Slashdot Mirror
Americans Happy To Pay More For Clean Energy, But Only a Little More
Fluffeh writes "A recent study of over 1,000 folks for a paper published in Nature Climate Change has found that the average U.S. citizen is inclined to pay a premium to ensure that by 2035, 80% of U.S. power comes from clean energy. At random, respondents received one of three "technological treatments" or definitions of clean energy that included renewable energy sources alone, renewable sources plus natural gas, and renewable sources plus nuclear power. Delving into the socioeconomics, researchers found that Republicans, Independents, and respondents with no party allegiance were less likely by 25, 13 and 25 percentage points respectively to support a NCES than respondents that identified themselves as Democrats."
Often absent from these discussions, and before the usual flamewars start, are solar power satellites, such as the ones JAXA is developing. This technology, while it may seem a bit blue sky at the moment is coming very much economically within our grasp over the next decade. All of the energy we need is flying right at us free of charge from the biggest nuclear reactor in the solar system, we just need to take advantage of it.
NCES = national clean energy standard. Not that you'd want to clarify that in the summary or anything.
My webcomic
People started using less energy to go green, my power company jacked up rates. My power company invested in a wind farm and jacked up my rates. Power companies are always looking for a reason to raise rates, and many people don't have the ability to install solar panels.
You could also say: Americans willing to donate money to the poor, but only a little bit of money.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I mean, once you've built the gathering mechanism, isn't the point of renewable that you're not paying for the fuel?
The price of "going green" can't exceed the perceived benefit. I didn't start buying to new CFL light bulbs until the price dropped significantly. Slowly but surely, I'm replacing most of the bulbs in my house. I can't do all of them though, because they don't fit in all of our fixtures, which is the next thing they need to work on.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Nice Try Cobra Commander... I saw that episode back when I was a kid. You just want a number of WMDs up there to use as weapons against GI Joe.
as fossil fuel prices go up, as they must eventually. Of course, a rise in fossil fuel costs will cause a rise in manufacturing and transport costs for renewable energy generating equipment as well.
I can't work out whether that is a good argument for investing in renewables now, while the cost is low, or waiting until the cost differential justifies it.
If you ask McDonalds customers if they'd like to see more salads and healthy choices they'll say, "Yes, of course!"
But ... when McDonalds put them on the menu they keep right on buying burgers and fries.
Moral: People answering surveys tend to idealize.
No sig today...
Here in UK, our DoE-equivalent have computed on-shore wind as being close enough to coal - and we're running out of coal, so I'm guessing it will be marginally cheaper in few years.
I gladly pay MORE for clean energy. I went out and bought and installed solar connected to a grid tie inverter. But in reality I end up paying less because it significantly reduces my electrical bill as it runs the meter backwards during the day. In the middle of the summer with the AC cranking it makes up for 1/2 the electricity I use for the AC. so it will pay it's self back in about 3 more years. after that it's free money.
unfortunately most of my fellow countrymen are not smart enough to handle their money and do this. I have had friends look at me and not understand the whole payback thing. they get stuck on the "You paid $5000 to put solar on your house and you will pay an electric bill?" They cant understand that monthly bill reduction = money saved.
Which makes me sad, I though I had smarter friends.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
governments should tax at a rate equal to the externality costs
Two problems with that: 1) Nobody can accurately determine the externality cost, and 2) Nobody trusts the government to spend that money appropriately.
Basically this proposal is a suggestion to arbitrarily raise the cost of energy, and let whatever political party is in power choose which energy source is subsidized the most. We've already seen how well that works; no thanks.
The oil industry is heavily subsidized by the US taxpayer via our massive military presence and operations in the Middle East. Exxon-Mobil and Chevron's shareholders don't pay that... taxpayers do.
Do conservatives ever even mention that? No, they don't.
I think the $0.31 per gallon that I pay should cover it. If not, consider that every single product I buy is transported to the store I bought is also using fuel, which is taxed, which I pay indirectly. Of course, all those products are made from parts, pieces and ingredients that had to be shipped to whoever made that product, which I also paid the tax for. Then, of course, there is my federal income taxes that are also used to fund our military presence in the Middle East and elsewhere, that ensure that I can put gas in my tank which is required to get me to work, my kids to school, and allows my family to have the occasional family outing. You know, actually live free and enjoy that freedom.
Although, it would be better if we could produce our own energy. Then we could tell those in the Middle East to pound sand and let the fund their own militaries. But then you have to find a way around the people protesting that producing our own energy might cause moose to stop fucking. Not that any of these people have ever seen a moose or have bothered to travel to places they have convinced themselves will be completely destroyed. Nor have they bothered to simply do the math and realize that some of these refuges are larger than most states and producing energy from these places would have the environmental impact of building a library in Wisconsin. Of course, they also refuse to consider that environmental impact from our heavily monitored and regulated drilling practices at home are much less than the impact from places that ruled by a prince or king or self appointed leader for life.
No. What these people want is for us to live like farmers from the 1700's, only without wood burning or producing livestock. They want us to grow our own food to share with the bugs and rodents that will decimate our crops and lead us to the brink of starvation. Of course, I need to stress that THEY want US to live that way. They will continue to live in their climate controlled apartments and drive their cars to and fro because they recycle the vitamin water bottles they drink, so they are OK. Is us that is the problem. Not them. /rant
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
I choose to pay about 25% more for my electricity to have 100% renewable. The extra $20 a month isn't a big deal to me, and while I'm not a dirty enviro-hippy, I do think its a matter of being responsible. I can afford to pay extra for it, so I do.
People choosing to do things like that (buy clean electricity, the people who bought the early hybrid cars, people buying the pure electric and extended range electric cars etc) help to fund the growth of the technology where it can become ubiquitous. (Or, as another example, the people who pay $250k for a ride on Virgin Galactic -- its all the same.)
A few years back I spent some time in Romania. My first impression of the country was "Miami without emissions controls". Everyone smoked in Romania at the time, and outside there was the constant smell of diesel exhaust. By the end of a week there my lungs actually hurt. After that, I appreciate the achievement that someplace like Downtown New York City has made in having breathable air. I wonder if you asked citizens of Beijing if they'd be willing to pay more for energy in exchange for significantly improved air quality, how many of them would say yes.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Isn't that one of the disaster buttons? Right next to the Monster attacks?
That $0.31 does not cover it. It is cute that you think it should, but it does not. Your taxes do not cover it either, note the deficit.
We actually get most of our oil from Canada, Mexico the USA and South America. The middle east has to be controlled to keep world market prices stable. The fact that you are ignorant of such a basic fact explains most of the rest of your nonsense. I have lived in Alaska, the current pipeline changed the environment dramatically. Caribou will stay around the warmed pipes in the winter. This changes their survival rates and has a large impact on the environment. Moose are not found in those areas as pipe lines are not normally built over the swamps and in the forests they prefer. Again we see your ignorance. Those refuges only hold enough oil for months of US use. They should be kept until we actually need them.
No one wants to live in the 1700s, they just want you to stop pretending that we can keep doing what we are doing now forever.
In short your rant only exposes you as ignorant and nothing more.
You might be interested in this infographic.
http://www.landartgenerator.org/blagi/archives/127
As it turns out, the world is remarkably large.
Why would someone go to MacD to get salads?
Because their friends who like burgers are also going there for lunch. The ability to placate the healthy eater or vegeterian in a lunch group has become vital to the lunch menu, particularly in urban business areas. If you don't have these items, you get Veto'd by one person out of six, and you lose the whole group to some place the one can settle for.
Instead of playing a game of "who do I believe", why don't you use your own head and figure it out for yourself? Figuring out the relative cost and benefits of space solar energy is elementary.
Yeah, it's not exactly rocket science. Wait...
Going to McDonalds for a salad is like going to a hooker for a hug.
I see your infographic and raise you a Randall:
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/plugged-in/2011/11/22/xkcd-the-cost-of-electricity/
If one chose to set up camp in the beam for years on end I couldn't guarantee there'd be no ill effects... :D
I pay extra income tax to send my country's military forces halfway around the world, to provide security for privately-owned oil tankers full of privately-owned oil to pass through the Persian Gulf. I pay extra income tax in order to provide non-humanitarian "foreign aid" to several other governments in the oil-rich area, just to keep them (somewhat) friendly.
Even if I opt out of using subsidized oil, I don't get to opt out of paying for the subsidy. Why would I pay even more to subsidize Yet Another competing energy source? (Well, ok, let's not get fanatical about that .. I understand that we've all come to an agreement to subsidize coal by allowing the plants that burn it to dump their CO2 into the public atmosphere as an externality (there's the subsidy) instead of making them plant forests to soak it up, but coal isn't really a direct competitor to oil; it's used differently so by subsidizing both, I'm not really paying to back two sides against each other, which would be silly.)
Can we just get the Central Committee's existing government-planned subsidy payments transferred? Why does the politburo always go with oil and coal in their five year plans? I'd be willing to do a subsidy re-assignment, at least short-term. (Long-term.. well, actually I'm unsure about the wisdom of even having a Central Committee and all this economic planning, but that's another topic.)
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
For starters, not all of our interests in the Middle East are oil based. For example, Bahrain has no oil. Bahrain exports things like aluminum. The US Navy's 5th Fleet is also based there. That fleet costs the US taxpayer 10s of billions of dollars. The US Navy 5th Fleet is that massive naval force you allude to that protects our interests in the Middle East. Note the cost; 10's of billions of dollars.
The US uses roughly 386,000,000 gallons of gasoline a day. At a tax of $0.31/gallon, that is $119,660,000 in tax revenue. Multiply that by 365 days a year and the US receives $43,675,900,000 per year from gasoline taxes. The US also uses about 60 billion gallons of diesel each year which calculate to roughly $18 billion in tax revenue per year ($0.30/gallon). So the US receives about $62 billion per year from gasoline taxes alone, which is plenty to fund the 5th Fleet, especially when you consider the taxes paid when cars are sold, various taxes paid by the companies that make cars and components. And, of course, all those "leases" you hear about where "big oil" wants to drill on government land are not free. The government gets a percentage per barrel. Now, granted, the domestic oil production is not in the Middle East, but like you said, "The middle east has to be controlled to keep world market prices stable".
So, yeah! The cost of patrolling the waters of the Mid East is more than covered by our gasoline and diesel taxes alone. Also note that oil is not the only interest we have in the region. It's a big one, sure, but not the only one.
Don't like my numbers? THIS site says the following:
The cost of securing our access to Middle East oil - deploying U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf, patrolling its water and supplying military assistance to Middle East countries - is estimated at $50 billion per year, which adds additional dimes to each gallon of gasoline we purchase.
But you say:
That $0.31 does not cover it. It is cute that you think it should, but it does not. Your taxes do not cover it either, note the deficit.
Um... Given the numbers above, it appears that it really DOES cover it and then some. It's cute that you are so quick to call me ignorant.
Moose are not found in those areas as pipe lines are not normally built over the swamps and in the forests they prefer.
It appears they "prefer" the pipelines.
Again we see your ignorance. Those refuges only hold enough oil for months of US use. They should be kept until we actually need them.
Well, for starters, we won't extract and refine it all at once. And to be fair, I'm fully aware of the impact drilling will have on prices. If I had it my way, we'd tax it as a condition of permission to drill there and use the money to invest in renewables. For example, a $10/barrel tax times the billions of barrels in ANWR alone would be more than enough to not just fund, but INCREASE the amount of money funding our fusion research.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Don't act as if purchasing decisions by the average consumer are based on calm deliberation and rational thought, because most often they are not. Most purchasing decisions are based in large part on subconscious impulses and emotions. Basing public policy on how consumers make purchasing decisions will result in irrational policy.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
After my IT consulting company cratered under the weight of the economy, I got involved with an Energy Supply Company, that I will not spam you with. Now that I've gathered a few hundred customers, who are all given the option of having their bills go down using traditional energy sources or having their bills go up using Green-e Certified energy (wind power here in NY) exactly ZERO chose to pay an extra $0.02 per KWh to go green.
This cannot be reinforced enough, humans only have so much mental bandwidth. We have habits and routines that don't require significant mental effort, freeing up "cycles" to deal with more demanding tasks, and when your life is stable it is very hard for people to continue to override those subconscious programs.
I was recently at a pediatric subspecialty conference (Yes, I'm an MD, thus my anony-mouse posting) and in a section on childhood obesity, a recent paper was briefly discussed. They looked at the ability of people to make "healthy" choices with and without distractions. I can't find the paper now (Not at my desk) but, IIRC, when people only had to choose a healthy meal, without any other distractions or tasks, most people could make "healthy" choices. But with a task as simple as remembering a sequence of random numbers, a significant number of subjects wouldn't make the "healthy" choice. They just couldn't free up the bandwidth to do so. Which puts a spin on the obesity epidemic, doesn't it?
I know *I've* had countless situations where I've made the "easy" choices, or the "quick" choice because I was stressed or distracted or busy, rationalizing that "it's just this once, it's not worth the effort," and I'm (damn me but this will sound arrogant) far better positioned to make smart choices than the average consumer. Discarding modesty (which is hard, because I have a hard time *believing* this about myself) I'm rather clever, financially comfortable (Doing the math, I'm damn near the accursed "1%"), with little debt, a stable job, a beloved spouse in a stable relationship, I'm frankly one of the BEST people in the world to make smart, well thought out, well planned decisions.
And I still screw it up, more often than not. My wife and I are a good team, and we can catch a lot of bad decisions between the two of us, but we are, frankly, a rare pairing.
When you look at the "average" citizen and the amount of money and effort that is spent to bypass or just plain wear down their psychological defenses and routines, we don't have a damn chance. SOMETHING else has got to change, because people are people. Wonderful, irritating, brilliant, stupid people.
Look up the book "Who Really Cares?"
Conservatives are more generous than liberals in all sorts of categories. Donating time to charities to donating blood.
The cause seems to be that when you think it is the government's responsibility to help people, you are less willing to help people. Personally, I think focusing on the government being the main source of help turns people into greedy narcissists only concerned about how much they are getting. You don't have to worry about helping others because it isn't your responsibility.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
The tax you pay is for roads, numbnuts.
The $0.31 does not get sent to the DOD. If you want to double the tax and use that to pay for the Middle East adventures, I fully support that.
My roads are funded through my state. That means the additional state levied gasoline taxes are used to pay for roads along with my registration, property and sales taxes. The only roads the federal government are responsible for are interstates, and even then the states pay for part of that.
No taxes get sent straight to the DOD. Unfortunately, they all go into a giant pot that everyone raids. My point was that the gasoline taxes that are paid into the system are greater than what is taken out to patrol the mid east waters. The rest goes into the pot and I'm sure some of that is used to pay for interstates.
And my nuts have feeling, although that should be none of your concern.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
then you rapidly become a group of '5' that can go anywhere to eat a nice lunch.
Are the other 4 guys assholes too?
Well, it isn't like most Americans have a choice in that...you pretty much 'have' to have a car to get around and function reasonably in this society. I don't even look at the price on the gas pump, it is just as much a basic need for my daily functioning as eating or drinking water is. No...I won't die immediately if I don't have gas to drive...but I will be in trouble eventually when I can't get to the store and back with food...and mostly, if I lose my job and cannot support myself...well....
Gas and a car are just pretty much basic of life in the US, and you just pay what you have to to keep living and being productive.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
The you should keep them out of the sun.. really you should keep then at 0K.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The other thing is that for a lot of people, it isn't a matter of being "fucking picky" as trying to show respect for the God that you believe in. At our company we have Hindus, Muslems, Sikhs, and just your garden variety vegeterains and health nuts, and we typically all go out together.
If you alienate all of these people, eventually they'll quit. A company like mine will hire the best of them, and eventually we'll put you out of business if you are a competitor of ours.
Your gas tax has nothing to do with 'paying for the war'.
Add a buck then it might start to take care of it.
Ha, every time we go to war, maybe the price of gas should be taxed an additional dollar a gallon to pay for it. That will have people seriously thinking about going to war and staying at war. The need to go to war would need to out weigh the political disadvantages of raising gas a dollar a gallon.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Far from it...I live in New Orleans, food central city.
I can't honestly tell you the last time I ate at a McD's. I virutally never go to eat fast food, and if you live in NOLA proper, you actually don't even see many fast food joints. Most place you go to eat here, are locally owned establishments. My 'junk' food, treat is an oyster poboy and some sweet potato fries.
It actually comes as a jolt to me, when I travel to other cities...Houston for example...I was just amazed to see row after row after row of strip malls as I traveled the highway...each one almost a mirror of the other one...each had nothing but chain restaurants...Applebee's, Olive Garden...etc.
I guess I get spoiled here...and forget how many people have almost no nice local choices, just chain restaurants and fast food places.
I can't remember the last time I ate at a chain restaurant either...now that I think about it. I'm actually kinda proud of that!!
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Whose data do we have to read to "know its fake?" Time Cube Guy's?
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
If you are looking to move, and the area is a flood zone. Look elsewhere. If you are dumb enough to move into a flood zone, why should other people pay for your foolishness. Tornado zones really can be anywhere. The state of Maryland has many tornados. Yet that state is not considered part of tornado ally.
Err....I don't believe McD's salads come "pre-dressed"...it only gets full of oil and sugar if the person heaps on a dressing that is full of oil and sugar...?!?
I think they do offer lighter salad dressing choices?
They do offer light Italian and balsamic vinaigrette dressings that clock in at about 60 calories (too lazy to look it up right now). Add chicken, cheese and bacon (standard on their more 'generic' large salad), and it is around 450 calories. People like to bash McDonald's, but their healthy options aren't that bad.
McDonalds isn't bad if you skip the fries and soda. Try ordering two Big Macs instead of a 'menu'.
(Though if you don't order fries+soda they might call security, it's unpatriotic...)
No sig today...
Hmm..I dunno. In my experience, if you have one out of the 6 that is that fucking picky...then you rapidly become a group of '5' that can go anywhere to eat a nice lunch.
I don't mind someone being a vegan, but they certainly aren't welcome to severely limit choices of restaurants for a nice work lunch outing. They're the outlier....let them deal with it.
Your statement does not account for extenuating circumstances such as that person being (1) your boss or (2) extremely attractive.
The exact same argument could be made for electricity, could it not?
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
You do realize malaria used to be pretty much anywhere out of the polar region right ? It was fought by destroying the natural habitat of the mosquito (ie. by destroying swamps), and that worked pretty fucking well. By contrast, fighting malaria with medicine without destroying the natural environment that supported it has had only limited success keeping malaria away from the rich only at best (and even in that, limited success). Meanwhile, medicine has caused resistant strains to pop up that could once again spread.
We could do something similar for tornadoes. They are dependant on certain structures, a large region of essentially air moving upwards. If we were to launch large structures into the ocean that break the connection between the top and the bottom of that thing it would at least weaken them. Another option is to heat up the air above them, for which weapons might be useful.
Here's my view. If we're serious about controlling the weather, we shouldn't be mucking about with tiny effects somewhere deep down the chain. We should find out how to directly influence the weather, and go out and do it. Changing some parameter that has near-random effects on any specific locale is bound to cause people to move even if the overall effect is good. If we don't fix global warming, some coastal areas might become difficult to live at, if we do fix global warming loads of inhabited places (e.g. Canada, Russia, Alaska, Northern Europe) will become uninhabitable again. And any effect in between will simply move the tornadoes, leading to another round of moving.
You want to stop tornadoes ? Let's find a way to directly attack and destroy any funnels. Want to destroy malaria ? Destroy all swamps worldwide. Want permafrost ? Wait, who the hell wants that ?
We're humans, dammit ! Counting on gaia to be merciful when we "do right by the earth" will only lead to mountains of corpses. Nature will not reward us for good behavior. Rather, we should bend nature to our will, kicking and screaming.
Well, let's see... According to Wikipedia, at least, the US spends ~35% of GDP on social programs in the US, of which 21% is through government, 10% is through charitable giving, and 4% is through private organizations. In comparison, in France and Sweden it's 30% to 35% of GDP of which a larger majority is through government. To me that indicates two things: that there seems to be some sort of innate threshold of just how much people are willing to spend on social programs as a nation and that in the US it's structured that a lot more of that spending is done through individual choice. Still, if suddenly the government were to simply stop collecting taxes and spending them for social programs, I don't presume that either more people would start contributing to charity nor those already contributing would be able to fill in that 21% gap--if everyone has a $5,000 smaller tax burden yet only 50% of people contribute to charity, that implies each person already contributing would have to contribute that $5,000 currently going to taxes plus an additional $5,000 to make up the difference.
Of course, it could be argued that the money being spent is really unnecessary and wasteful, yet by all accounts the French system actually provides better health care and other services for everyone and, again, its social program spending is about the same percentage of GDP as the US. Certainly, I don't think the government has anything close to 50% overhead on most programs and simply denying a lot of people benefits because they are "unworthy" is more an excuse for a lack of funds than to accept that private charity alone isn't sustainable. But, then, it's quite possible the above figures are off as I don't know if they include things like private healthy insurance, private pensions, etc which may or may not be necessary to provide some sort of parity to the French (or other similar) systems to make a useful comparison.
What is most significant is that poor/needy people don't starve/freeze/whatever to death--certainly, not unless they go out of their way to do so. Using the government as a compulsory system clearly works and functions that "what [I] do with my money *is* [significant] to [me]", but it's also significant to me what you do with your money since there's no way I can provide welfare/healthcare/social security alone. I mean, if it were truly the case that charity was enough, then certainly it should be true that the US's social program spending would be higher, if nothing else to guarantee health care for everyone--and not just the emergency care mandated by government on hospitals. Obviously that point breaks down because the people who do contribute are too poor to contribute more--which speaks volumes about what the rich aren't doing with their money-- and/or people are oblivious to the need to contribute more--which speaks volumes about the way the situation in the US has been so twisted that politicians routinely speak as if the US health care system was the best in the world, ignoring how pragmatically its not because there's not enough spending for those in need, which tends to support the idea that charity is more a token gesture by people than a concerted effort by people to stay informed and resolve actual problems.
But, I guess it's easier to focus on who and how the money is collected than on, you know, taking to task politicians and charities to deliver results upon their mandate on the money they already have and likely will have. That'd seem to be a much bigger issue.
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h