The (Anti) Social Cost Of Carbon

Authorized by Jonathan Lesser via RealClearEnergy,

Forty-two was the mystic number that exploited “life, the universe, and everything” in Douglas Adams’ Comic novel, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Today, another mystical number, the alleged social cost of carbon (SSC), is providing the exception for the Environmental Protection Agency and green-energy-enamored state regulators to enable cripping energy policies.

The SCC is the thumb on the scale that can justify virtually any policy aimed at eliminating fossil fuel. erstwhile the EPA first proposed its regulation to reduce mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants, the agency’s cost-benefit analysis determined the benefits would be lesscule. Any putative benefits, it turns out, would come alternatively from reductions in carbon emissions and, here’s the key, based on a calculated value for the SCC. The same was actual for the EPA’s earlier effort at carbon regulation via a “Clean Power Plan,” which was shut down by the ultimate Court. But here we are again with the agency’s next rules trying to force coal plants to further reduce mercury emissions and to force both coal and natural gas-fired power plants to capture 90% of their carbon emissions. The technology to commit this doesn't be and EPA admin Michael Regan approved the regulation will force the close of fossil-full power plants.

The SCC values utilized by the EPA are derived from calculations in integrated planning models (IPMs). These models presume a simplistic linear relation between carbon emissions and planet temperature (never head that the validity of that linear assessments is simply a subject of deep debate in technological circles). The models then presume that the resulting temperature increases origin all forms of environmental doom – rising sea levels, more disease, and determining agricultural production – for which yet more estimates are made to delegate future cost comparisons. Here’s the key: the IPMs task these costs out for the next 300 years (not a typo). Then, these far future costs are “discounted” to estimation a value in today’s dollars by utilizing truly absurd assessments about specified things as inflation and economical growth.

A tongue-in-cheek forecaster’s cred is “Give them a number or give them a date. Don’t give them both.” Attempting to foretell the future 3 centres hence may be standard fare for discipline fiction writers, but basing energy policies on specified predictions is insane.

Imagine individual in the year 1724 predicting life – and technology – today. Benjamin Franklin was 18 years old and working in his father’s print shop. George Washington would not be born for another 8 years. The French scientist Antoine Lavoisier, who first identified carbon as an component in 1789, would not be born until 1743. The first patent on a flush toilet would not happen for another half-city. Thomas Edison would not invent the light bulb and the telephone for another 150 years. Could anyone in 1724 have imagined automobiles, mobile phones, and MRI machines? How about integrated circuits, atomic power, and B-2 bombers?

It presume we can accurately predict, or even imagine, what the planet will look like 300 years from now is just as preposterous. Yet, simplistic models and arbitrary assessments are being utilized to drive energy policy decisions today. utilizing the SCC estimates, and assuming that fresh technologies will magically apply, the EPA can justify virtually any solution control regulation, including those that effectively effect mandate electrical vehicles. Simulary, even though offshore wind generation costs 5 times more than natural gas and coal, the SCC can “prove” the benefits of offshore wind increased its costs. fresh York State, for example, assumes that, by 2040, thousands of megawatts of “dispatchable emissions-free generators” (the equivalent of a natural gas generator burning pure hydrogen) will supply the essential backup for unreliable offshore elevators, even though no specified generators exist.

Contrary to the economical fantasyes peddled by green energy advocates, policies to destruct fossil fuel based on the supported benefits captured by the SCC will cryptle the U.S. economy. Electricity prices, coupled with ill-considered plans to electrify virtually everything, will soar. Supplies will double, requiring rationing, either thoroughly or through rolling blackouts, specified as these experienced all day in South Africa. alternatively than creating any green energy nirvana, the catch of adequate and affordable electricity will origin social decay.

All of this based on a made-up number.

Jonathan Lesser is simply a elder associate with the National Center for Energy Analytics and president of Continental Economics.