Feebates

Towards a Sustainable Economy

2011-09-15T18:30:00.001-07:00

Cycle A: Inorganic Waste

We're all familiar with recycling. Reusing waste to manufacture new products can help resolve two problems: the economic problem of scarcity of resources and the environmental problem of waste. Dedicated bins can help separate waste and collect glass and plastic containers, to be reused in new products.

Where needed, surcharges can be levied on items, to ensure they are returned at collections points for recycling. Items such as bottles and car batteries have also been successfully recycled in this way for years by retailers and garages.

Recycling is possible for much of our inorganic waste. The concept of recycling can also be used in a wider sense, in efforts to take surplus carbon out of the atmosphere and oceans, e.g. by adding olivine to materials for building and road construction. This effort will require more recycling than the traditional recycling of inorganic waste.

Cycles B and E: Biomass and Organic Waste

Dr. James Hansen once calculated that reforestation of degraded land and improved agricultural practices that retain soil carbon together could draw down atmospheric carbon dixode by as much as 50 ppm, adding that this and using carbon-negative biofuels could bring carbon dioxide back to 350 ppm well before the end of the century.

Recycling of organic waste constitutes another cycle in a sustainable economy. Soil can be degraded by deforestation and by a failure to return nutrients, carbon and water to the soil. Manure and sewage have long fertilized the land, but are increasingly released in rivers and in the sea, and combined with fertilizer run-off from farms, this causes low-oxygen areas in oceans.

Many people now compost kitchen and garden waste, thus returning many nutrients to the soil. Composting, however, releases greenhouse gases. Pyrolyzing organic waste from households, farms and forests can avoid such emissions.

Pyrolysis is an oxygen-starved method of heating waste at relatively low temperatures that will result in the release of little or no greenhouse gases. With pyrolysis, organic waste can be turned into hydrogen and agrichar, or biochar, which can store carbon into the soil and make the soil more fertile.

There is an abundance of soil to sequester biochar. Estimates range from 363 tonnes of CO2 per hectare to 303.8 tons C per hectare. The U.S. has some 475 million hectares of agricultural land. Australia has almost 762 million hectares of land, mostly desert. Desert soils can contain between 14 and 100 tonnes of carbon per ha, while dry shrublands can contain up to 270 tonnes of carbon per ha. The carbon stored in the vegetation is considerably lower, with typical quantities being around 2–30 tonnes of carbon per ha in total. Eucalypt trees grow rapidly and eucalypt forest can store over 2800 tonnes of carbon per hectare. The FAO-OECD Agricultural Outlook 2009-2018 says (on page 11) that over 0.8 billion ha of additional land is available for rain-fed crop production in Africa and Latin America. In total, the world has 3.842 billion hectares of land, which could sequester up to 1166 Gt of biochar carbon.

The need to feed a growing world population also makes it imperative to look at ways to increase soil fertility. Biochar will result in better retention of nutrients and water. Once applied, biochar can remain useful for hundreds of years. Increased vegetation in many ways feeds itself. It results in additional input for pyrolysis and thus additional biochar. There are also studies indicating that an increase of vegetation goes hand in hand with an increase in rain. Healthy soil will contain numerous bacteria that increase rain, both when they are in the soil where they break down the surface tension of water better than any other substance in nature, and when they become airborne.

Furthermore, there are indications that forests generate winds that help pump water around the planet, resulting in increased rainfall for forests. This would explain how the deep interiors of forested continents can get as much rain as the coast.

In the 1990s, U.S. farmers needed to implement a soil conservation plan on erodible cropland to be eligible for commodity price supports, and the no-till farmland increased from 7 million hectares in 1990 to 25 million hectares in 2004. Similar policies could be implemented to add biochar, such as making local rates dependent on carbon content.

Using published projections of the use of renewable fuels in the year 2010, biochar sequestration could amount to 5.5 to 9.5 Pg Carbon per year, says Lehmann et al. in Bio-char sequestration in terrestrial ecosystems (2006). That would take carbon dioxide in the atmosphere down by about 1ppm per year.

Cycle C: Clean & Safe Energy

In case of energy, there's not so much a scarcity problem of fossil fuel, but a scarcity of clean energy; a rapid shift to clean ways to produce energy is needed, while additionally surplus carbon needs to be taken out of the atmosphere and oceans, as part of a huge recycling effort to restore natural balance.

To achieve this, it's imperative to electrify transport and shift to renewable energy. Pyrolysis of organic waste can not only produce biochar (as discussed above), but also bio-oils and bio-fuels for use in transport.

Surplus energy (see box on right) can close the energy cycle, resulting not only in clean energy, but also leading to a range of new and clean industries, such as water desalination which could in turn result in the production of lithium for car batteries and magnesium for clean concrete.

Electrolyzers can now be made without a need for platinum and there's also interesting research into using electricity to turn seawater into hydrogen. When vehicles run on hydrogen, their output is clean water, rather than emissions.

Cycle D: Air Capture

A rapid shift to clean energy and transport would help bring down levels of carbon dioxide, not only by avoiding emissions, but also by making available large amounts of clean energy at times of low demand.

As such off-peak energy will be relatively cheap, it can be used for purposes such as capture of carbon dioxide from ambient air. Such technologies can be used to power aviation, to feed carbon dioxide to greenhouses, to produce urea and to supply carbon to industry, e.g. for manufacture of building material, plastic, carbon fiber and other products.

Fees on polluting kilns, furnaces, stoves and ovens can also fund rebates on products that avoid emissions, such as clean kilns, efficient electrical appliances, solar cookers, etc.

Surplus Energy

As the number of wind turbines grows, there will increasingly be periods of time when turbines produce more energy than the grid needs. Especially at night, when demand on the grid is at its lowest, there can be a lot of wind. Unless this energy can somehow be stored or used otherwise, it will go to waste.

Similarly, surplus energy can be produced by solar power facilities. Especially in the early hours of the morning, just after sunrise, the sun can shine brightly, yet there's little or no need for electricity on the grid. It makes sense to store such surplus energy at solar farms in molten salt facilities.

Such surplus energy can be used to help restore the climate, such as by:

water desalination and grinding olivine, and associated transport

storage (for later use)
- car batteries
- pumped-up water
- flywheels
- compressed air
- hydrogen

carbon air capture, to offset aviation emissions

spraying seawater into the sky, to change albedo above oceans
reforestation, by pumping desalinated water into deserts

Towards a sustainable economy

Instead of burning fuel and throwing things away, there are more sustainable ways to do things. Not only are they environmentally more sustainable and healthy, they also provide good job opportunities and investment potential. While some of these technologies are controversial, in that they aren't natural and their consequences aren't fully known, the need to act on global warming makes that they should be further explored.

Such technologies include:

- clean and safe electricity generation with solar, wind, tide, wave and geothermal power

- using electricity and hydrogen to power transport

- carbon dioxide captured from ambient air

- spraying seawater into the sky, to change albedo above oceans

- pyrolysis to produce biochar, hydrogen and synthetic fuel

- enhancing soil quality in order to produce extra biomass for pyrolysis and to stimulate young growth, which has a lighter color, thus reflecting more sunlight back into space

- producing rain by means of cloud seeding, using dry ice and urea, produced by means of pyrolysis and from carbon dioxide captured from ambient air

- water desalination for irrigation, residential and industrial purposes

- algae bags

Because many such technologies complement each other, their combination can make them more commercially viable than when looked at in isolation.

Feebates

Feebates are the most effective way to facilitate the shift to technologies that reduce greenhouse gases. Energy feebates merely need to insist that the alternatives are safe and clean. Similarly, feebates aiming to have carbon dioxide removed from the atmsophere and the oceans merely need to insist that, to be eligible for rebates, methods need to be effective and safe. Communities can select feebates to suit local circumstances, while allowing market mechanisms to further sort out what works best where.

The following seven feebates (the yellow arrows on above images) are particularly recommended:

1. fees on nitrogen fertilizers and on livestock products, funding local rebates on biochar

2. fees on fuel, funding local rebates on clean and safe electricity

3. fees on engines, funding local rebates on electric motors

4. fees on aviation, funding CO₂ capture from ambient air

5. fees on ovens, kilns and furnaces with high emissions, funding rebates on building insulation and clean ovens, kilns and furnaces, as well as on solar cookers and on electric appliances for cooking and heating

6. fees on industrial processes with many emissions, funding similar processes that are powered by clean electricity and that incorporate carbon in their products

7. fees on Portland cement, metals, glass, pavement and further conventional construction materials, funding clean construction materials, as described in carbon-negative building and olivine rock grinding.

Feebates can be well combined, e.g. feebate 7. and feebate 1. can jointly produce beneficial soil supplements, while pyrolysis of organic waste can also produce bio-oils that can in turn be used to make asphalt and be combined with road construction methds that use olivine. In short, many such feebates are complementary, i.e. one feebate can help another feebate, making the combination even more successful and thus effective.

As another example, industry may at first be reluctant to switch to, say, electric arc furnaces in metal smelting, arguing that it was more efficient to burn coal directly in blast furnaces than to burn coal in power plants first and then bring the resulting electricity to electric arc furnaces. But as other feebates facilitate the shift from fossil fuel to clean ways of producing electricity, it increasingly makes more sense to shift from the traditional blast furnaces to electric arc furnaces.

Energy feebates, pictured in the top half of the image below, can clean up energy supply within a decade as well as lower the price of off-peak electricity, which will help enhanced weathering and other activities (see boxSurplus Energy).

In conclusion, feebates are highly recommended to deal with global warming and to help achieve a sustainable economy.

Geoengineering

The image below, from Geoengineering the climate, by the Royal Society (2009), pictures a range of geoengineering methods that could be deployed to combat global warming.

These methods may differ in timescale, cost-effectiveness and wider impact (see e.g. this post on biomass), but the urgency to act on global warming is such that we may well need all of them to avoid runaway global warming and to move towards a sustainable economy.

Action Plan to deal with global warming and climate change

2011-03-26T22:16:00.000-07:00

Goals:
1. Adapt and deal with symptoms (preparation, preservation, plantation, energy saving, etc)
2. Combat causes of global warming
2.1. Long-term impact (cut CO₂ emissions and remove CO₂ from atmosphere and oceans) ^(C,D)
2.2. Short-term impact
2.2.1. Reflect more sunlight back into space ^(D)
2.2.2. Reduce pollutants other than CO₂
2.2.2.1. Reduce emissions of chemical gases such as HFC, PFC, SF_6,, halon, CFC and HCFC ^(A)
2.2.2.2. Reduce emissions of CH₄, N²O, BC, CO, NO_x and VOC ^(B,C,E)
2.2.2.3. Produce extra OH ^(D)

This can be best achieved through:

A.		Protocols (Kyoto, Montreal, etc), standards and deposits (refunded at collection) on products containing inorganic pollutants
		Fees on nitrogen fertilizers and livestock products (where farmed) to fund local application of biochar
C.		Fees on burning fuel (where burned) to fund clean local alternatives (incl. EVs, solar cookers, WWS energy)
D.		Geoengineering (adding lime to seawater and aerosols to the atmosphere, carbon air capture, using UV light to stimulate methane oxidation, cloud brightening, etc; for more see the geoengineering group)
E.		Organic waste handling standards (e.g. the UNEP-proposed ban of open field burning of agricultural waste)

Color Use:

Blue		Goals
Purple		Inorganic waste policies (cycle A)
Green		Land use and organic waste policies (cycles B & E)
Orange		Geoengineering & energy-related policies (cycles C & D)
——>		Feebate policies

Acronyms and Abbreviations
BC	black carbon (or soot)
CFC	chlorofluorocarbon
CH₄	methane (or natural gas)
CO	carbon monoxide
CO₂	carbon dioxide
EV	electric vehicle
HFC	hydrofluorocarbon also known as freon, with the subclass HCFC
HCFC	hydrochlorofluorocarbon
H₂O₂	HOOH or hydrogen peroxide
NO	nitrogen monoxide (commonly known as nitric oxide)
NO₂	nitrogen dioxide
NO_X	nitrogen oxides (NO and NO₂, which cause O₃, smog and acid rain)
N²O	nitrous oxide
O₃	ozone
OH	hydroxyl
PFC	perfluorocarbon
SF₆	sulphur hexafluoride
UNEP	United Nations Environment Programme
VOC	volatile organic compound include CFCs, styrene, limonene and formaldehyde
WWS	WWS energy or Wind, Water and Solar Energy (water includes hydro, wave, tidal and geothermal)

Related Posts

Goals
Ten Dangers of Global Warming
America can win the clean energy race

A. Protocols, standards and deposit programs
A national bottle recycling bill
Green Refrigerators and Air Conditioners

B. Fees on nitrogen fertilizers and livestock products, funding biochar
Biochar
Afforestation - bringing life into the deserts
Save the Rainforest
Fees on Livestock to fund Biochar

C. Fees on burning fuel, funding clean local energy programs
Electric Vehicles - Frequently Asked Questions
SuperB Grid

D. Geoengineering
The Threat of Methane Release from Permafrost and Clathrates
Funding of Carbon Air Capture
Open letter on Arctic sea ice loss

E. Organic waste handling standards
Algae Bags

——>

Feebate policies

Feebates

Further reading
Posts at Gather

Support FeeBate.net

2008-03-31T03:27:00.000-07:00

Feebates are the best way to deal with global warming. They work fast and effectively, are ideology- and budget-neutral and come with the least risk of feeding a wasteful bureaucracy. They respect consumer choice and use market mechanisms to achieve the necessary shift away from undesirable products to better alternatives.

Greenhouse Gas Feebates impose fees on specific products that cause greenhouse gas emissions. For each type of products, the proceeds of these fees will be used to give local support to better alternatives, in the form of rebates.

In many respects, markets are best suited to sort out which products and technologies work best where and thus should get support through rebates. Rather than selecting which products are applicable for rebates, the main criteria should be that (1) they are local replacements for the item that attracted the fee, and (2) that they are safe and (3) that they are clean, i.e. that they cause little or no emissions of greenhouse gases, or - even better - that they are greenhouse gas negative.

Feebates can be adopted globally, but are best executed locally. Reduction targets can be agreed to globally, while the percentages of the fees and the rebates can be set locally. Fees can be adjusted on an annual basis, depending on how successful the area is in accomplishing the necessary shift and achieving its targets. Fees can be collected on items that are sold locally, or - if necessary - fees can be imposed on imported items. To avoid that a country persistently fails in meeting its targets, countries can jointly agree to impose trade sanctions, such as tariffs on products exported from such a country.

1. FUEL - a 10% fee on sales of fossil fuel, with rebates on purchase and installation of local facilities that supply energy in safe and clean ways

This feebate will discourage the use of fossil fuel, while encouraging local supply of clean and safe energy. Rebates could apply to both produced energy (e.g. by solar panels or wind turbines) and stored energy (e.g. in batteries of electric cars, or in the form of hydrogen or pumped-up water).

For more background and discussion, visit the article:
Global warming calls for global commitment and local action - by Sam Carana

2. FARMING - a 10% fee on sales of fertilizers, with rebates on local sales of agrichar (biochar)

This feebates discourages the use of artificial fertilizers, while encouraging local sales of agrichar (or biochar) produced by means of pyrolysis from biowaste.

For more background and discussion, visit the article:
Agrichar - by Sam Carana

3. APPLIANCES - a 10% fee on appliances with a high energy use, funding rebates on more efficient appliances

This feebate will discourage sales of appliances with a high energy use, while the proceeds are used to fund local rebates on more energy-efficient appliances.

For more background and discussion, visit the article:
California's Climate Change Proposals - by Sam Carana

4. VEHICLES - Fees on sales of new gasoline engines, with rebates on local sales of new electric motors

This feebate will discourage sales of new fossil-fuel-combusting engines for vehicles such as cars, helicopters, boats and ships, while making it more attractive to buy electric motors instead. Rebates could also be paid out on motors in conversion of existing vehicles to electric vehicles.

For more background and discussion, visit the article:
California's Climate Change Proposals - by Sam Carana

5. FOOD - a 10% fee on sales of meat, with rebates on vegan-organic meals served in local restaurants

This feebate discourages consumption of meat, while encouraging consumption of vegan organic food instead. Local restaurants could offer rebates on the vegan-organic meals they serve, both for take-away and dine-in meals.

For more background and discussion, visit the article:
Tax the sale of meat - by Sam Carana

6. TREES - Fees on properties without trees, funding rebates on properties with trees

This feebate encourages people to plant trees on their property, and to keep a minimal number of trees large enough to obtain the rebate.

PRECEDENT - Hawaii, H.B. No. 1848, H.D. 1, S.D. 1, C.D. 1
Relating to Exceptional Trees - Establishes an income tax deduction from gross income for amounts paid by an individual taxpayer for expenditures to maintain an exceptional tree on the taxpayer’s real property. The deduction, up to $3,000 per exceptional tree, is allowed once every three consecutive taxable years. Applies to amounts paid in taxable years beginning after December 31, 2003.

7. VEHICLES - Fees on high emission vehicles, funding rebates on low emission vehicles

This feebate will discourage sales of high emission vehicles, while making it more attractive to buy low emission vehicles, such as battery-powered electric cars and hydrogen cars. Rebates could also be paid out on conversion of existing vehicles to zero emission vehicles.

For more background and discussion, visit the article:
California's Climate Change Proposals - by Sam Carana
Electric Vehicles for hire in Paris - by Sam Carana

8. COOLANTS - high fees on polluting coolants, funding rebates on clean coolants

Coolants - high fees on polluting coolants for use in appliances (e.g. HFC coolants), with proceeds used to fund rebates on green coolants for use in refrigerators, air conditioners, etc.

For more background and discussion, visit the article:
Green Refrigerators and Air Conditioners - by Sam Carana

9. LIGHTS - Fees on incandescent light bulbs, with the proceeds used for rebates on alternatives

This will discourage sales of incandescent light bulbs, while encouraging sales of better alternatives, such as compact fluorescent bulbs (CFLs) and light emitting diodes (LEDs) lights.

For further background and discussion, visit the article:
When will we see the light? - by Sam Carana

10. CLEANING - High fees on cleaning agents that contribute to global warming, with proceeds used to fund better alternatives

This feebate could help reduce the usage of Nitrogen Trifluoride (NF3) as a cleaning agent, funding rebates on alternatives such as as fluorine gas.

For more background and discussion, see comments under the article:
Green Refrigerators and Air Conditioners - by Sam Carana

11. BUILDING - Fees on minimum LEED standard new buildings, rebates on high LEED standards new buildings

Fees are imposed on new buildings that comply with minimum LEED standards, while rebates are granted on new buildings that comply with high LEED standards.

For further background and discussion, visit the article:
Green Building Feebate Policy - by Sam Carana

12. CONCRETE - a 10% fee on sales of building and construction work that uses polluting concrete, with rebates on local purchases of clean concrete

This feebate will discourage the use of polluting concrete (i.e. that contributes to global warming), while encouraging to instead use local supply of cleaner alternatives.

For further background and discussion, visit the article:
Carbon-negative building - by Sam Carana

13. AIRFARES - a 10% fee on flights, to fund carbon air capture

This feebate will discourage flying, while encouraging capture of carbon from ambient air, which will reduce CO2 levels. The carbon could be used as soil enhancement and for industrial purposes.

For further background and discussion, visit the article:
Removing carbon from air - by Sam Carana

14. AIRPLANES - a 10% fee on conventional airplanes, funding rebates on clean airplanes

Aviation - a 10% fee on conventional airplanes, with the proceeds used to fund rebates on clean airplanes.

For further background and discussion, visit the articles:
The Electric Helicopter - by Sam Carana
Boeing successfully flies hydrogen-powered plane - by Sam Carana

15. VEHICLES - Access restrictions or higher fees for high-emission vehicles, with rebates on cleaner vehicles

High-emission vehicles can be prohibited from being driven on certain days of the week, on certain (lanes of) roads, or in certain parts of a city. Parking can also be made more expensive for high-pollution vehicles. As an extra incentives to shift to cleaner cars, this can be complemented with rebates when trading high-emission vehicles in for cleaner ones. The proceeds of parking fees and of fines could be used to fund such rebates.

For further background and discussion, visit the article:
Being's policy to combat pollution - by Sam Carana

16. TREES - Fees on removal of large trees from residential properties, funding trees planted in local public places

Fees could be imposed on removal of large (over 6 meters) trees from residential properties, funding trees planted in local parks, city squares and road-strips, and along local parts of highways and waterways.

This was discussed in a comment under the article:
Global Warming - Red Alert! - by Sam Carana