To climb out of the coronavirus depression, we shouldn’t start by letting bad green deals make us poorer

[Anonymous]

Brussels has decided that making their population poorer will reverse global termperatures.



EU eyes tax as tool in climate change fight



BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Taxation will not escape the European Union's plans to curb planet-warming emissions, and levies should be revamped to reflect climate and environmental costs, the head of EU climate policy said on Monday.



Brussels is planning a far-reaching overhaul of policies including Europe's carbon market, farming subsidies and CO2 standards for cars as it seeks to slash EU emissions to 'net zero' - meaning that all emissions must be offset in full by absorption measures - by 2050.



As part of those plans, the European Commission will revise EU energy taxation rules by next summer.



However, changes to EU taxation rules need approval from all 27 member countries, making them difficult to pass.



Changes to fuel taxation in particular may face resistance from countries and companies concerned that higher carbon-based taxes will make their products more expensive, or hurt consumers - although advocates say revenues from carbon levies can be used to support vulnerable citizens and fund low-carbon projects.

https://www.reuters.com/article/climate-change-eu-tax/eu-eyes-tax-as-tool-in-climate-change-fight-idINL4N2I2328">https://www.reuters.com/article/climate ... NL4N2I2328">https://www.reuters.com/article/climate-change-eu-tax/eu-eyes-tax-as-tool-in-climate-change-fight-idINL4N2I2328

[Anonymous]

It's a long-winded article. But, to sum up, the cost of wind is not dropping, it doesn't produce as much power as a coal, natural gas or nuclear power plant, and it doesn't produce enough jobs to replace the jobs lost in better energy sources.

U.S. Offshore Wind Prospects: Overblown Promises and Blown-Up Costs



Fossil fuels are of low entropy. They are, in the technical, thermodynamic sense, highly improbable, being dense stocks of energy, the improbability of which can be rendered in a multitude of changes to the world in accordance with human wishes, improbable changes that we call wealth. And if the low-carbon candidates to replace those fossil fuels do not have similarly favorable or superior physical properties, no amount of policy support will be able to compensate for the deficiency. Nature cannot be fooled. Reality matters.



But what is the reality of renewable energy? In one of his first actions as president, Mr. Biden has expressed the wish to "double" offshore wind in the U.S. by 2030, an ambiguous phrase that probably means he and his advisers wish to see twice the current development portfolio of offshore wind capacity to be operational within a decade, or 18,000 MW rather than the present 9,000 MW in an advanced stage of preparation. The attraction is easily explained. The U.S. already has a great deal of onshore wind power, 112,000 MW, subsidized through Production Tax Credits and mostly located on and around a line running from North Dakota to Texas, a broad belt characterized by strong winds, cheapish land, and low construction costs. Unfortunately, it is also distant from the main corridors of demand on the East and West coasts. Offshore wind along the coasts therefore seems like a tempting option for expansion, but is it wise?

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/02/u-s-offshore-wind-prospects-overblown-promises-and-blown-up-costs/amp/?__twitter_impression=true&fbclid=IwAR13V7ASsd3pBrI11ujiQnPBrsdwVCETbdEmnnMCdQn9IlzgaayxJiKqjEI">https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/02/ ... ayxJiKqjEI">https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/02/u-s-offshore-wind-prospects-overblown-promises-and-blown-up-costs/amp/?__twitter_impression=true&fbclid=IwAR13V7ASsd3pBrI11ujiQnPBrsdwVCETbdEmnnMCdQn9IlzgaayxJiKqjEI