I’m glad you aren’t climate czar. And I’m even happier that no one else is.

“I have one word for you: ‘Technology Prizes.’”

OK, strike one. Don’t worry, you’ve got two more.

Here’s what to say next time (now that you’ve had time to think)…

You could say, “I have one one for you: ‘Technology Prizes.’”

“As Climate Czar, I’d push for the following technology prizes (plus whatever other good ones that my peasant/minions can dig up). The prizes would be arranged that no single entity could collect more than 2 prizes of the same type. In other words, a company could only collect 2 prizes of the same type.”

1) Ten prizes of $50 million each for the first 10 U.S. plants that produce at least 60,000 Megawatt-hours of electricity in a year using a liquid fluoride thorium reactor. (That’s roughly 10 Megawatts at 80% capacity for a year.)

2) Ten prizes of $50 million each for the first 10 U.S. plants that produce at least 60,000 Megawatt-hours of electricity in a year using a “traveling wave” reactor that uses depleted uranium.

3) Ten prizes of $50 million each for the first 10 U.S. plants that produce 60,000 watt-hours (that’s right, watt-hours, not megawatt hours) of net energy (energy out greater than excess of energy in) in a year using a non-tokamak fusion device.

4) Ten prizes of $50 million each for the first 10 U.S. plants that produce 200 MW (peak sun) of photovoltaic panels in a year.

5) Ten prizes of $50 million each for the first 10 U.S. plants that produce at least 10 million gallons of diesel fuel in a year using algae as a feedstock.

6) Ten prizes of $50 million each for the first 10 plants that produce in one year batteries for 10,000 cars capable of…(hmmm…performance capabilities to be filled in by peasant flunkies).

Again, a company could be awarded no more than 2 of the 10 prizes in any category.

For a piddling $3 billion (if ALL prizes were awarded) the U.S. and the world would be on the way to significantly more environmentally friendly energy. You’d be the first rock star Climate Czar.

http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/admin/publication_files/resource-2712-2008.21.pdf

If there’s one thing that the country needs less than a new trillion dollar tax it’s a trade war during a global recession.

At least the tax and trade war will be based on “settled science”. We wouldn’t want to blame politicians for the resulting disaster.

Please elaborate again on a carbon tax. I agree with your general position visa vis cap and trade.

But, to work, a carbon tax would have to be applied broadly, not only to fossil fuels, but to biofuels as well,, taking CO2 footprints of all kinds of biofuels also into account;

1. The net yearly footprint resulting from changing particular land use to create the biofuel;

2. The ‘one-time’ footprint associated with any new infrastructure to accommodate the use of biofuels;

3. Any extra (or reduced) footprint to transport biofuels longer (shorter) distances than the fossil fuels they replace (which may, or may not be taken care of by the footprint tax on the transportation fuel); etc.

Lacking such details (see below) – and effective ‘policing’, assures gaming of the carbon tax system leading to even more rapid deforestation and rape of the planet.

Such issues are what’s also missing in Jim Hansen’s otherwise very simple “tax and refund” proposal.
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It seems there is considerable confusion, at least among public policy makers and the general public, regarding under what conditions, and by what amounts, crops and forests and/or fuels derived from them, might contribute
to drawdown in the amount of CO2 injected into the atmosphere.

• When land is cleared and a new crop is established, the old-cover carbon is usually released, through decay or burning, as CO2, as a ‘one-time-event’ (cl1 tC/ha). In addition, there will be a one-time releases of CO2 (cl2 tC/ha) from the energy expended to clear the land. The continuing previous NPP of the old cover (nppo tC/ha/yr) is eliminated. The new crop has a different continuing NPP (nppn
tC/ha/yr). If nppn is less than nppo, there is already a net, permanent increase in annual release of CO2 into the atmosphere, as is typical of deforestation. The maintenance of the crop (cultivation, irrigation, fertilization, harvest, transportation, and so on) contribute an additional (m tC/ha/yr). The total impact (CO2-footprint) is approximately [(nppo+m–nppn) tC/ha/yr]+[(cl1+cl2) tC/ha] .

• When a ‘natural’ cover (prairie, savanna, forest, etc.) is itself harvested sustainably, the total will be about (m–nppo fraction harvested) tC/ha/yr.

• When a previously barren area (nppo = 0, cl1 = 0, cl2 = 0) is afforested or put into sustainable agricultural production, the total CO2-footprint will be about (m–nppn) tC/ha/yr, because all net production is above the barren baseline. So long as m is small, this is a substantial improvement. cl1, is very large when forest is cleared, whereas cl2 usually is relatively small. For crops like corn, m is often a substantial proportion of nppo, but for forests, it is usually a very small fraction.

Fossil fuel contributes to its CO2-footprint in proportion to p tC. Extracting and transporting it adds a small q tC/tfuel for most coal, gas and oil, but larger for oil tars and much larger for shale. Permanently replacing fossil fuel with biofuel often means that the annual new CO2-footprint of an existing power plant depends upon the relationship of (nppo+m–nppn) to a f(p+q). When nppn is smaller than (nppo+m), the CO2-footprint often is not reduced when biofuel substitutes for fossil fuel.