TT's Lost in Tokyo — by TokyoTom

[UPDATE:  See my follow-up post.]

Cato Unbound’s new climate issue features a lead essay by Jim Manzi, who is an MIT- and Wharton-trained statistician and CEO of Applied Predictive Technologies (which uses pattern recognition and optimization models for sales and marketing).

Manzi is a newcomer to the climate commentary scene, but has made a splash in conservatives circles over the past year or so through a series of articles in the National Review and The American Scene.  Manzi’s bio at Cato states that Manzi’s position is that “global warming, while real, is a problem of limited magnitude, deserving a proportional response, not overreaction“.

Manzi’s essay at Cato is a polished rehashing of points that he has made elsewhere, tweaked shamelessly to appeal to libertarians, as in this lead-off paragraph:

“The danger of potentially catastrophic global warming is an almost paradigmatic case of decisionmaking under conditions of extreme uncertainty.  Of course, this is just another way of saying that many of the intellectual sinews of libertarianism are central to thinking through this problem.” (emphasis added)

While the essay is worth consideration, aside from this initial mention, it is painfully evident that Manzi’s “libertarian sinews” are rather flimsy; indeed, Manzi:

•  makes no mention of basic Lockean-based libertarian principles (rights to property in one’s own person, in the fruits of one’s own labor, and in resources taken from nature when mixed with one’s own labor; and duties to abstain from harming others, from taking property of others, and to leave enough and as good for others when taking from the commons) that are relevant to environmental and public policy issues (see Rothbard; Edwin Dolan has laid an application of Lockean principles to climate change here; );

• fails to acknowledge “environmental” problems as cases where resources are not clearly or effectively owned, either individually or on a community basis, so that some economic actors do not bear the costs or risks of their actions, which costs or risks are shifted to others against their will (see Cordato; Jon Adler makes similar points here); and

• provides only a rudimentary discussion of public choice issues that, while noting both the difficulties of reaching a global agreement and that government policies to prepare for climate change may be both inefficient and hijacked special interests, disregards the possibilities that effective international steps can be taken by just a few countries and completely fails to consider the role that special interests have played to date in manipulating government policies and in protecting the “GHG emissions/risk-shifting is free” status quo.

Rather, Manzi:

(1) argues that the estimates for future damages that the IPPC derives from models appear rather modest,

(2) downplays the widespread agreement by economists (like Nordhaus) and others that standard cost-benefit analysis provides ample support for carbon pricing (particularly in the form of carbon taxes) now,

(3) argues that we cannot adequately gauge the “massive uncertainties” regarding the “danger of potentially catastrophic global warming” (addressing but failing to mention Weitzman),

(4) argues that the US should not adopt “insanely expensive” measures to “force massive change in the economy” via “rapid, aggressive emissions reductions”,

(5) lumps climate change in with other, external risks (like pandemics and rogues states, which risks, oddly, we actually try to manage), and

(6) and tones down his earlier pieces by presenting an artificially weakened case that,

“if there is a real, though unquantifiably small, possibility of catastrophic climate change, and if we would ideally want some technological hedges as insurance against this unlikely scenario, and if raising the price of carbon to induce private economic actors to develop the technologies would be an enormously more expensive means of accomplishing this than would be advisable,” (emphasis added)

THEN the government might be justified in investing in “improved global climate prediction capability, visionary biotechnology to capture and recycle carbon dioxide emissions, or geo-engineering projects to change the albedo of the earth’s surface or atmosphere”.

Manzi concludes with a mix of a case for a surprisingly large government climate program (even if “rife with inefficiencies”) and a bashing of the worst case, while ignoring the middle ground:

“But consider that its costs would be on the order of 1/100th of the costs of imposing a large U.S. carbon tax. It could be massively inefficient and we would still be far better off in actually developing the long–lead-time technologies that we would want if faced with a currently unanticipated emergency.

Hedging against the risk to future generations of potential unanticipated impacts from global warming is a legitimate job for the U.S. government. Ideally, it would be tackled by the governments of the small number of countries with a sophisticated technology development capability acting in some kind of coordinated fashion. A massive carbon tax, a cap-and-trade rationing system, and the attempt to use the government to control the evolution of the energy sector of the economy are all billed as prudent reactions to this risk, but each is the opposite: an impractical, panicky reaction unworthy of a serious government.”

I hope to address later various aspects of Manzi’s piece, but I think it is fair to conclude initially that it is not libertarian nor, ultimately, a balanced discussion, but rather a somewhat strange conservative position that we ought to worry about climate change and so the government should throw even MORE money at it, while refusing to harness markets to accomplish the research tasks Manzi wishes to fund or to ask those who are generating climate risks to internalize or shoulder any of the burden.

While this stance might please fossil fuel interests and their defenders, it’s hard to see what, exactly, in Manzi’s analysis – other than his opposition to “massive” carbon taxes – will appeal to libertarians.

Thomas Friedman has an op-ed at the New York Times that describes some of Denmark’s energy taxation and alternative energy policies.

No doubt these policies created distortions and in some ways left Denmark less wealthy than if such policies had not been adopted – particularly as high energy prices may discourage domestic industry to invest abroad – but as I have noted previously, a wide range of economists, businessmen and think tanks support carbon taxes in the US, particularly if they are accompanied by reductions in taxes on labor and capital.

My question, in connection with Friedman’s piece, is whether recycled carbon taxes, if coordinated by leading industrial nations (to reduce geographic shifts in capital investment), would decrease welfare globally?

I observe that the difficulties of coordination and enforcement make it highly unlikely that nations, absent dramatic climate change, will agree to very high carbon taxes.

I also observe that policies in the US to keep energy prices low bear some relation to both the health of the US auto industry and to our ruinous military engagements abroad.  Further, Denmark’s investments in energy independence have certainly spared it costly expenditures on foreign wars, and position it to make money as demand for clean energy grows. 

The right-wing Business & Media Institute has published a rather confused piece by Chris Horner, senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, in which Horner, while noting China’s progress along the environmental Kuznets curve (as I discuss here), prefers to wring his hands that the West, in order to deal with climate change, may feel compelled to adopt the same strong-arm approach that China has taken to trying to partially clear its filthy skies over Beijing during the Olympics. 

But Horner has his paradigms all mixed up. Environmental Kuznets curves are discussed with respect to particular countries – and for good reason, as a society’s response to externalities is largely dependent upon the particular mix of property rights and other institutions which such society may rely on to protect its people and their property from harms generated by economic activity.  But despite Horner’s worst nightmares, there is no “world government” (even as growing trade and wealth is gradually bringing different countries together and establishing a very interconnected world, a world that encourages China by allowing it to host the Olympics), much less a red-handed governing elite that can impose its will on the rest of a powerless world.

Indeed, while one might very well conceive of a global Kuznets curve, it’s quite obvious that information and transaction costs, political disunity and differences in wealth and perspective across the nations of the world make it very difficult indeed for self interested countries to reach meaningful and enforceable agreements with respect to shared resources like the atmosphere.  Even so, we are more likely to see such a political agreement or resource-management much earlier than we are to see the establishment of a unified global government that is capable of exercising a monopoly on force the way the Chinese government does.

It’s the very difficulty in reaching such agreements that underlies some of the pessimism among many that man is capable of addressing in a coordinated and meaningful way various global and regional problems, from those relating to unowned or open access resources to those relating to development and poor/kleptocratic governance (from Zimbabwe to the USA).

Further, on climate change discussions, the effort has stumbled not because of strong-arming of the kind that alarms Horner, but because Western nations have tried to craft overly sophisticated and bureaucratized trading mechanisms (based in large part on US insistence and experience) that were intended to reduce costs overall.

Accordingly, Horner’s “alarmism” is rather surprising.  One would think that the difficulties that the enviros have encountered in trying to coordinate global climate change policy would hearten Horner, who is a strong climate change skeptic, both on the science and on policy grounds.  Is Horner secretly concerned that maybe the enviros are right, and that delay on the policy front is buying us unavoidable future costs – in which case governments might decide to act with greater alacrity that they have shown to date?  If not, what is he worried about?

We’ve encountered “beam me up” Chris Horner before; as previously, I find his views to be puzzling – unless Horner, like “skeptical” scientists Pat Michaels and Chip Knappenberger, is becoming a warmer.  As Michaels and Knappenberger wrote in January:

“First off, it will take nothing short of a miracle for the 50% reduction to take place, and secondly, it probably wouldn’t stop the temperature from rising 2ºC above “natural” levels. …

“But the targets won’t come close to being met as a bits-and-pieces solution will not achieve the goal of halving current global CO2 emissions by the year 2100—much less any year before then. In fact, more than likely, these legislative efforts will not, to any noticeable degree, even begin to separate the blue and the red curves for a long time to come—far too long to avoid elevating global temperature 2 degrees above “natural” levels. 

That’s what the future holds in store. Get used to it.”

I received the following email today from Cathy Zoi, who is the CEO of Al Gore’s “Alliance for Climate Protection” and sent back the response I note further below;

Dear Tokyo,

Last week, Exxon Mobil announced record profits — at the same time that the rest of us were paying record high prices at the gas pump.

It doesn’t need to be this way. Our energy prices don’t need to be this high.

If we repower America and generate 100% of our electricity from clean sources within ten years, we can bring our energy costs down.

A lot of people are surprised when they find out how quickly we can make this transition. We’ve built a fun quiz to help show the way. How well do you know America’s energy? ou might find the answers surprising.

We can start relying on fuels that are free and abundant right here at home. Fuels like the sun and wind. Once our electricity grid is based on clean sources, we can plug in our cars, use those free energy sources, and stop paying through the nose to the oil companies.

On the day Exxon announced its record profits, I testified before the U.S. Congress. I explained that there are no technical or material impediments to achieving the goal of 100% clean electricity within ten years. The only thing missing is political will. And that’s why the We Campaign exists — to build support for solutions that can revitalize our economy and solve the climate crisis.

The average score of people who’ve taken the quiz is 63% Can you beat that? .

Cathy Zoi
CEO www.wecansolveit.org

My response?  As follows:

John P. Holdren, an MIT and Stanford-trained nuclear physicist who is professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and director of Harvard’s Woods Hole Research Center, former President and Chairman of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and consultant for the past 35 years at the Magnetic Fusion Energy Division of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory [yes, this is an appeal to authority] had a short but interesting op-ed in the August 4 Boston Globe.

I think he’s trying to be sensitive, but Holdren may come off a bit arrogant; he’s certainly insensitive to those who are concerned that government may bungle any climate “solution”.  Given his technical knowledge and experience, I hope readers will understand where he’s coming from and encourage them to read the whole thing – which really isn’t too long.

But since I have you here, allow me to quote liberally:

skeptics about [climate change] tend to move, over time, through three stages. First, they tell you you’re wrong and they can prove it. (In this case, “Climate isn’t changing in unusual ways or, if it is, human activities are not the cause.”)

Then they tell you you’re right but it doesn’t matter. (“OK, it’s changing and humans are playing a role, but it won’t do much harm.”) Finally, they tell you it matters but it’s too late to do anything about it. (“Yes, climate disruption is going to do some real damage, but it’s too late, too difficult, or too costly to avoid that, so we’ll just have to hunker down and suffer.”) …

The few with credentials in climate-change science have nearly all shifted in the past few years from the first category to the second, however, and jumps from the second to the third are becoming more frequent.

Their arguments, such as they are, suffer from two huge deficiencies.

First, they have not come up with any plausible alternative culprit for the disruption of global climate that is being observed, for example, a culprit other than the greenhouse-gas buildups in the atmosphere that have been measured and tied beyond doubt to human activities. (The argument that variations in the sun’s output might be responsible fails a number of elementary scientific tests.)

Second, having not succeeded in finding an alternative, they haven’t even tried to do what would be logically necessary if they had one, which is to explain how it can be that everything modern science tells us about the interactions of greenhouse gases with energy flow in the atmosphere is wrong.

Members of the public who are tempted to be swayed by the denier fringe should ask themselves how it is possible, if human-caused climate change is just a hoax, that:

US polls indicate that most of the amateur skeptics are Republicans. These Republican skeptics should wonder how presidential candidate John McCain could have been taken in. He has castigated the Bush administration for wasting eight years in inaction on climate change, and the policies he says he would implement as president include early and deep cuts in US greenhouse-gas emissions. …

The extent of unfounded skepticism about the disruption of global climate by human-produced greenhouse gases is not just regrettable, it is dangerous. It has delayed – and continues to delay – the development of the political consensus that will be needed if society is to embrace remedies commensurate with the challenge. The science of climate change is telling us that we need to get going. Those who still think this is all a mistake or a hoax need to think again.

(emphasis added)

Holdren is focussed on arguments regarding science, and so fails to address questions as to the efficacy of proposed solutions involving government action, which questions are of course important.

Although Austrian and libertarian observers may have very useful things to add to the policy discussion, it seems fair to say that, except for a few such as Jonathan Adler, Gene Callahan, Edwin Dolan, Sheldon Richman and Bruce Yandle, many have preferred not to discuss policy but to focus either on climate science or on the motives of those self-deluded religious, fascist creeps who think that there may be a problem.

While concerns about science and motives are perfectly legitimate, let me add a few points that Austrian “skeptics” ought to consider:

– Austrians tend to view “environmental” problems not as harms to a disembodied “environment”, but as real problems involving conflicts in individual/firm plan formation that arise because of a lack or clear or enforceable property rights in particular resources or large information, transaction or enforcement costs that make contracting difficult. 

– Are there clear or enforceable property rights with respect to emissions of GHGs, or the atmosphere or climate more generally?

– Is private contracting a practical way for individuals and firms with differing preferences as to climate or GHG emissions to meaningfully express such preferences?

– What lessons does history teach us about the exploitation of open-access resources that are not protected by accepted rules among the relevant community of users?  If there are problems with such resources, how have such problems been addressed in the past, with what degree of efficacy?

On a Mises blog thread last year, I noted:

controlled burns might of course be useful in some places, especially along the WUI (wildland-urban interface), but Randal O`Toole at Cato has done a good job showing that generally fuel accumulation is not a major factor in the increasing number and severity of fires, but climate change, and the fuels build-up argument has been one that suits the forest service`s budget desires

On that post I cited and linked to a very interesting essay by O’Toole:  The Perfect Firestorm; Bringing Forest Service Wildfire Costs under Control (Cato, April 30, 2007); allow me to post here for the interested reader a few excerpts that I consider most pertinent:

Blessed and cursed by a Congress that gives it a virtual if not literal blank check for fire protection, the Forest Service’s fire spending is out of control. … The Forest Service’s program—which consists of spending close to $300 million per year treating hazardous fuels and as much as $2 billion a year preparing for and suppressing fires—will not restore the national forests to health or end catastrophic fire in most of those forests. In many forests it may do more harm than good.

Significant structural changes in the Forest Service are essential to control fire costs. … 

The Forest Service distorts its own research and other scientific information about fire ecology to justify huge budgets for hazardous fuels reduction and fire suppression. As the next section of this paper will show, the claim that a century of fire suppression has left most western forests highly vulnerable to fire is greatly exaggerated, which means that much of the billions of dollars that the Forest Service is spending today on fire is unjustified. …

If protecting homes and other structures is the goal, only a few million acres need treatment, most of which are nonfederal land.

If fuels are not the huge problem the Forest Service claims, then what is the explanation for recent large fires and record fire seasons? A recent article in Science concluded that the reason was drought, not fuels. The authors studied fire data since 1970 and found that the greatest increases in fires have been in fire regimes III, IV, and V, “where land-use histories have relatively little effect on fire risks.” Instead of fuels, they found a strong correlation between drought and fire. “Thus, although land-use history is an important factor for wildfire risks in specific forest types (such as some ponderosa pine and mixed conifer forests), the broad-scale increase in wildfire frequency across the western United States has been driven primarily by sensitivity of fire regimes to recent changes in climate over a relatively large area.”43  Similar correlations between drought and fire have been found going back to 1931.44

Another explanation for the large fires in recent years can be found in the changes in firefighting strategies aimed at improving firefighter safety. To fight large fires, incident commanders often backburn tens of thousands of acres in an effort to create large firebreaks that wildfires cannot cross. One study of the Biscuit fire, the largest fire in Oregon history, estimated that 30 percent of the acres were burned by backburns, not the natural fire.45

All of this research—some of it done by Forest Service scientists—indicates that Forest Service leaders have greatly exaggerated the excess-fuels problem. By concentrating on this issue, they have deftly persuaded Congress to increase funding for hazardous fuel reduction in national forests from less than $8 million in 1992 to nearly $300 million in 2007. Meanwhile, because of the perceived threat of hazardous fuels, Congress has increased funding for presuppression (which the Forest Service now calls preparation) from less than $180 million per year in the early 1990s to more than $650 million per year since 2004.

(emphasis added)

FN43: 43. A. L. Westerling et al., “Warming and Earlier Spring Increase Western U.S. Forest Wildfire Activity,”
Science 313 (August 18, 2006): 943, www.tinyurl.com/2e88b9.  [This is the report that I discussed in this previous post.]

More work by O’Toole (who is also associated with The Thoreau Institute) and other libertarians on wildfires is here: http://ti.org/fire.html.

More on the climate change connection to Western wildfires is in this previous post.

http://www.env-econ.net/2008/08/krugman-on-weit.html?cid=124964832#comment-124964832

http://www.dianaswednesday.com/2008/08/uncertainty-and-climate-change/

http://www.salon.com/books/review/2007/08/29/cool_it/index1.html

http://www.env-econ.net/2008/07/its-not-over-ti.html

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2008/08/01/choosing-what-to-worry-about/

http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/science/index.html

http://wmbriggs.com/blog/2008/08/01/effectively-destroy-planet-earth-as-we-know-it/

Paul Krugman reaches the above conclusion in his August 1 New York Time op-ed, which asks “Can This Planet Be Saved?”, while discussing the latest work by economists on the cost-benefit analsys of taking action to mitigate potential climate risks – this time by Harvard`s Marty Weitzman, whose work I have discussed several times before).

The op-ed certainly shows the frustration of Krugman, who was one of more than 2500 Nobel Laureate and other economists who in 1997 signed  the “Economists’ Statement on Climate Change” that  acknowledged the conclusions of the preceding IPCC report (that man was having a discernable influence on climate), asserted the economic feasibility of greenhouse gas reductions without harming the American economy, and recommended market-based policies.  Key parts of the op-ed are the following:

What’s at stake in that fight [over environmental policy], above all, is the question of whether we’ll take action against climate change before it’s utterly too late.

It’s true that scientists don’t know exactly how much world temperatures will rise if we persist with business as usual. But that uncertainty is actually what makes action so urgent. While there’s a chance that we’ll act against global warming only to find that the danger was overstated, there’s also a chance that we’ll fail to act only to find that the results of inaction were catastrophic. Which risk would you rather run?

Martin Weitzman, a Harvard economist who has been driving much of the recent high-level debate, offers some sobering numbers. Surveying a wide range of climate models, he argues that, over all, they suggest about a 5 percent chance that world temperatures will eventually rise by more than 10 degrees Celsius (that is, world temperatures will rise by 18 degrees Fahrenheit). As Mr. Weitzman points out, that’s enough to “effectively destroy planet Earth as we know it.” It’s sheer irresponsibility not to do whatever we can to eliminate that threat.

Now for the bad news: sheer irresponsibility may be a winning political strategy.

Mr. McCain’s claim that opponents of offshore drilling are responsible for high gas prices is ridiculous — and to their credit, major news organizations have pointed this out. Yet Mr. McCain’s gambit seems nonetheless to be working: public support for ending restrictions on drilling has risen sharply, with roughly half of voters saying that increased offshore drilling would reduce gas prices within a year.

Hence my concern: if a completely bogus claim that environmental protection is raising energy prices can get this much political traction, what are the chances of getting serious action against global warming? After all, a cap-and-trade system would in effect be a tax on carbon (though Mr. McCain apparently doesn’t know that), and really would raise energy prices.

The only way we’re going to get action, I’d suggest, is if those who stand in the way of action come to be perceived as not just wrong but immoral. Incidentally, that’s why I was disappointed with Barack Obama’s response to Mr. McCain’s energy posturing — that it was “the same old politics.” Mr. Obama was dismissive when he should have been outraged.

(emphasis added)

I think that Krugman has a legitimate concern about pandering to voters on energy prices, even as Krugman`s a bit too close to the political struggle to acknowledge that environmental policies of course affect energy prices, and that “sheer irresponsibility” has been a winning political strategy for as long as – well, for as long as there have been politicians.

As I have noted elsewhere, there is an extremely wide array of opinion that carbon taxes would be the most effective and least damaging approach, and, if rebated or applied to reduce taxes on income or labor, would find long-term political support, yet politicians refuse to mention them, but instead present us with monstrous giveaways like those included in the Warner-Lieberman bill (which McCain`s bill resembles).  Heck, even Exxon, AEI, RAND and the American Council for Capital Formation have come out in favor of carbon taxes! 

Krugman explores Weitzman a little more closely in a July 29 blog post at the New York Times.  That post, and the further discussions it links to, is well worth exploring.  However, one can see Krugman`s train of thought at the very end, where he asks:

The question is, can we mobilize people to make modest sacrifices to protect against low-probability catastrophes in the distant future?

He`s obviously decided over the past few days that the way to mobilize people is to let his dander fly.  While I believe that a little more sophistication is needed, I would note that Gene Callahan, at least, has argued that swinging a moral club is an appropriate weapon, even for libertarians.  I applaud Krugman for letting not only McCain but also Obama feeling some of his lash.

I note that there are some commentators already wringing their hands over Krugman`s moralizing, but they very curiously fail to comment on the very real rent-seeking (and climate risk-shifting) and PR manipulation by fossil fuel interests that lies at the core of the policy deadlock.

PS:  Some of my thoughts on the current policy deadlock are as follows:

– many fossil fuel firms want to be compensated – in the form of new pork for gigantic and iffy “clean coal” projects – for budging from their current free ride on our common atmosphere;

– fossil fuel interests, including their customer chain, have great political pull in both parties (for example, nobody is yet willing to let American car manufacturers suffer their deserved fate, and Byrd and Rockefeller have alotof pull);

– financial firms – other than insurers – all looking for a cap and trade scheme, so they can profit from carbon trading;

– many firms who see opportunities in new technologies are busy fighting for advantage in the draft legislation; 

– not least, politicans are looking for legislation that promises the greatest flow of pork and campaign contributions, and have little interest in being open or hoinest with taxpayers;

– Democrats have little stomach for leadership – at least until the American people finish hanging the Republican party over its disastrous foreign policy and obvious corruption;

– there are considerable opportunities for policies that improve our tax system and regulation of energy resources and infrastructure.  I look for Republicans to start offering them after they have completely squandered their turn at the wheel of state, and are locked again into minority status in Congress.

I previously noted Gene Callahan`s interesting essay, “How a Free Society Could Solve Global Warming”, in the October 2007 issue of The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty, at the website of The Foundation for Economic Education (FEE).

While I haven`t yet taken the time to review on these pages all of Callahan`s arguments, one of his points that deserves prominent mention – and is particularly salient today – is that public moral pressure is a perfectly appropriate way by which concerned citizens, acting in the market of public opinion, can inflluence behavior that generates externalities:

Even when economic transactions generate so-called negative
externalities (activities that shower harms on third parties), I still
contend that the free market is the best institution for identifying
and reducing the problems.

One way negative externalities can be addressed without turning to
state coercion is public censure of individuals or groups widely
perceived to be flouting core moral principles or trampling the common
good, even if their actions are not technically illegal. Large, private
companies and prominent, wealthy individuals are generally quite
sensitive to public pressure campaigns.

To cite just one recent, significant example, Temple Grandin, a
notable advocate for the humane treatment of livestock, asserts that
McDonald’s is the world leader in improving slaughterhouse conditions.
While many executives at the fast-food giant genuinely may be concerned
with the welfare of cattle, pigs, and chickens, undoubtedly a strong
element of self-interest is also at work here, as the company realizes
that corporate image affects consumers’ buying decisions.

But that self-interest does not negate the laudable outcome of the
pressure McDonald’s has applied to its suppliers to meet the stringent
standards it has set for animal-handling facilities. Similarly, to the
degree that the broad public regards manmade global warming as a
serious problem, companies will strive to be seen as “good corporate
citizens” that are addressing the matter.

(emphasis added, of course)

On July 17, Al Gore challenged our nation to produce “100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and truly carbon-free sources within 10 years“.

Ron Bailey, science correspondent of Reason online, has examined whether Gore’s proposal is at all practically achievable.  Bailey reviews the main options mentioned by Gore (solar, wind and geothermal) and the chief option implied but unmentionable – nuclear power – and concludes that low ball estimates of the costs for realizing Gore’s target are on the scale of $1 trillion to $6 trillion, with nuclear being by far the cheapest.  Concludes Bailey:

Curiously, nowhere does the “N-word”—nuclear—appear in Gore’s speech. Currently, 104 nuclear power plants generate about 20 percent of America’s electricity. Once a nuclear plant is up and running, it is essentially carbon-free. Westinghouse claims that it can build a third generation 1,000 megawatt nuclear power plant for around $1.4 billion. Assuming this estimate is right, all U.S. carbon-emitting electricity generation plants could be replaced with nuclear power at a cost of about $1.2 trillion by 2018. …

“Of course there are those who will tell us this can’t be done,” warned Gore. I am not one of those people. I am sure it can be done. But before embarking on his “generational challenge to re-power America,” I would like the former vice-president to sketch out a few more details on how it’s going to be paid for and who’s going to be stuck with the bill.

These numbers – roughly on the scale of our out-of-pocket and committed costs for our Iraq and Afghanistan adventures (largely corporate welfare for the defense/logistics industry, good friends of Republicans) – help us get a bit of a handle on the opportunity costs of those wars, which have undermined rather than improved our security and jacked up oil costs.

Bailey also comments on the costs of shifting our automobile fleet to one that is powered by electricity.

Bailey’s piece is here: “Al Gore’s Curiously Cost-Free Plan to Re-Power America“.