A modest proposal for an aggressive clean energy plan

[XemaSab]

Charge everyone 5 cents a gallon gas tax, and tack 5 bucks a month onto the electric bill for businesses and homeowners.

Put 90% of the collected money into a county fund, and send the remaining 10% off to the state or feds for redistribution into clean energy research.

Of the monies in the county fund, 80% would be spent on small-scale solar, wind, geothermal, tidal, biomass, and the like, and the other 20% would be saved up or pooled with other counties and used for large projects like commercial-scale wind, solar thermal, nukes, hydropower, and transmission lines.

The first priority would be to put solar panels (or whatever) on schools, libraries, city hall, the police station, the fire station, the DMV, and other civic buildings. Install the panels (or whatever) so that they generate half again more power than the building needs. Now the buildings will not only no longer be sending tax dollars off to the utility, but they might even be generating revenue, depending on the local utility. Also, whatever renewable energy source is chosen, the machines need to be MADE IN THE USA and installed by people who are paid union-level wages.

The second priority would be to give large-scale private commercial and industrial buildings the option to buy in. Perhaps there could be a 50/50 split or a 60/40 split with private and public funding, where the business chips in a wad of the money. Again, put more panels up (or whatever) than the building is actually using, and let the business keep the revenue so they recoup their investment faster.

The third priority would be apartment buildings and smaller businesses.

Finally, individual residences would have the option to buy in, under heavy subsidy or some form of long-term loan.


My back-of-the-envelope calculation indicates that Shasta County would have close to $3 million a year from the residential utility portion of the bill alone to spend on small-scale projects. I would imagine that would make a healthy dent in the power consumption of some of the largest users in the county within a few years.


I am aware that there are a few problems with this model.

Yes, this is the most expensive way to go about it. But we're already blowing out buckets of cash on environmental cleanup, health and safety, environmental assessment, and overseas imperialism. And then there's the non-monetary cost.

Yes, it isn't fair. Why should a homeowner pay for solar panels (or whatever) on the WalMart? Life isn't fair, and you're already paying WAY more than 5 bucks a month to keep WalMart afloat, even if you don't shop there.

Yes, at some point the cash flow is going to go sideways when people stop giving the utilities money. Oh well.

Yes, you'll still have to have base power and peakers. Even if coal power was only able to be cut by 70%, that's still a terrific thing in my book, and you can go after the other 30% later.

Yes, this doesn't solve the immediate problem of powering our cars, but the money spent on research and development plus the extra installed capacity should solve that problem down the road.

Yes, it would take a LONG time, maybe even decades, before the county was ready to cut that oily umbilical cord. But as The Boss says, "It's a long night and tell me what else were you gonna do?"

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Kringle]

2. airlines pay nothing, how about taxing the rich? .nt

[Scuba]

3. Excellent plan! Thanks for posting...

..there's an old Chinese saying that applies. "The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The second best time is today."

[depakid]

4. One thing you have to be careful with in these schemes is companies rorting the system

with projects that won't be viable. Oregon has had a lot of unfortunate experience with things like that under its various schemes.

[joshcryer]

5. Let me guess.

The deleted subthread accused the OP of being a greenwashing nukenut.

Either that, or it was a loud anti-renewable screed by our favorite nuclear guy.

[XemaSab]

6. I missed it, but there are two ways to get flamed around here:

1) Stick up for nukes.

2) Bash nukes.

I think nukes should be on the table, FWIW. But that will only happen if we have a government that's serious about tackling our energy problems.

[tinrobot]

7. Make it 50 cents a gallon, minimum

I'd also charge fees for driving in dense city centers, much like what London does. We have to make it expensive to drive.

To compensate, I'd make public transit free or nearly free to encourage people to get out of their cars.

[XemaSab]

8. The point isn't to make it expensive to drive

The point, initially, is to make the phase-in painless for consumers so that there isn't an ugly backlash.

[tinrobot]

11. When gas hit $4/gallon, hybrids sold like crazy...

As soon as the prices dropped, people started buying gas guzzlers again.

Perhaps the more specific point is making it expensive to drive oil-powered cars. Raise the price of gas, and people will have a very strong incentive to drive EVs, economy cars, and hybrids... or even better, walk, bike or take public transit.

[guardian]

9. A reasonable proposal

though one more problem with the model that you didn't mention:

I don't have confidence the money collected would actually be used for the intended purpose. Politicians are completely unreliable in reserving money for the original intended purpose; it will end up going to the "general fund." Gas taxes that are supposed to go to highway funds end up on a new sports stadium. Taxes allocated for education ends up building a bridge to nowhere. Don't get me started on the Social Security "lock box" lie.

[XemaSab]

10. This is why I think the county level would be effective

Easy to see where the money is going.

And if I was charged $5 a month for renewable energy and it went to a stadium, I'd be PISSED.

[Nederland]

12. Funding Success

The only concern I have regarding government funded research is that the allocation of funds often has no correlation with the success of the research being funded. Far too often we have seen millions even billions of dollars thrown into something long after most people have concluded it's a bad idea. Countless examples exist in military research (Star Wars anyone?), but other examples such as ethanol programs show that the problem is not unique to the military. I believe the chief reason we see this so often is that government programs develop a type of inertia where once the money starts flowing, it is hard to shut off. Ironically, the more money that is flowing into a program, the harder it is to kill. You would think that a 2 billion dollar program would have to justify its existence with hard results much more than a 2 million dollar program, but the reverse is true. After all, killing off a 2 million dollar program may merely result in a small handful of jobs lost, but killing off a 2 billion dollar program inevitably has a serious economic impact. Once a program reaches a certain size, the argument for continuing the program centers not around how effective it is, but how much it helps the "community". The discussion quickly becomes political, not scientific, because there is no way to get a politician's attention faster than to tell them that their district is going to lose X dollars and/or Y jobs.

The question I have then, is how to you ensure that funding increases for the things that are woking and decreases for things that aren't? What objective measures can you employ to determine whether a line of inquiry is producing positive results that merit an increase or decrease in funding?