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A leading economist explains why a carbon tax is the best strategy for cutting greenhouse gases and the use of fossil fuels. — Many economists argue that painful though it might be to consumers, the best way to address climate change is to put a "price" on carbon dioxide and other carbon-based emissions, thereby making fossil fuels more expensive and alternative energy sources more competitive. Over the last several years, Gilbert Metcalf, an economist at Tufts University [and research associate of the MIT Global Change Program], has calculated the costs and consequences of such a policy. In the January/February issue of Technology Review he explains why a carbon tax is a good idea. More...
Will putting a price on carbon increase the use of renewables? — The cheapest way to reduce carbon dioxide emissions is probably to put a price on them. One way to do that is a direct tax. Another is a cap-and-trade system, where the government sets an overall cap on emissions, but individual businesses trade emission allowances. But surprisingly, a carbon penalty may do little to increase reliance on renewable energy or reduce petroleum consumption.
Putting a price on carbon would certainly reduce the use of conventional coal-fired power plants. Coal emits more carbon dioxide than other fossil fuels, and its price would more than double. But natural gas would see only a modest change in price: in the short term, it would probably replace coal as the chief source of power. Oil prices wouldn't change much, either.
But unless the costs of wind and solar power come down or nuclear energy proves politically viable, the cheapest way to reduce emissions in the long term would be to capture carbon dioxide from coal plants and sequester it underground, according to a study by MIT's Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change. If the goal is to increase the use of renewable energy, says Sergey Paltsev, principal research scientist at the MIT joint program, governments may have to mandate its use.
More... in the January/February 2009 issue of Technology Review
'Partial capture' of emissions could be near-term move — Construction of new coal-fired power plants in the United States is in danger of coming to a standstill, partly due to the high cost of the requirement -- whether existing or anticipated -- to capture all emissions of carbon dioxide, an important greenhouse gas. But an MIT analysis suggests an intermediate step that could get construction moving again, allowing the nation to fend off growing electricity shortages using our most-abundant, least-expensive fuel while also reducing emissions. Instead of capturing all of its CO2 emissions, plants could capture a significant fraction of those emissions with less costly changes in plant design and operation, the MIT analysis shows. More...
Researchers at MIT's Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research have produced a report concerning key design issues of proposed "cap-and-trade" programs that are under consideration in the United States as a way of curbing greenhouse gas emissions. The first contribution of the three-part study found that, based on an examination of the European Union's system and of similar U.S. programs for other emissions, such a program can indeed be effective in reducing emissions without having a significant economic impact. "The European experience confirms much of what has been learned from similar U.S. systems for other emissions, namely, that cap-and-trade systems can be constructed, that markets emerge to facilitate trading, that emissions are reduced efficiently, and that the effects on affected industries are less than predicted," said A. Denny Ellerman, the study's lead author and a senior lecturer in the MIT Sloan School of Management. More...
According to a team led by MIT researchers, the amount of methane in Earth's atmosphere shot up in 2007, bringing to an end a period of about a decade in which atmospheric levels of the potent greenhouse gas were essentially stable. Methane levels in the atmosphere have more than tripled since pre-industrial times, accounting for around one-fifth of the human contribution to greenhouse gas-driven global warming. Until recently, the leveling off of methane levels had suggested that the rate of its emission from the Earth's surface was approximately balanced by the rate of its destruction in the atmosphere. However, since early 2007 the balance has been upset, according to a paper on the new findings published in Geophysical Research Letters (view abstract).
The paper's lead authors, postdoctoral researcher Matthew Rigby and Ronald Prinn, the TEPCO Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry in MIT's Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, say this imbalance has resulted in several million metric tons of additional methane in the atmosphere. In addition to Rigby and Prinn, the study was carried out by researchers at Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), Georgia Institute of Technology, University of Bristol and Scripps Institution of Oceanography. These methane measurements come from the Advanced Global Atmospheric Gases Experiment that is supported by NASA and the CSIRO network. More...
MIT has announced the launch of the Environmental Research Council to elevate and expand the Institute's leadership in this critical area of study. The goal is to create a robust Institute-wide collaboration comparable to the MIT Energy Initiative. Global Change Program participants on the council include professors Entekhabi (chair of the council), Prinn, Greenstone, Chisholm, Marshall, and Sterman.
A group of MIT-affiliated cyclists hope to fuel themselves from New York to Washington in a few weeks to raise awareness -- and money -- for climate change initiatives. The nine graduate students, researchers and friends are all planning to take part in the Climate Ride 2008, a five-day, 320-mile ride from the Big Apple to the nation's capital that symbolizes the nation's need to get out of the car.
Richard Schmalensee takes over as Director of the MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research (CEEPR) as of September 2008. Most recently, Prof. Schmalensee served as the Dean of MIT's Sloan School of Management from 1998 through 2007. He had a previous stint as the Director of CEEPR from 1991 to 1999.
Sloan's Sterman sees flawed reasoning at root of problem.
Why is the general public not more concerned about the potential consequences of climate change? For many risks, such as the risk of a plane crash, the public is far more fearful than the evidence shows, observes John Sterman, the Jay W. Forrester Professor of Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management. But on the issue of climate, he notes, the situation is just the opposite.
Says policy-making requires ambitious short-term goals.
Long-term climate change policy in the United States and abroad is likely to change very slowly, warns an MIT professor who says the lack of future flexibility argues for stronger short-term goals to reduce carbon emissions.
ESD Assistant Professor Mort David Webster has been named Principal Investigator of a $750,000 grant from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Human and Social Dynamics Program. The grant's other investigators are Henry D. Jacoby, Co-Director of the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Climate Change; Karen Fisher-Vanden and Chris Forest of Penn State University; and David Popp of Syracuse University and the National Bureau of Economic Research. Titled "Collaborative Research: An Improved Model of Endogenous Technical Change Considering Uncertain R&D Returns and Uncertain Climate Response," the three-year research project to be undertaken by Professor Webster and his colleagues will counter previous models used in climate change studies that fail to take into account critical uncertainties, particularly in regard to the research and development of improved energy technologies.