade. Unfortunately, President Obama is not the one who wrote the bill. In fact, the bill started out at about 900 pages and 300 additional pages were added at 3:00 in the morning; about 12 hours before the vote. When state representatives did vote, no actual physical copy of the bill had been printed yet. This let’s you know what we’re in for.
There’s a lot to dissect here and today I’ll simply give a summary of the bill.
Everything is measured against the amount of pollution in 2005.
There will be a nationwide renewable electricity standard. This means that by 2012 at least 6% of electricity must be generated by renewable sources like solar, wind, geothermal, and so on. It has to be 20% renewable by 2020.
Coal power plants that have been built before 2015 (yes 2015) must cut emissions by 50% by 2025. Emissions get tighter and tighter as the years go on. Coal-fired power plants built after 2020 must have a drop of 65% emissions. Coal currently provides half of all of our electricity.
Coal plants cut emissions by capturing carbon and burying it underground. 1 billion dollars per year will be available to coal plants to achieve these cuts.
There will be an estimated 190 billion dollars that will be invested in “Clean Energy Technologies” through 2025.
The bill also calls for the development of something called a “smart grid”. The centerpiece of the bill is a cap and trade scheme that calls for a 17% reduction in emissions by 2020 and 83% by 2050. Federal support will be given, at least early on, to energy intensive industries.
New buildings must have 50% better efficiency by 2016. With this are tighter standards for lighting products, commercial furnaces/air conditioners, and appliances (like refrigerators, washing machines, dishwashers).
The fuel standards for heavy vehicles (like semi-trucks) will be much stricter.
Subsidies (government handouts) are given to households to make their house more energy efficient.
Funding will be given to help soften the extra costs for low and medium income earners. It will also be given to help the economy adapt, prevent deforestation, transfering to better technologies, retraining workers for the new economy, and to help students prepare for careers in energy efficiency fields.
Please read my next article to understand what the bill actually means.
Links: http://thinkcarbon.wordpress.com/2009/06/24/the-waxman-markey-bill-at-a-glance/
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-climate-qa27-2009jun27,0,7695457.story
http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h2454/show
Filed Under: Just Thinking • The Soap Box
About the Author:
This is a great start at explaining some of the bill. Unfortunately, the bill is just a way for lobbyists close to this president to make money at everyone else’s expense… the same crap folks were upset with when the oil industry met with the last administration. Carbon tax does not solve the global warming problem. All it does is increase costs for everyone in our nation and it lessens funds going in to programs that could have an effect on global warming and would have definite quantifiable positive effects for the environment. How about cleaning up our coastal areas? We’d restore fish populations, greater “sea forest” growth contributes more oxygen to the earth and we’d have safe beaches. (Check out the book “Bottom Feeder” by Taras Grescoe for a great explainer on what’s happening with our oceans.) Or how about reforestation projects in the US and around the world: most of the broad scale planting programs are funded by the lumber industries who do not plant diverse forests. The diverse reforestation projects are predominantly driven by the non-profit community which is being hurt by proposals to reduce the tax deductibility of donations and will be further hurt as people keep less money in their pockets (carbon tax), so have less to donate. (But for a great non-profit helping in Central America, check out http://www.treeswaterpeople.org).
Sorry about the long-windedness of this but I hope you are starting a dialogue that will encourage environmentalists to not fall in lock-step with the administration on cap-and-trade. I know some industry is still trying to keep pressure on from a jobs and economy perspective, but as a person who loves being out in the wild and wants there to still be lots of it forever, I’d really like to see the money and effort invested in projects that will definitely make a difference not ones that will that have doubtful prospects of success and with the only guaranteed results of making rich lobbyists richer.
Yeah, as I continue to post, I plan on delving into more tedious and complicated issues like our oceans (in fact I’ve already written some and they’re schedule to be posted sometime in the next couple weeks). I’m also going to write about deforestation-reforestation, and even give examples of a couple of forests that are run by American Indians, who have been very smart about how they use the lumber and other resources of the forests (even seeing much higher margins of profits than the typical lumber companies). I’ll be sure to look into those recommendations.
oh, and every friday there will be another post on explaining the cap and trade bill.
[...] previously gave an EXTREMELY brief overview of the Waxman-Markey bill, known as the American Clean Energy and [...]
[...] the Waxman-Markey bill (ACES) going to build a better world? Maybe. It’s cheaper for corporations to offload their [...]