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Feebates in the U.K.

Just like Canada, the United Kingdom is seriously considering vehicle feebates, reports the invaluable newsletter Green Budget News.

To recap, feebates (sometimes called "freebates") are a great way to harness market forces to encourage energy efficiency and discourage pollution. The article above gives a good explanation of how they'd work:

The proposal would require owners of more polluting vehicles to pay an extra levy, while drivers of environmentally friendly cars would reap the benefits and receive a grant as a reward for buying fuel-efficient vehicles.

So people who buy gas guzzlers pay a fee that's refunded to people who buy gas-sippers--creating a powerful incentive for continual improvements to automobile efficiency.

One of the great features of feebates is that they pay for themselves -- taxpayers don't even get involved.  In fact, the UK proposal is to use feebates to replace the existing vehicle excise duty, which apparently has had little effect on consumers' vehicle choices.

And by the way -- I can't recommend Green Budget News enough. Almost every article holds some fragmentary insight into tax shifting and market oriented sustainability. And while it's focused on the European Union, it's chock full of ideas that could be adopted in this part of the world as well. The current edition of the newsletter, which is published by Green Budget Germany, also contains informative updates on congestion pricing in Scotland and Austria and vehicle, pollution, and energy taxes in Denmark.

Kristof’s blog

Did you know that Nicholas Kristof has a blog? As far as I can tell he's the only NYT columnist with one (hosted on the NYT site, anyway). It's a neat idea, though rather clunky and difficult to navigate in practice. The idea is that he can use this quasi-blog to interact with readers, but it mostly seems to involve just printing reader letters.

Regardless, go here and scroll down to the bottom two posts, which consist of letters on his execrable column on environmentalism. Most take him to task, justly. He does not respond.

Clark Williams-Derry

Wonder no longer: oil and gas get subsidies out the wazoo. Here's the latest example from British Columbia...

The province will spend $408 million over 15 years to bolster northeastern B.C.'s oil and gas industry, Minister of Energy and Mines Richard Neufeld said Tuesday, which includes new or expanded support for resource road construction, community infrastructure, education and the reclamation of abandoned natural gas wells.

Of course, this sort of subusidy is just the tip of the iceberg: in much of the US, oil and gas extraction get special tax treatment -- and, some would argue, privileged access to public lands; gas & automobile taxes don't pay for the full cost of roads; the health costs of car accidents and smog aren't included in the price of highway fuels; and the risks associated with global warming are borne by everyone across the globe, not just by those lucky enough to be able to afford to drive.

To me, this puts the subsidies for, say, wind power in perspective. Renewable energy subsidies probably don't give an unfair advantage; they're just a way of levelling the playing field, so that--given all of the subsidies that already go to fossil fuels--wind and solar can compete on something approaching even footing.

Do You Ear What I Ear?

Government kept mum about GM corn’s mistaken identity Over a four-year period, Swiss biotech giant Syngenta AG inadvertently sold unapproved strains of genetically modified corn seed to U.S. farmers. The […]

Panther in the Dark

FWS admits using bad data to determine panther habitat The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has admitted to using shoddy science and thrice violating federal law while designating habitat for […]

Hybrids tested and reviewed — Wired style

Thinking about buying a hybrid car?

Paul A. Eisenstein, founder of TheCarConnection.com, write's up the results of Wired's road tests of the following vehicles:

Chevrolet Silverado Hybrid
Ford Escape Hybrid
Honda Accord Hybrid
Honda Civic Hybrid
Honda Insight
Lexus Rx 400h
Toyota Prius
Toyota Highlander Hybrid

They drove them down city streets, up freeway on-ramps, and along the tight twists of a mountain road. They judged the cars on acceleration, maneuverability, comfort, features, esthetics and fuel efficiency.

The Sound of One Hull Splitting

Sixteen years after Exxon Valdez, tankers still not safe This week, to mark the 16th anniversary of the Exxon Valdez disaster that spilled 11 million gallons of oil in Alaska’s […]

How’s your air?

Via MetaEfficient, check out Scorecard, the Pollution Information Site. You can type in your zip code and find out the air quality (and much more pollution data) where you live, including a map of pollution sources and comparisons to national averages. Very handy. Oh, and scary.

Here's the pollution situation where I live. The top polluter in my county is Rexam Beverage Can Co. The top chemical pollutants are glycol ethers. We've got two Superfund sites polluting our water.

How's your home turf doing?

Clean-Energy Trends 2005

I'm way behind in my blogginess, thanks to that other full-time job I have, so forgive me as I catch up on stuff that's (gasp!) up to two days old.

Check out the report from Joel Makower and Clean Edge on "Clean-Energy Trends 2005" (PDF). Says Joel:

It offers ten-year projections for key clean-energy markets, examines factors that are influencing clean-energy markets and venture investments, and offers five trends we find noteworthy.

Here are the five trends:

• the growth of fuels from biomass in the U.S. and Europe
• the growth of energy efficiency due to high energy prices
• the resurgence of electricity generated by concentrated solar power stations
• the emergence of the hydrogen infrastructure
• how the growth of green buildings is stimulating markets for new products and technologies

Joel's got more.

Protect American River Canyons