News Free speech and cap 'n trade troubles

[saltine]

I drew some graphs comparing the methods. Are they correct?

http://albatross.x10hosting.com/images/2009-12-08 - Methods 01.PNG"

The first picture shows Carbon Tax. My conclusion is that the more the government taxes a power company the more the price would increase. So if there isn't price regulation to go with it, the effect is that government takes customer money.

The second picture (lower left) shows Carbon Dividend. It is meant to earmark the tax collected from bad emission power companies and credit the public with that money. But the effect is just that CB is paying CG. That is unfair. Why is CB penalized by being in an area with PG?

The third picture shows Carbon Cap and Trade. The government makes PB pay PG. The effect is still CB bearing the increased cost.

The fourth is Price Regulation. The government restricts the price PB can charge CB. To keep itself operating with profit, PB would need to lower its emission or reduce its supply. In the worst case scenario, PB cannot make any profit. It closes and CB does not get any power.

 

[saltine]

More diagrams:

http://albatross.x10hosting.com/images/2009-12-08 - Business as usual.PNG"
This shows that the customer has an energy demand, which determines energy production level. Production level and technology determine pollutant emission. Emission affects comfort. The Power Company determines how much it wants to spend on improving its technology. But there isn't a reason to do so unless the pollutant affects the Comfort of the customers so much that they don't want to get energy any more. At that point, to maintain profit, PB would spend money on research to improve its technology.

http://albatross.x10hosting.com/images/2009-12-08 - Cap and Trade.PNG"
A new property called carbon credit is created. PB buys credit from PG to avoid a penalty, which is determined by its emission and the credit it holds. Without further regulations, PB would maintain its profit by shifting the burden to the CB. CB are the customers that happen to be in an area where they can only get energy from PB.

http://albatross.x10hosting.com/images/2009-12-08 - Price Regulation.PNG"
The government regulates the price based on emission. To maintain its profit, PB invests on technology to reduce emission in order to charge more or to be certified to have more customers/output.

 

[mheslep]

Really? We'll sell you one. We can run it for you too. And finance it.

http://www.ge-energy.com/prod_serv/products/nuclear_energy/en/new_reactors.htm

The problem is that no one wants to make the investment. That's what the economic incentives are for. Properly incentivize and magically nuclear becomes the best business choice.

Edit: From the ABWR subpage:

42 months for NRC approval of an application, so no 2012 is no possible.

 

[Chalnoth]

Still I think it's better to have them than not, but there are definite issues. Wall Street hires lots of physics PhDs in part to help get around the regulations (as they should).

Well, that's a relatively new phenomenon. It's only really been this way since the 80's, when deregulation of the financial markets caused earnings to soar and made them so attractive to the best and brightest.

 

[Nebula815]

Really? We'll sell you one. We can run it for you too. And finance it.

http://www.ge-energy.com/prod_serv/products/nuclear_energy/en/new_reactors.htm

The problem is that no one wants to make the investment. That's what the economic incentives are for. Properly incentivize and magically nuclear becomes the best business choice.

Edit: From the ABWR subpage:

I agree, but I think the way to do thati s not by raising the cost of coal plants, especially with all of the onerous regulations one needs for a nuke plant, but rather cheapening the cost of a nuke plant.

 

[Chalnoth]

I agree, but I think the way to do thati s not by raising the cost of coal plants, especially with all of the onerous regulations one needs for a nuke plant, but rather cheapening the cost of a nuke plant.

Well, if the nuke plants get as many carbon credits per unit power produced, which would only seem fair given that they're providing the same public service, then nuclear plants would automatically become cheaper.

 

[mheslep]

I almost agree. While I'm sure the concept can be demonstrated on a science fair scale, I'm not convinced the viability has been studied in detail (much less even theoretically described) on a national, industrial scale. The difficulty isn't in the capture, it is in the disposal.

Astronuc provided some of the best articles I've seen about the subject, but even they just discuss the issue roughly. What is needed is a 1000 page government study of the true national scale viability. It would look like this:

Take the biggest 500 coal plants and analyze the technical and economic viability of carbon capture/sequestration for each of them and all of them as a group. The study would need to figure out:
-What is the quantity of CO2?
-What would the retrofit cost?
-Does the plant have the remaining lifespan necessary for that to be worth it?
-Where can you put the CO2?
-How do you get it there?
-Does the geographic layout of plants lend itself to a pipeline?
-How much would that cost?
-How much storage capacity does that location have?
-What are the risks of failure in the storage location?

Now the end result of such a study might be that it appears technically viable to store all of our emissions for 10 years (or half for 20 or 1/5 for 50, etc.) - and that would still be worth doing if the economics look reasonable. Either way, the study would have answers to the questions of technical and economic viability. But then moving toward implimentation, you need a nationalized strategy to properly implement it. Pipelines, in particular are not something you can do without government involvement.

And what happens if the study finds it is only technically viable to store 10% of our emissions for 10 years at a cost of $20 billion per 1000 MW? Then the idea would have to be abandoned as a viable national energy strategy. [...]

Apropos. AEP is the biggest US coal burner (world?). Owns 38GW(e) of capacity.

Big Utility Turns Bullish on Carbon Capture
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126032092489782773.html?mod=wsjcrmain

Mike Morris, chief executive of Ohio-based AEP, said his company's early experience with a carbon capture and storage project at its Mountaineer power plant in West Virginia had exceeded expectations. As a result, he believes AEP will be able to retire 25% of its coal-burning power plants and install advanced carbon-capture equipment on the remaining 75%.
[...]
Mr. Morris says it now looks like it will be possible to cover all the costs of carbon capture and storage by roughly doubling the cost of electricity from plants like Mountaineer, to 8 cents a kilowatt hour from 4 cents, before subtracting for subsidies that may be available. He believes that still will be cheaper than electricity from the next generation of nuclear plants. As such, it could be more affordable to keep retrofitted coal-fired plants operating than to replace them.

A 4 cent premium is better that expected - 8 to 12cent premiums were being cited. Elsewhere I see the Florida Power and Light CEO claims they are generating wind at 3-4 cents / kWh.

AEP's Mountaineer project is one of the first attempts to put the technology to the test in the U.S. The utility is capturing less than 2% of the carbon dioxide produced by the 1,330-megawatt power plant. But, with the help of $335 million in Department of Energy funding, it plans to capture about 18% in the next few years. The gas is being injected nearly two miles underground "where it's staying put," Mr. Morris said.

More background on this project here:
http://www.co2captureandstorage.info/project_specific.php?project_id=112

http://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalc...-expectations-for-carbon-capture-and-storage/