Interesting editorial in the Mercury News over the "resource reshuffling" issue and California's effort to control climate change. And attention, carbon tax fans, you're not safe from this issue either.
It's a variation on the leakage problem, that reducing carbon emissions in one jurisdiction might result in more emissions elsewhere. The argument in this case is that coal and gas plants outside of California that previously supplied the California and other state markets would just reshuffle who gets supplied with what, with California achieving "reduced" emissions only because other states are being credited with the "increased" emissions.
I'm not sure what to think of the argument. To be fair, it reminds me a lot of my Burma boycott days from the 1990s, when a retail buyer of clothing from a manufacturer would promise not to take any of their Burma imports. We said that's unacceptable, the manufacture will just reshuffle the Burma stuff to another retailer who doesn't even pretend to care about ethics.
But there's always another hand. The resource reshuffling mentioned here shrinks the market for the worst fuels - gas can sell anywhere, while coal can't. And doesn't that reshuffling happen all the time anyway - if I buy an electric car and a bunch of solar panels, wouldn't just a tiny decrease in gas price result in more purchases that (almost) make up for my removal of my vehicle from the market? What's the real solution - is California supposed to go to other states, buy and shut down their coal plants, and then buy and shut down any new coal plants proposed to take the old plants' place? As for the editorial, it suggests continued responsibility for the reshuffled emissions - but for how long? Forever?
I think I could agree with some transitional responsibility for reshuffled emissions for one or a few years, but after a while I'd say the emissions belong to whoever's creating them, not whoever used to create them in the past.
Its a problem, but I don't like the idea of California legislating against shuffling. Because it sounds very hard to distinguish "shuffling" from "changing your supplier".
ReplyDeleteHah! You've taken me back a few years when I was looking at Cal's energy mix and The Guv was struggling to get approval for emissions control mechanisms.
ReplyDeleteWhat I recall clearly is that the State's energy mix/supply is a huge mess, hugely dominated by the need to import from other sources to satisfy demand. In effect, in order to make any progress in emissions reduction the state is compelled to deal in some way with the emissions at source, otherwise it's all just accounting.
My intuition is that the new amendments are more likely to serve the interests of the supply chain than the consumer, and that this would be a retrograde step for the policy as a whole.
I am curious as to how much energy consumption patterns have changed in recent years, since the benefit to the state of reduced demand would be obvious and the result would be improvement in the carbon budget. Anyone know if Cal. has cut it's energy use?
This what you're looking for? http://www.eia.gov/state/seds/data.cfm?incfile=/state/seds/sep_use/total/use_tot_CAcb.html&sid=CA
ReplyDeleteMaybe you should ask Aaahnold what he would do.
ReplyDeleteAfter all, he's pretty good at the shuffle, especially when it comes to women (and his kids) and is also undoubtedly well aware of the leakage problem (that reducing emissions in one jurisdiction might result in more emissions elsewhere.)
"effort to control climate change"
ReplyDeleteThis makes Eunice smile.
Brian, take a look at the Zero Emission Vehicle MOU just signed by eight US states with a pledge to have 3.3 million ZEV on the road by 2025 and provide the needed infrastructure
ReplyDeletehttp://www.oregon.gov/deq/docs/MOUzev.pdf
A post please:)