1) Solar power is not anywhere close to the same cost-effectiveness for people who don't live in a very, very sunny area.
Solar power is roughly equal to coal (and ahead of nuclear) including the cost of finance. I can tell you this as a certified solar panel installer and my best friend can confirm this as someone who has worked for one of the largest energy trading firms on the east coast and has seen their cost evaluations over time. Five years ago, solar wasn't competitive with coal outside of niche roles. At this very moment, right now, solar is reaching the point where it is competitive with coal in major markets.
But there's a catch, there are large, powerful utilities that control the energy market and they have no interest in having their existing capacity shut down. They want to keep their plants going and they have scales of efficiency on their side. So we need a kick to raise the price of coal power by 30% or so. That means that the big utilities can't fight it anymore, or they will lose their market share to new utilities.
And that would be a fantastic thing. Our economy sucks right now because nobody is investing. Know what would be a great investment? Putting up solar panels all across the country. It would save money in the long run and put us to work right now.
1) Your livelihood depends on solar panels being a desirable commodity. That means that you are at least unconsciously biased in favor of them, and may well find them ideologically attractive, which isn't a help to your creditability. Sorry, but that hurts your argument.
2) Current solar is heavily subsidized by government at several points. It is cost-effective currently in a $/watt consideration, including government subsidies, over a long period of time. That doesn't count the unpredictability of it which makes it much more expensive and perhaps completely unfeasible as a part of infrastructure. It also doesn't count the true market cost of it, and the fact that the US governments are penniless makes rebates much less attractive.
2a) Solar power does not work 100% of the time and isn't very predictable, and battery technology isn't to the point where that's a cost-effective way to make up the difference. Same problems apply to wind. Geothermal has completely different issues, and I think is something worth looking into because it can be a very stable source of power (although capital costs can be higher). You're really underestimating the importance of reliability for infrastructure in general, and electric infrastructure in particular, and how the lack of reliability raises the cost of solar power.
3) Building new things takes money, and time, and space, as breadbocks has pointed out. It's part of the reason I'm opposed to corn ethanol, because it causes an artificial food shortage when millions of people go hungry every day (it also takes more energy to produce a gallon of corn ethanol than the gallon contains, and I object to giving more power to an already incredibly powerful lobby that has done very selfish things, but those aren't sustainability related). Solar is only cost-effective if it's the same cost, not if it's the same cost in 10 years after all of the capital investments have been fully earned out. Capital projects cost money. Most people and businesses still can't afford it, or don't live in situations and places where it's a technologically and financially feasible option.
4) You're totally right that utilities have a lot of power (yes, that's a pun). And they'll use that power for renewable energy the second it becomes a better option than coal or gas. Natural gas is being adopted where it's a better option. Solar is being adopted in the circumstances where it's a better option, wind is in the limited circumstances where it works, and I think we need to give geothermal another look, but that's also growing. Powerful companies are not something that needs to be stopped at all costs; they aren't the enemy. The enemy is making irrational decisions that aren't based on reality. Powerful companies will throw their power behind something as soon as it makes financial sense. The fact that some companies don't throw their power behind a certain initiative suggests that some things about it don't make financial sense, and that's worth more of an exploration than "Evil company! Regulate!"
5) No, forcing people to invest if ideologically driven initiatives is never good for an economy. All forced investments are funded by money removed from a more efficient use to a less efficient use. Letting people choose where to invest their money is the best way to get rational, effective progress.
6) The US economy is severely hurt right now, for more and deeper reasons than a lack of investment, which I would argue is happening, simply not in the areas of the market that pundits like to look at. One factor for lack of traditional investment is uncertainty, which raises whenever the government intervenes. More government intervention will raise uncertainty and lower investment, because government doesn't intervene based on economically rational motives and thus isn't predictable like businesses and consumers. This isn't a new phenomenon; it's something that's fairly well known.
So this isn't just Coal Vs. Green, nuclear is there too.
Taxes always have some degree of arbitrariness, which is exacerbated with carbon taxes. Essentially a carbon tax is a tax on the natural by-products of a process, so not only do people feel like they are being charged for a natural right, they also feel that this charge is arbitrary and has no basis in their actions. Carbon taxes also violate established principles (at least in my area) of natural resources not being scarce (and therefore, you can't charge people for breathing on your property, etc. You'd like me to be kidding, but this has been tried). Worse yet, it's not something that's clear and obvious, so people are going to perceive (reasonably, I think) the government as removing something from them for unacceptable reasons. I can't speak for the situation in Australia specifically, but I think at least some of the same reactions would apply.
Whoa there buddy, this isn't exactly a window tax. If a company was polluting into the sea, I would tell them to stop that shit. If they then explained why this was the safest way of deposing of a chemical that was a by product of producing a rather important good, I would ask them to do the best they could to minimise dumping into the sea, and throw a tax at them to encourage it. The atmosphere is the same deal. Polluting is not in any way shape or form a right.
Polluting as you've used it is a nonsense term. If you mean disregarding natural laws and treating the earth as an infinite resource, I agree that this shouldn't occur. That's also completely irrelevant to what I was saying.
If you mean, putting something unnatural into a place that can't handle it effectively through natural processes, I'm going to laugh. Carbon, methane and similar chemicals are natural substances, which can be dealt with by natural processes. They're supposed to be in the atmosphere to keep the earth livable. We may be dumping too much at one time, but we don't know what effect that has on a system as complex as the earth's, and we don't know that the climate is even changing permanently or if this is simply nature's RNG throwing some wild years, or if there's solar activity which is causing changes... We don't understand the earth's climate and we're trying to control it. That's short-sighted and childish.
What I said was that carbon taxes try to enforce a tenuous link that is not easily apparent or easily provable, and that it imposes a burden on using something that is and should be free from economic scarcity to prevent abuses by the powerful, because if it's considered a scarce resource someone will start trying to charge people for it. In fact, the government is right now.
EDIT: For grammar, to put 'easily' in front of 'provable' and clarify my point about people manipulating access to vital resources.
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Topic: A carbon tax! (Read 5016 times)