Two Large Solar Plants Planned in California

Now, here's my question. If California hadn't made it a law, would PG&E have been suitably motivated to get off its ass and get these plants built? If Germany's government hadn't decided to increase their renewable power consumption, would they be making the advances they have been making? On top of that, when companies are forced to meet those legal standards, they find ways to meet the requirements and do it faster and cheaper then when they aren't being held to a standard. Those faster and cheaper methods can then be exported to other locations in the US and elsewhere in the world. Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, the Middle East, and so on.

Similar to this, a recent law passed in Washington state says that cell phones can't be called by collectors and telemarketers. As a result, companies all across the US are developing ways to scrub their call lists of cell phones. Why? Because someone may have a WA number but not live in WA, and someone may live in WA but not have a WA cell phone number. So, just to be sure, everybody is scrubbing all their lists. And cell phones won't get called (which I'm pretty happy about), just because of one state passing a law.

My question is this: is increased government involvement a good thing for green power, as well as other good things? Trying to get a business to act in everybody's best interests is nearly impossible unless there is guaranteed profit, or if there is a law forcing them to act. Personally, I'm in favor of that, but my political alignment has very firmly shifted to social democrat, so I would be in favor of such things.

Yeah, but once they have that 20%, they'll know how to easily get to 40% if that becomes the law. All they have to do is double what they've built. Not only that, but they will have a framework now for other regions in the US to follow.


By trying to legislate their actions with a carbon tax, aren't you doing exactly that? And what is to stop the company, in that case, from simply raising their prices to cover the carbon tax and telling the customer it's because the goverment raised taxes?

I view government, not as a separate entity, but as a political body that should, in a representative democracy, be the will of the people made manifest. The government is not separate from the people, it is composed of the people who care enough to get involved with it, and influenced by the people who care enough to vote.

I also think the carbon tax is the way to go.  There's no way for us to know if, given that we want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, to what extent we're better off reducing consumption or going to renewable power.  So its better to force the decision down onto the people who have a lot more information about their own situation and letting them decide individually.

Of course a large part of the carbon tax is going to be forced onto consumers, but the price of all those shiny new solar plants was going to be born by consumers in any event - either through the energy companies raising their rates to pay for them, or through government subsidies, or through reduced service in other ways.  The point is that if you make carbon emissions more expensive, people will look for ways to use less of it

Yes a carbon tax would raise electric bills and such, but regulations that reduce pollution the same amount would end up costing taxpayers a bit more.  Maybe the downside is more obvious if you make it a tax, but I think that obfuscating the downsides of a policy so that voters will vote for it when they wouldn't otherwise is not anything I'd be willing to advocate.

Competition. Company A pays the carbon tax and passes on the cost to the customer. Company B changes to a greener manufacturing process which is more expensive, but less expensive than the carbon tax. Company B undercuts Company A and succeeds in the marketplace.

What if the greener manufacturing process is more expensive than the carbon tax? Then perhaps the carbon tax has been set too low. What if there is no greener manufacturing process, or the only greener ways are unfeasibly expensive or impractical? Then the customers will either have to pay for the environmental costs of the products they buy, or learn to do without.

This is a typical free-market model which, as is so often the case, uses the oversimplified trope of "the marketplace" to explain away impossible results, to the detriment of all. 

In the scenario described above, Company B is still paying the carbon tax in the meantime while losing profits (and angering shareholders) as they put money towards greening in hopes of becoming more competitive several years down the line, not by virtue of their better product or their lower overhead but through a price advantage created only by a tax that, for all they know, may well fall to lobbying and no-new-taxes campaigning before they even manage to get green enough to take advantage of it.

That's leaving out the fact that economies, and human behavior, are far more complex than classical market economics would ever allow, and even given the potential advantage of Company B in the above scenario it is extremely, nigh-miraculously, unlikely that their upper hand would be sufficient to force Company A to take the same risks for a diminishing gain.  For such a challenge to be effective from an environmental perspective, Company B would have to overtake, marginalize, and destroy Company A, which simply isn't a realistic expectation: "outcompete" simply means "pull a bigger market share" or "slightly higher profits" or, hell, even "better percent return" for that matter.

You could see results if you raised the carbon tax high enough, of course, but there's a fundamental problem with what amounts to regulation via larceny.  You'll most likely just ream the small companies, and the consumers when they catch the backblast... and commit political suicide at the same time, and have it reversed the next time there's an election. 

What we have here is a situation where taxes would only be effective if so onerous as to be tantamount to regulation, but with less oversight and less responsibility on the part of the government.  That's not good practice at all.

Or, we have a situation where the carrot/stick option is the way to go.

For example, carbon tax.  Hit the people burning coal and oil hard.  Stick.

However, if you set and meet state-mandated goals for the construction of renewable energy plants, you're exempt from the carbon tax.  You want to not pay the carbon tax?  Put an equivalent amount of money into building plants that use renewable energy.  And since you keep your exemption as long as you keep increasing the percentage of your energy provided by renewable sources every year, why not take that baby all the way to 11?  Carrot.

The trick is setting those goals so that you actually get the transition to renewable.

I will say that those market forces work pretty well when combined with social pressure.  I just signed up for electricity here.  I can't get Green Energy until January because it's fully subscribed with a waiting list.  They're building green plants as fast as they can because market demand is so high.  No state mandating, no regulations.  People just want it that much.  The rate is steadier and the ethics are better and people are clamoring for it, and *that* is, in fact, the free market at work.

Your avatar is Orko, isn't it?

Saving the planet is a farce. I'm all for strip-mining, drilling and harvesting every last drop of resources I can get my grubby little hands on to make my life better right here and now. Why? Because in fifty years or so, I'll be dead and I won't care anymore what happens after that. But so help me god, if you vandalize the giant bust of my head that will be carved out of Mount Everest, I will come back and haunt your ass.

"Resources exist to be consumed. If not by this generation, than by the next."
I will have my lawn and eat it too!

The sad part is that I'm actually kinda torn between the idea of making things all nice and shiny, and well, just obliterating everything. My indecisiveness is the only thing keeping any of you alive. SO THERE.