Pinky wrote:The best way to do this is taxing the pollution. Tax credits and subsidies for whatever "clean" energy lobby spends the most time sucking off politicians is wasted money.Alfred_E._Neuman wrote:On a side note, I think it should be job number 1 in the western world to make non-polluting, renewable energy as cheap and widely available as possible. Just about every problem we face can in some way be traced back to an energy problem. Much pollution is directly caused by the mining, refining, transporting, and burning of fossil fuels. Remove that and you've taken a major step in water and air quality, and you've had the side benefit of knocking out a huge chunk of AGW pollutants. Droughts (which are going to be worse if AGW is correct) can be alleviated with desalination and pumping once the infrastructure is there, and removing fossil fuel costs frees up a ton of capital to invest in infrastructure. Not to mention letting us deal with the Middle East in a much more open way with oil off the table as a strategic necessity.
having tangential work in the energy sector I think this is as smart as it gets but will have two unintended effects. First, a new massive jobs program for folks like me to help polluters evade taxes along with the regulations. Second, a massive reshuffling in a number of related industrial users (think metal and glass recyclers) which operate on the tightest of margins. Like all new regs. in this country it would have the effect of consolidating power inot fewer players. Not saying this is either good or bad, but that is the way it rolls.