Cap and Trade
| Thu Dec. 4, 2008 2:07 PM PST
CAP AND TRADE....During the campaign, Barack Obama committed himself to supporting a cap-and-trade program to reduce carbon emissions. 
It'll be tough getting that through Congress, though, so how about just ordering the EPA to put together a program on its own under the aegis of the Clean Air Act and skipping legislation entirely? David Roberts runs down the pros and cons over at Gristmill, but I want to skip immediately down to his last point:
Real disadvantage: public deliberation
One doesn't want to be sentimental, but there is something to the argument that shift of this significance should be discussed in public and shaped by the public's elected representatives. It would be nice, in an ideal world, if reasoned debate and discussion and interest-balancing yielded the perfect program.
But in this world, we're perilously late getting underway and Obama must weigh America's procedural ideals against what a wise man once called the "fierce urgency of now." Whatever it's other merits, the Clean Air Act is now.
I think this is more than just sentimental. Cap-and-trade is a very, very big program, and it just flatly shouldn't be implemented via executive fiat. We liberals are already fuming over George Bush's relatively minor last-minute executive orders, after all, and this would be the granddaddy of all executive orders. It deserves public debate, it deserves the permanence of congressional legislation, it deserves to be a genuinely national program (not a kludgy jumble of state initiatives, which is how it would have to work under CAA), and it deserves the chance to get genuine public support in the process. I've long thought that liberals tend to pay too little attention to public opinion, and this is a serious mistake since big, longlasting change never really happens without it. This is no exception. If we really believe in carbon reduction via cap and trade, we need to persuade the American public that it's a good idea. A cap-and-trade bill should be the kind of landmark legislation that our kids talk about, not a furtive agency rule slipped in quietly via the back door.
On a more practical note, I wonder if it would really be any faster doing it via the CAA anyway. Thanks to Bush's stonewalling, the rulemaking process for carbon regulation hasn't really even started yet, and that process doesn't happen overnight. I wouldn't be surprised if congressional legislation could actually happen faster than an EPA initiative.
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Comments
How about an immediate, no-loopholes BAN on construction of ANY new coal-fired power plants.
So-called "clean coal" does not exist except as a coal-industry Big Lie propaganda campaign.
There is NO justification WHATSOEVER for building ANY new coal-fired power plants, period.
We can pretty much eliminate the need for any additional generation capacity through rapid, full implementation of existing efficiency technologies, and any additional (or replacement) generation capacity that is built should be 100 percent "green" (wind, solar, geothermal) ... with an emphasis on distributed generation that is owned and controlled by municipal utilities, small businesses and households. Power to -- and from -- the people.
That industry is proposing to build dozens of new coal-fired power plants that will spew massive amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere for DECADES (not to mention plenty of other hideous toxic emissions, not to mention the ongoing environmental catastrophe of coal mining) is outright criminal, and it should become literally criminal under law.
Well said Kevin. The Republicans don't know that this is a government "Of, by, and for the people." Obama won on a mandate of change--he has capital to spend on the war, health care and climate change. We got cap and trade for acid rain under a more conservative administration. I see no reason that if Obama handles this professionally and competently that it won't happen.
Do you want cap-and-trade or are you serious about GHG reductions? Cap-and-trade has too many complexities. Europe has already shown how grandfathering and foreign trading can make it a joke.
Better idea: tax all GHG emissions and return the revenue in an equal size check for every person in the country (inspiration for the latter comes from the oil checks distributed by the People's Republic of Alaska).
Forget using the money for the general fund or anything like that. The only way that people will tolerate what is, amongst other things, a tax on gasoline and home heating fuels, is if it's compensated by an actual check they get in the mail at the end of the year. The psychological effect is wonderful.
Well bullshit.
The time for debates is during the electoral process.
Obama does what he said he was going to do and he says why it's important and why it's important to do it the way he said he would. Sell it, fine; implement in whatever way possible.
alex is right. A carbon tax is much better than a cap-and-trade program. More effective, faster and easier and less expensive to implement, and more difficult to cheat. And as alex suggests the tax revenues should be rebated to consumers to offset higher costs, and/or devoted to funding renewable energy deployment, for example to offset large, long-term tax credits for wind and solar.
Seems like Kevin Drum found another problem with cap-and-trade, but absentmindedly put it in his "Parking Meter Hell" post. So here, with only minor edits, I've put it in the correct place:
Morgan Stanley, which put together the winning consortium, packages up the cap-and-trade revenue, securitizes it, rolls it into an asset-backed CCTO (collateralized cap-and-trade obligation), puts the super-senior tranche into an off-balance-sheet vehicle, hedges the rest via a CDS-backed synthetic CDO, and then resells the whole thing within 12 months to a sovereign wealth fund in Dubai for $5 billion
The other obvious problem with executive fiat is that the next executive can just as easily repeal it, especially if they manage to demagogue the fact that it was passed over peoples heads.
Of course the next congress could undo a cap-and-trade law, but policies passed by congress seem to have a lot more inertia then executive orders
simplicio: The other obvious problem with executive fiat is that the next executive can just as easily repeal it
Or for that matter, so can congress.
This representative government stuff is a pain, but good honest dictators being hard to find, I think we should stick with it.
'I've long thought that liberals tend to pay too little attention to public opinion,'
As if the thugs have payed attn, they propagandize, deceive, intimidate, & drown out opposition(just sayin).
'Wind has cost less than coal for a while, and the more it does, the faster coal will be replaced by wind.'
Was talking to a RW, but reasonable?, guy the other day about wind & T-Boone. As a die hard capitalist, libertarian, he thought T-Boone's prospect of big profits invalidated his proposal. Say What? Our work is cut out for us.
Kevin is correct. It has been stated that one of the problems with the pro-choice movement is that when it won in court, those for legalized abortion no longer felt they had to make the public case. That has led to 30+ years of retrenchment. Only the recent defeats for anti-abortion measures in my home state, South Dakota, has shown that pro-choice is a majority position - even in a very conservative state.
Similarly, I believe if we can win a tough carbon reduction policy in Congress and sign it into law it is more likely to be accepted by the public. It makes it more likely to be accepted by the public and less likely to be overturned when the next conservative administration takes power. Plus the majorities in Congress make this a really good time to try. An executive order increases the risk of a backlash as it appears to be more dictatorial than consensual.
Submitted by coyote (not verified) on Thu Dec. 4, 2008 7:34 PM PST.
I don't think Co2 action is necessary, but if we do it, why the obsession with cap-and-trade? California's AB32 is living proof of why cap-and-trade is far inferior to a simple carbon tax. The California Air Resources Board (CARB), which is tasked with implementing the plan, has already added hundreds of people to its staff and worked for over two years, is still no where near finished with rule-making. The complexity, and the battling political constituencies, is simply mind-boggling. It is already clear that the result is going to be a Byzantine, Rube Goldberg structure of detailed industry-specific reporting and permitting rules. Nearly 100% of CARB's time is taken up today with various groups running to them begging for some sort of special treatment (think "carbon bailout" and you will get the idea). No one thinks the process is fair or rational.
Under cap-and-trade, every single industry will report greenhouse gasses, have industry and firm-specific limits, myriads of permits, etc. For example, we had detailed discussions that day of how cattle flatulence will be treated and measured. The alternative is a carbon tax, which is dead simple. There is one single rate to set - the tax per weight of carbon in fuel. Fuels with more carbon per BTU, like coal, thereby get higher taxes. The system works like a sales tax, and could be administered by the BOE (who runs the California sales tax system) in its sleep.
The cap-and-trade system is far more expensive than a carbon tax. By the basic laws of supply and demand, both systems have to raise the cost of burning certain fuels by about the same amount to get about the same reduction in use. But the cap-and-trade system brings a huge overhead burden, both in government bureaucracy as well as compliance costs, that make it far, far more expensive for the same amount of benefit. Until he started sitting on the boards of companies who depend on these inefficiencies in the cap and trade system to make money, Al Gore advocated a straight carbon tax over cap-and-trade.
It is ironic that Barrack Obama, who promised to clean the Washington temples of its lobbyists, appears ready implement cap-and-trade regulations that will likely spur more cumulative lobbying efforts than any topic in history.
Unfortunately, I think we all know why Congress and Obama prefers cap-and-trade over a carbon tax:
Private implementation and compliance costs are meaningless to legislators. There is no public measurement or accountability for these costs, and most of these costs fall on businesses, who can be ignored as unsympathetic in political discourse. I operate in Mono County, California, and they put out a new set of reporting requirements driven, they said, by the needs to save a few hours a year of their auditors' time. But compliance with these new rules costs our company 10-20 hours, at least, a year. And we are just one of many, many companies reporting. I complained that it was crazy for them to ask taxpayers to spend hundreds of hours of labor to save them just a few, but they could not have cared less.
For legislators, particularly in California, creating large new bureaucracies is good. It creates a patronage relationship between the legislators and these new government employees that is almost quasi-feudal. Public employees are an enormous source of support for incumbent politicians, and these bureaucracies also offer future employment opportunities for legislators once they leave office (nice article here).
First, last, and always, the vast majority of politicians are gutless. That means if they can pass the same tax in a way that is more hidden (ie cap-and-trade vs. carbon tax) they will prefer this approach, even if it means the tax is substantially less efficient. In the case of cap-and-trade, since costs are hidden and spread around like peanut butter rather than easily identifiable, they can pretend the costs don't exist and, if someone starts worrying about rising electricity costs that result, simply blame the rising costs on the evil power/oil/coal/etc companies. Obama has brilliantly taken this one step further, by outrageously claiming, in the broken windows fallacy of all time, that cap-and-trade will actually boost the economy through green job creation.
A carbon tax gives politicians very little room to extract personal value from the electorate. Really, there is only one number for everyone to argue over. But cap-and-trade is a Disneyland for lobbyists. There can be special exemptions, industry specific caps, firm-specific caps, geography-specific caps. Once everyone sees the first few guys giving campaign donations and parading into CARB for special treatment, everyone feels like they have to in order to avoid being the one guy left out. My guess is that cap-and-trade will spawn more lobbying than any other legislation in US history. And politicians, no matter what their public stance, love lobbying, because everyone who comes to ask them for something knows there has to be a quid pro quo.
I am an environmentalist but I admire Kevin for challenging conventional wisdom. The official Bush position is that regulation under the CAA would not be effective and would lead to a lot of litigation and delay. I am instinctively skeptical of this, but haven't read any detailed analysis of how the CAA can fairly be read to authorize comprehensive GHG regulation. The one place where I've seen this attempted was in the EPA staff paper included in the advance notice of proposed rulemaking. But the staff paper (disavowed and even mocked by the administration in the ANPRM) is more than a hundred pages long and is incredibly hard to follow. Anyway, I think the burden is on reporters and on us environmentalists to understand the CAA mechanics a bit before we assume that using the CAA is better than legislation. (Of course it may be that the CAA *requires* regulation of GHG as a pollutant posing a threat to public welfare, regardless of whether the CAA is an effective method of regulating GHGs. It may also be that even an *ineffective* use of the CAA might be the best and fastest way to get good carbon legislation thru Congress. But still, let's think about this a bit more -- if CAA regulations fail, it might just as easily have very bad policy and political consequences.)
I certainly see your point, Kevin.
Couple things:
- the idea of regulating CO2 under the CAA comes from the Mass vs EPA approach. This means that no one (I know) considers it to be an ideal approach. It was a way to attack Bush inaction. EPA staff have followed up on this as an issue of due diligence (in a process started before the election). Incoming administration should be appraised of all their options.
- There is a BIG difference between the rulemaking that happens in the executive branch and executive orders. Executive orders could, for example, change federal rules about buying electricity for Uncle Sam to use. I don't think anyone would argue an EO could impose a cap & trade on the US economy. [Nor do I think a rule under the CAA could impose a CO2 tax].
- Speed. The ANPR does help speed up the regulatory approach. One major caveat is anything broad and effective would be challenged in court...
But remember that whatever legislation comes out of our new shiny congress needs what? You guessed it! Rules. These will take the same long period to develop. So either is slow, but new law is as slow or probably slower.
I hope to see a new EPA administrator use the regulatory process for a couple purposes:
- work on short-lived climate forcers (methane, Black Carbon, trop O3) that have big air quality co-benefits and would help the climate in the short term much easier than cutting CO2.
- SEND SIGNALS to the rest of the world, which desperately needs US leadership on this
- Send signals domestically, too, though this is less useful / effective
- as a hedge / negotiating tactic with Congress.
We'll see if they see it my way...but arguing rule vs. law is a chumps game Kevin. This problem calls for both.
Not a great response here, and no mention of the rest of the world 'til DavidDuck at 11:43 pm, and still to weak.
Of course, carbon needs a world response. Now!
First Kyoto was 8 years ago and Bush turned his back. All the developed world needs to hang a carbon cost on everything, whether produced in the west or imported.
Time for the world to take this on, whether China and India are on board or not. And putting a cost of deforestation on the tropical rain countries, too.
Not being in the treaty should not mean not being included in the cost.
Think about it.
We're all in the same world.
I've been biting my tongue for too long now. I am a progressive liberal who is also a global warming skeptic. In addition to the schizophrenic baggage this causes me to carry, it greatly reduces the number of holiday functions I can attend.
As a skeptic I fear that cap and trade will install a costly bureaucracy that will not be needed. As a progressive, I fear that basing a sound energy policy on a theory of global warming that is vulnerable to disproof in the near term will sacrifice many laudable goals and useful policies on an altar (insert strange metaphor here). As most of the energy policies recommended by progressives are justifiable in their own right, I am afraid that we will lose good conservation practice and funding for innovation just because we are tied to global warming. I pray that we have a Plan B for advocating an effective energy policy--because I believe Plan A is based on sand.
Re: Tom Fuller's comments
I can't add much to public policy discussion here, but I can suggest a cure for your schizophrenia and general sense of political anxiety.
Learn the science.
Sorry, but global warming "skepticism" is not a respectable intellectual stance.
Before this degenerates and clogs Kevin's comments, I suppose I should say: Obviously, CO2 is a GHG. Obviously it contributes to the 0.7degree C warming we have seen this century. Obviously cost effective measures to cut GHGs are a desirable option. I hope this blinding confession allows me to keep my progressive card in my wallet. Just please don't tell me 20 meters of sea rise is going to drown Manhattan.
You're certainly welcome Tom.
And yes, there are times when reaching a different conclusion is a confession of ignorance. "Contributes to"?
I should probably add that a 20 meter sea level rise is a straw man before I let this rest.
Cheers
Tom Fuller wrote: "I am a progressive liberal who is also a global warming skeptic."
Which proves that progressive liberals can be just as ignorant and misinformed as conservatives.
Tom Fuller wrote: "... a theory of global warming that is vulnerable to disproof in the near term ..."
Anthropogenic global warming is not a "theory". It is an empirically observed fact.
Tom Fuller wrote: "... the skeptics spend months showing and reshowing that you're wrong ..."
No "skeptics" have ever shown the science of anthropogenic global warming to be "wrong".
Tom Fuller wrote: "I find global warming alarmists annoying."
I find ignorant, ill-informed, obstinate denialist cranks who falsely claim to be "skeptics" annoying.
The scientific reality of anthropogenic global warming is more than "alarming". To those who, unlike yourself, understand the science and are aware of the facts -- particularly the actual, empirically-observed, ongoing, rapid, extreme effects that anthropogenic global warming is already having on the Earth system -- it is terrifying.
"Alarm" is the minimally rational response to the reality of anthropogenic global warming.
Hmm. Ignorant, obstinate, denialist crank. Ignorant and misinformed. Glad to hear we can have a rational discussion of the facts. It sort of reminds me of other discussions in the past.
Which all goes to obscure my basic point. A sound energy policy, focussed on conserving energy, investing in innovative means of producing energy, good and effective stewardship of our natural resources, etc., all should be hallmarks of progressive policy, and they do not need the threat of global catastrophe to make their case. Nor do they need yahoos such as SecularAnimist to make this case for them. If the facts supported SecularAnimist's position, I assume he would trot them out. Since they do not, I assume that I will have to get used to invective. Eppur si muove.
Long live Al Gore. He needs to stay alive long enoug to see this whole farce unravel.
Usually crank science is due to advocates mistaking correlation with causality. The CO2 - Global Warming relationship doesn't even pass the test of correlation.
Well, no. There is at least correlation. The average temperature has climbed 0.7 degrees Celsius in the past 100 years. We have been putting a lot of CO2 into the atmosphere during part of that period.
But the argument is over positive feedback, not CO2 per se. Alarmists honestly believe, based on their computer models, that doubling the concentration of C02 will somehow trigger a positive feedback effect that will cause global warming to spiral out of control. Skeptics, of whom I am one, see no evidence for that. Positive feedback is rarely found in nature.
Alarmists' position is complicated by their behaviour. They're sort of 'cooking the books' by publishing fanciful hockey stick graphs, 'correcting' temperature readings but not publishing how they arrive at those corrections, and keeping source code for some of their climate modelling programs secret, even if they were paid for by public funds. They also periodically go Crazy Eddie on us all, saying the Gulf Current will reverse (it will not) or that sea level rise will be 20 (or 40) feet (or meters)(it will not). The personal behaviour of their leaders show no propensity to treat climate change seriously (Bali?) (I mean--Bali?), all leading to the impression that it is a cult. If you read the IPCC reports, and then read the Summary for Policy Makers, you will see the difference beteen scientific caution and political bombast. Oops. Somebody pushed one of my buttons...
Jesus effing Christ. Tom Fuller, I feel for you buddy. Frankly, your sentiment should be shared by global warming proponents everywhere. I bet that 'science' is largely discredited in the next 10 years (just as global cooling was in the 70's). That said, it doesn't make environmental policy any less important.
What I find most interesting is the harm that rabid 'environmentalists' have caused over the last 50 years. Many of the problems we're in stem from their actions. We wouldn't have an energy crisis if nuclear power hadn't been crucified (an energy source the Sierra Club now says that 'oops, maybe we were wrong...we should start building new nuke plants...sorry guys'). One of the biggest causes of Amazon deforestation is the rising price of corn due to ethanol demand, a fuel source touted by environmentalists that are too effing stupid to see the unintended consequences of their actions. I could go on and on.
The point is, when you wrap up your ideas with doom-and-gloom, you often get some short term action, but that action is generally poorly thought out and leads to bigger consequences later on.
And to those like SecularAnimist, you guys are pathetic and represent everything that's wrong with activism. Trying to turn those who are skeptics into monsters doesn't help your side, and certainly hurts your cause in the long run. And, if you truly can't find anything to be skeptical of in the "empirically observed fact" that is global warming, you need a course in logic and/or an MRI.
I'm not sure there's a formal rule for this, but once you've compared yourself to Galileo it's time to go home.
Anyone interested in understanding the science behind anthropogenic global climate change should take a look at www.realclimate.org, a group website maintained by professional climatologists (i.e. people who are both better qualified and more patient than I am). They not only explain the state of the art in some detail, but include links to the peer reviewed literature. Needless to say, neither Tom Fuller nor Chris will find much to please them there, but such is life.
For those without the background or time necessary to learn, I urge you to consider that perhaps the scientific consensus on the topic is worth considerable weight.
Tom, I don't know how to respond to "Positive feedback is rarely found in nature."
But the positive feedbacks in the arctic (snow melts and is replaced with darker surfaces that absorb more incoming radiation; permafrost melts and releases methane) are painfully logical, obvious, and currently observable. No theory there.
There are many other positive feedbacks. These accelerate things. 20 m sea level rise is not a problem unless future generations ignore the detriments of CO2 emission like we do (maybe a whole bunch of future generations, I don't know). However if you want to conclude from these descriptions that it is all hocus describing a system spiraling out of control, try to be more specific in your questions instead of casting doubt on the whole enterprise.
By expressing skepticism about the whole enterprise in a forum about how we should deal with a societal emergency, you press buttons.
Illuminating currently unidentified negative feedbacks will get you a lot of attention. (Illuminating already identified neg. feedbacks that are treated as best as can be done in models, and lying about them and saying they are not in the models, is the tactic of several).
@ethan
No offense, but realclimate.org is about the last place I'd recommend someone visit for accurate information about GW. One of their most frequently read articles is "How to talk to a global warming skeptic". Seriously. If you don't see the parallels between that and a religion/cult, well...
I'd check out someplace like NOAA for real data on the subject.
"Well, no. There is at least correlation. The average temperature has climbed 0.7 degrees Celsius in the past 100 years. We have been putting a lot of CO2 into the atmosphere during part of that period."
That does not indicate correlation. Temperature increases have been highly variable throughout the century while CO2 increases have not. Something that has been highly variable is sunspot activity and overall solar radiation.
While we are on the subject of correlations, I'll suggest one for you. Split your friends and colleagues into two groups - engineers/scientists and everyone else. Take a poll on their belief in C02 driven warming. You will be amazed at the positive correlation between scientific education and GW skepticism (excluding scientist who have incentives, via grants, to support the "consensus").
You will find that your scientific friends will be the biggest skeptics, because 1) they have been trained to gauge cause-and-effect relationships, 2) they know how easy it is to manipulate forward looking models, and 3) they will see red flags when measurement techniques are flawed and have changed during the measurement period (i.e. tree rings vs. today's temperature gauges).
They also know to always start with first principles. The first principal guiding the earth's temperature is the sun. Sun energy has been highly variable (as evidenced by mellting of "ice caps" on Mars.
But don't take it from me. Do an informal poll amongst your friends. You will be surprised what you learn (SF Bay area samples excluded, of course).
I have read every post on realclimate, and every post on gristmill as well--their section on how to talk to a global warming skeptic is quite... thorough. But, I must say, not convincing. There are a number of weblogs advancing the cause of skepticism as well, some of them good, some embarrassingly bad. The difference is that the skeptical side does not treat this like a religion. I'm glad Ethan is up on his history, if not his science. What science must say about global climate change and possible anthropogenic contributions is, we need more and better data. We need a track record. Amazingly enough, the religious faction suddenly comes up with a '10 year time limit.' Suddenly we hear that if we don't do anything now, we are lost. That is false. Realclimate, Gristmill, and all of their compadres will not change the fact that policy needs to be informed by science--not vice versa. Suddenly deciding that the Medieval Warming Period didn't exist (huh?) to allow you to claim that it has never been warmer than now--that's not the way to go about things. Get the data.
Cap and trade doesn't make any sense:
Both you and your neighbor pollute like mad; he buys pollution-limiting equipment, you don't--so you pay and pay, while he collects and collects...???
The Nuclear Industry is poised to reap billions of dollars here...
What's wrong with that?
Read:
Nuclear Plants Raise Leukaemia Threat:
"Our study shows that the risk for children under five years of contracting leukemia grows with proximity of their homes to nuclear power plants." (CounterPunch),
New Nuclear Reactor at Shearon Harris?:
"Reseachers estimate it could take nine to 25 years of plant operation just to break even with the energy needed for nuclear plant construction, decommissioning nd the multi-faceted fuel cycle--which is extremely energy intensive. That means, given the great uncertainties in licensing and construction (the last nuclear plant in the U.S., Watts Bar, took 22 years), it could take well over 20 years before a new Harris reactor contributed any net greenhouse reductions."
Nuke power not so clean or green:
"A pebble bed reactor has millions of tennis ball-sized spheres of graphite embedded in enriched uranium, and they continually circulate. The whole thing is cooled by helium gas. If there's a leak of gas, it will be incrediblt radioactive, one. Two, what burned at Chernobly was graphite moderating rods ... It's very flammable. Already there has been an accident in a pebble bed reactor in Germany ..." (In Venice: News and Views from Swanny),
Reactor Wastewater Killing Billions of Fish:
"... charges the EPA with rewriting the Clean Water Act to allow utilities to continue functioning 'as aquatic slaughterhouse.' ... The systems spew the water back into the ocean or river at temperatures near 110 degrees--putting the lie to industry claims that it doesn't contribute to global warming." (Nuclear Shorts),
Reasons Why You Can't "Nuke" Global Warming:
Lots of water is needed to operate a nuclear plant: "... nuclear plants were allowed to keep the air conditioners running, but only by risking an accident or further damaging an already heat-stressed environment." (Nuclear Information Service),
Carbon Caps May Give Nuclear Industry A Lift (Wall Street Journal).
The "Clean Coal" Industry would also make billions of dollars off of cap-and-trade.
Here read:
The Dirty Truth About Clean Coal (BusinessWeek),
King Coal's Latest Con Job, Clean Coal is Not Clean (CommonDreams),
Also read:
Beware emissions trading, airlines stand to make billions (Mother Jones),
The Carbon Folly (Newsweek),
The Case Against Carbon Trading (Transnational Institute),
Why China Could Blame Its CO2 on West:
If you have emission constraints, it's become very attractive to relocate dirty production to developing countries. ... You import the finished goods, and leave the polution in China." (Wall Street Journal)
Meanwhile, the Colossal Magnetic Levitation Wind Turbine simply utilizes permanent magnets to provide electricity equal a small nuclear power plant = a relatively tiny $53 million price tag = $.01 per kilowatt hour!!!!
Plus, the MagLev's low-center-of-gravity = perfect for offshore = unlimited potential = areas surrounding the US = 24/7!!!!
Ethanol burns very, very clean, and at the same time it easily could replace dirty coal and oil in power plants, yet mixing Ethanol with gasoline (E85 for cars) actually causes more pollution than gas alone!!!! (See: Ethanol vehicles pose significant risk to health, new study finds / Stanford News Service)
