S.T.

AGelbert NOTE: I read this May 19, 2023 article and, though a VERY long shot in our present "more is better" environmentally destructive paradigm, is the ONLY OBJECTIVE WAY to
1. Make CLEAN energy affordable for EVERYONE and
2. Accelerate the transition to a 100% Renewable Energy Based Civilization.

MAY 19, 2023 BY JOHN FEFFER 👍


SNIPPETS:
Using rationing to reduce fossil fuel use—especially in the Global North—has already come close to political reality. The UK government commissioned a feasibility study of such a rationing system, Tradable Energy Quotas (TEQs), which reported positive findings in 2008, and a significant number of MPs supported the implementation of a TEQs system in 2011. The idea also attracted interest from the European Commission in 2018, because it offered the means to actually implement and achieve the carbon capping targets set by the politicians. ... ...
According to its targets, the UK is supposed to cut its carbon emissions by 68 per cent by 2030 (relative to 1990 levels) in order to reach net zero by 2050. But the government has admitted that even in the best of circumstances—should all projected cuts be made and the latest carbon-capture technology actually work—the UK will still only hit 92 percent of its 2030 goal. In other words, their strategy based on carbon pricing continues to fail.

“There’s been such a focus, and rightly so, on agreeing to globally appropriate carbon budgets that are sufficiently steep to address the problem of climate change, but also not so demanding that that they destroy economies and lives,” Chamberlin explains. “But there’s been so little focus on the parallel question of how we actually reduce Global North emissions by 90 percent in 20 years, or whatever we consider to be radical emissions reductions.”

The plan the UK almost adopted more than a decade ago—Tradable Energy Quotas or TEQs—would have taken a very different approach. “TEQs emerged from a different paradigm to the whole carbon pricing approach,” Chamberlin explains. “There’s this impossible tension built into carbon pricing. We need to make carbon sufficiently expensive that it gets driven out of the economy. But at the same time, we need to keep energy affordable.”

According to the International Energy Agency, however, about 80 percent of global energy still comes from fossil fuels, a level that has remained consistent for decades. “So, if our energy is so highly carbonized, it becomes—unsurprisingly—impossibly difficult to raise the carbon price without raising the energy price,” Chamberlin points out. The carbon pricing approach has not been able to square this circle.

“What TEQs would do is turn that on its head,” he continues. “By removing any need to raise carbon prices, it would unify everybody in common purpose around genuinely shared and actually compatible goals—minimizing the destabilization of our climate while striving to keep energy services available and affordable. And it would make the economy exist within a carbon budget, rather than the other way around.”

TEQs Explained

The TEQs system, established by economist and cultural historian David Fleming in 1996, is a national-level system for capping and then reducing the fossil fuel-based energy consumption of all energy users—individual, institutional, and corporate. ... ...
He continues, “Your entitlement will be an equal proportion of the national carbon budget. If you use less than that, if you are a below-average energy user, then you’ll have some spare left from your entitlement which you receive each week, and you can sell that spare back to the issuer. So, those who are energy-thrifty get a financial benefit from using less. Those who want to use more than their entitlement can buy those spare units, but of course they’re then effectively paying the more energy-thrifty people for the benefit of doing so.”

Full article:


Yeah, I know. It will be a cold day in Hell before TEQ is adopted and implemented by TPTB 🦕🦖 💵🎩🐘🐍😈🐷 Greedballs 'R' US ruining our future. 😞

CleanTechnica

July 7, 2023 by U.S. Department of Energy The mission of the U.S. Energy Department is to ensure America’s security and prosperity by addressing its energy, environmental and nuclear challenges through transformative science and technology solutions.



SNIPPET:

In Burlington, Vermont today, Secretary Haaland, Senator Peter Welch, Representative Becca Balint and local leaders discussed historic investments that are helping drive collaborative conservation initiatives in Vermont and across the nation. During the visit, Secretary Haaland highlighted $25 million in funding from the Inflation Reduction Act for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to implement a significant landscape conservation approach for a climate resilient Northern Forest.

Full puff piece:


AGelbert COMMENT: I celebrate this effort on behalf of the 🌲🌳 forests. Forests are in big trouble and they need all the 💰🌞 help they can get. However, this effort cannot be placed in any category but that of "Better, just barely, than nothing". 😕

It seems that the 😈 Republicans are not the only ones who champion 🦍 Kafkaesque survival olympics.

Federal funds allocated to enable poor people (who own, and reside in, their manufactured home in the USA) to install Solar panels and ⚡ Battery storage:

Solar panels and ⚡ Battery storage of photovoltaic harvested renewable energy are Sine qua non to enable poor Americans to transition to CLEAN energy and away from using 🦕 hydrocarbon based polluting fuels for heat AND 🦖 transportation.

I guess ensuring the security and prosperity of poor manufactured home owners in America is not part of the Energy Department's definition of "ensuring 🎩 America’s security and prosperity". 😞

"Capitalist ideology claims that the world is perfectly ordered and everybody is in their place (i.e. everybody gets what they deserve). This self legitmating aspect of Capitalism is Socially Catastrophic. This is the Victorian view of the world." Rob Urie - Author " Zen Economics

ANOTHER AGelbert COMMENT: The poor should be the TOP prority, not the over 100 million people in the poor and lower middle classes IGNORED by Government who need AFFORDABLE ACCESS TO RENEWABLE ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES NOW for the sake of ALL people of good will AND preserving and promoting a viable biosphere!