The Green Koolaid

If you’ve been following the recent saga of emissions trading in the US you might know that the House of Representatives earlier this year approved a bill creating Emissions Restrictions and Trading on businesses in the US.  Currently It is being bogged down in the Senate and it appears that this bill may be allowed to expire.

To those of us in the Alt Energy business, this is a sobering prospect.  The existence of a place where carbon credits could be traded just created yet another reason to invest in green energy projects such as solar arrays or wind farms.  These credits would effectively be an annuity that the project would create every year its in operation.  This annuity would help tremendously in justifying the large start up costs on such projects and bring the return on investment down by a number of years.

However, from an standpoint of being an American Citizen, I see this as a victory for the economy.  If post industrialized countries such as the US adopt Cap and Trade systems, it would be irrational to think the business that pollute a great deal would remain in those countries.  The fact is outside the post industrialized countries, having clean air is a luxury for the rich.  Only the naive would think that industrializing countries such China or Mexico, let alone smaller impoverished 3rd world countries would adopt this system as well.  It actually would be in their best interest not to.  If Cap and Trade were come in to effect, we can probably say good bye to an American steel industry, and chemicals manufacturing.  In addition, who knows how many businesses dependent on cheap coal fired electricity would fail.  It could very likely mean the end of manufacturing tangible goods in the US.  All the while countries which refuse to adopt such standards would see great economic growth. It really is no different if the US cuts back on oil consumption.  We use a few million less barrels, China uses a few million more, the price stays the same.

Who knows what will happen with this bill.  As an entrepreneur, I see the loss of Cap and Trade as a setback.  But as an American I see the death of Cap and Trade as disaster averted.

Just a few quick thoughts on Cash for Clunkers.
I was definitely surprised by how many people this program encouraged to buy new vehicles. I think the environmental fan-fare this one originally received is laughable. A vehicle with 22MPG on the highway is not exactly and efficient machine in today’s market. However, as a tool for economic recovery it seems to be working pretty well.
The program was intended to run all the way through the fall but its already out of money. My thinking is, if over 60% of the $4500 rebate that people are receiving goes towards sales tax and registration on the vehicle, why are issuing the rebate in the first place? I think this program should be allowed to continue with a different financing structure. It is safe to assume that a great deal of these vehicles would not have been sold without a program such as this, and since the vehicle that is traded must of been an on road registered vehicle, many of them have already been registered for this year. My solution is wave registration and sales tax on these vehicles instead of a rebate, and do a plate transfer only. It is basically using free money. The states would have never got that money to begin with, and it is injecting money in to their local economies. Just a thought.

Here’s a slightly ironic one for ya.  Compact Flourecent Lights (CFL’s), championed as one of the great new green technologies,  are causing some serious problems for utilities.  Check out EDN’s article here.   Read the rest of this entry »

For today’s big slam sized helping of coolant colored liquid, we have Power Down for the Planet.  This is a movement to persuade universities and organizations to adopt their ‘energy saving’ practices.  In a macro environmental sense, this whole idea is rather naive. Read the rest of this entry »

Thursday, the Obama administration announced $2.4 Billion in new spending for development of electric cars.  Much of it going towards battery development.  This is a big change in government mentality.  We’re finally getting away from parlor tricks like hydrogen fuel cells and natural gas burning cars.  Read the rest of this entry »

wow, really had some problems getting DNS resolved on the domain. Some things are hard for these domain hosts…. *facepalm*  but its up now.