McCain's energy plan: let the market decide
Now that John McCain has been officially enthroned as the Republican party's choice for the window seat in the Oval Office, it's time to look at his proposals for how to deal with this country's seemingly insatiable thirst for energy. As expected, the focus of McCain's plan is to let the market decide what the best and most efficient means are to reduce America's dependence on imported petroleum and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. A cap and trade system that would allow polluters to buy emissions offsets lies at the heart of the plan. Part of the system would involve auctioning off of emissions permits, presumably the way the FCC has done with spectrum auctions for wireless providers. Some of the proceeds from these auctions would be used to help support prize programs for the development of advanced technologies, such as McCain's $300 million battery prize. Some of the money would also be used to help low income people move to more efficient technologies. McCain also wants to eliminate both subsidies for corn ethanol and tariffs on imported biofuels like sugar cane ethanol from Brazil. While McCain supports the development of next-generation biofuels and wants automakers to accelerate getting more flex-fuel vehicles on the market, he makes no mention whatever of distribution. While Brazil has encouraged ethanol and flex-fuel, the country has also mandated that fuel stations have to include ethanol pumps. The candidate also supports tax credits of up to $5,000 for purchasing plug-in vehicles and bigger fines for manufacturers that miss CAFE targets. To help reduce carbon emissions further and help support the use plug-ins, McCain wants to build 45 new nuclear plants over the next two decades. Offsetting this, McCain also wants to spend $2 billion a year for the next fifteen years on clean coal technology. Even if they can carbon capture on a large scale, McCain makes no mention of the environmental impact of current mining techniques like mountain top removal. Check out more at GFF.
[Source: Green Fuels Forecast]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Arno 8:10PM (9/05/2008)
McCain's Energy Plan: I have no plan.
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John 3:54PM (9/06/2008)
Obama's energy plan: Let's raise taxes so high where nobody can no longer afford to drive.
Noz 8:15PM (9/06/2008)
@JOHN:
Let's all live in oblivion and pretend we don't have to pay for anything since everything in our world is free for us. Taxes don't pay for any of the services I use and abuse every single day....right John?
Luke 10:26PM (9/06/2008)
@Noz
Ummm...where did John say that? On the contrary, it appears he believes that we can't tax ourselves into prosperity.
Save the histrionics for the playground.
G.D. 11:42AM (9/08/2008)
While we're at it, how about letting the market decide our defense policy. We cant tax our way to national security, can we?
grom 8:21PM (9/05/2008)
If he does half what is says here ... that would be GREAT!
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giyad 8:25PM (9/05/2008)
Ethanol and biofuels are not the solution anyway, so whoever wins, i hope renewables make the impact we all believe they can
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gorr 8:41PM (9/05/2008)
The best way in my opinion to capture carbone emissions of power plants is with green algae bio-reactors. It's not even a costly solution, it's a solution that increase revenues for the one that emits. In other words he is making greassy and oily green mud that stink but capture carbon then he can transform this green mud to bio-diesel and many other useful products including food for animals.
For the corn ethanol thing, this politician can put a law that the corn should be eaten by humans or animals before been turn into fuel at the sewage plant.
After having put these laws into reality he will lose 99% of his friends in big oil. That's why in my opinion this politician just speak in confusing and general solutions.
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Jesse 8:55PM (9/05/2008)
Having the market decide and providing economic incentives for innovation is the most efficient way to get the ball rolling. Regulating blindly by choosing what infant technology is going to be king is beyond foolish for our government to attempt. Forcing all gas stations to have e85 pumps would raise fuel (and food) costs for all of us and we don't even know if that is the best option yet.
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Gordio 11:19AM (9/06/2008)
It is not. What if gas becomes cheap? Then global warming will continue.
Letting market decide on something so vital always discriminates the poor and achieves nothing. Other examples include energy, education, healthcare, food. Things that are necessary for living should NEVER be decided by the market.
Some things cannot be placed with a price tag.
Chris M 1:17AM (9/07/2008)
The problem is that "free markets" don't always work right, sometimes there is wild speculative bubbles, (See: Dutch Tulip Mania) and sometimes there is unethical manipulations of the market (See: Enron) and sometimes there are monopolistic practices which can't really be considered "free markets".
For those reasons, markets must have some degree of regulation, the only disagreements would be in the kinds of regulations needed.
Sam Abuelsamid 5:12PM (9/07/2008)
The problem is most people have an overly simplistic view of what "markets" are. Markets in fact do generally work pretty well in ideal circumstances. Unfortunately to achieve those ideal conditions you need a large enough number of actors on both the supply and demand sides of a market to ensure that no one can artificially manipulate the market.
All to often this is not the case, especially when you are talking about a world of huge corporations that didn't really exist in the time of Adam Smith. When you have a scenario with comparatively few actors on either side of the market equation, odds are that it will get manipulated at some point usually to the benefit of the large and few.
That's why we need regulations to reign in manipulation. Of course regulation and government policy is very imperfect as well. A balance needs to be struck between regulation and markets in order to achieve the common good. Those who say that either extreme is ideal are either stupid or lying, either way, they should not be in power.
Curt 11:26PM (9/05/2008)
Germany already testing a small scale coal power plant that will capture and store CO2.
Here's an article about it.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7584151.stm
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why not the LS2LS7? 11:50PM (9/05/2008)
Cap and trade systems actually don't usually resemble the FCC spectrum auctions. They instead resemble the FCC digital TV transition, which included massive GIVEAWAYS of bandwidth to existing TV channels.
In a cap and trade system, existing polluters are usually given credits, then they can sell them to others as their pollution emissions go down. There were huge issues in Europe with too many credits being given out, leading to very little value for the emissions permits and thus a poor market.
This would represent a large, valuable giveaway to existing polluters. However, it still may be the best way to accomplish what our goals despite the problems.
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TProfes. 12:35AM (9/06/2008)
Thanks for polluting this space with your waste of CO2 Arno...
It's actually a very smart plan - (that's why the stupid comment, he's pissed his candidate didn't say it)
Nuclear power is safer than any other source, and advocated by most professors who know what the hell they are talking about, proved by most european countries.
Ethanol is a dead end that has caused a lot of the price problems currently faced... Getting speculators out of gasoline won't end the current problem, so allowing the best solution instead of forcing it down the consumer's throat is the ideal combination of free enterprise and innovation - he didn't jump on a T-Boone bandwagon but instead said if your idea is the best, it will inherently win out, and he directly promotes the best immediate research into improving battery performance by offering the prize.
At the same time, he's the real deal as a realist. We're stuck with coal (esp. in Texas) in the short term due to choices already made, and to keep the electric bills from going up another 500% like they have in the past 2 years causing great poverty, he's promoting making it as clean as possible - any candidate that says you can get along without something completely is just hiding the real cost truths...
The real fluff-meister is O-Blama everyone else...
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David Ahlport 9:42AM (9/06/2008)
Funny how McCain says "Let the Market Decide".
Yet Renewables keep getting their Production Tax Credit blocked by Republican Senators (like John McCain)
Where as new Coal and Nuclear get a Production Tax Credit.
_
You can't have the market decide if there isn't a level playing field.
Otherwise you are picking favorites.
And in this case, Shale Oil, and Nuclear Reactors.
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Nick 12:29AM (9/06/2008)
Carbon capture is a SCAM !
1) its not even close to be there yet technologically
2) it does not solve mining issues
3) where does all the carbon go and how do you make sure it won't ultimately escape?
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meme 1:21AM (9/06/2008)
Good to see that McCain thinks enough of Obama's plan to *sell* carbon credits that he criticized him over before that he's now decided to copy it (McCain used to want to give the credits away).
Once again, I'll remind people that A) prizes don't work well on the large scale, only the small; and B) $300 million is nothing compared to, for example, the $150 billion that Obama plans to spend on cleantech (funded by cap & trade)
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stevefazek 1:46AM (9/06/2008)
I say use it all. Stop using portable fuels for static energy Use static energy sources for power plants.
Dramatically increase building codes. If you think of it an extra 10 grand in building a home with energy costs these days will pay for its self in 5 years.
We need wind and solar. We need algae fuel and more natural gas for transportation
We are wasting so much money buy burying nuclear waste at yucca mountain. Its illegal to recycle nuclear waste into new product. Just because it doesn't have the energy content to fire a reactor doesn't mean its worthless.
Right now a fuel rod lasts 5 years if we kept rerefining the rods. After 5 years they are down to 80% output of a new rod that means only 20% of the rod has actually been used up.
Hell we could even store the Co2 at the bottom of the ocean if we really wanted to.
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Andy 2:23AM (9/06/2008)
Wouldn't that make the ocean fizzy?
Makes for a refreshing swim.