The Doctor
11-13-2007, 07:17 AM
In the fourth paragraph of the quote you will see that a company is applying for permits to build a nuclear power plant.
Have you been hearing the coal power radio commercials, where the ad basically is conditioning you to the terms related to capturing coal-fired emissions? At least now with nuclear there aren't emissions.
It will be interesting to see if NRG is publicly traded, and if their stocks rise in value as this permit process moves along.
The burning question will be what will be the cost per metric ton for CO2 allowances. Will it be $10 or will it be $50? EIther way the nuclear has a clear advantage over coal.
Carbon dioxide is what economists call an “externality,” something that imposes a cost on somebody other than the manufacturer. At some point, the thinking goes, Congress will force industries to pay those costs, either with a tax or a cap-and-trade system in which allowances will cost money. The consensus in the energy business is that lawmakers will come up with a charge that could start at $10 per metric ton or more.
On Thursday, a Senate subcommittee approved a bill to establish a cap-and-trade system for carbon dioxide, and the Democratic leadership is eager to have the Senate pass it by year’s end. But prospects in the House are less certain.
Still, with all the talk about a carbon charge, “your perspective shifts,” said Revis James, an economist at the Electric Power Research Institute, a nonprofit utility consortium in Palo Alto, Calif. “We’re definitely going to be paying a bill here for wanting to reduce these emissions.”
Some companies are already counting on paying such a bill. In October, NRG, an electric company in Princeton, N.J., made the first application in three decades for permission to build a nuclear power plant. In an interview, the chairman, David Crane, said his calculations showed that such a plant would be cost effective if the price of carbon dioxide emissions ran into “double digits” per ton.
To read the whole article, see the NYT business section The Carbon Calculus
Have you been hearing the coal power radio commercials, where the ad basically is conditioning you to the terms related to capturing coal-fired emissions? At least now with nuclear there aren't emissions.
It will be interesting to see if NRG is publicly traded, and if their stocks rise in value as this permit process moves along.
The burning question will be what will be the cost per metric ton for CO2 allowances. Will it be $10 or will it be $50? EIther way the nuclear has a clear advantage over coal.
Carbon dioxide is what economists call an “externality,” something that imposes a cost on somebody other than the manufacturer. At some point, the thinking goes, Congress will force industries to pay those costs, either with a tax or a cap-and-trade system in which allowances will cost money. The consensus in the energy business is that lawmakers will come up with a charge that could start at $10 per metric ton or more.
On Thursday, a Senate subcommittee approved a bill to establish a cap-and-trade system for carbon dioxide, and the Democratic leadership is eager to have the Senate pass it by year’s end. But prospects in the House are less certain.
Still, with all the talk about a carbon charge, “your perspective shifts,” said Revis James, an economist at the Electric Power Research Institute, a nonprofit utility consortium in Palo Alto, Calif. “We’re definitely going to be paying a bill here for wanting to reduce these emissions.”
Some companies are already counting on paying such a bill. In October, NRG, an electric company in Princeton, N.J., made the first application in three decades for permission to build a nuclear power plant. In an interview, the chairman, David Crane, said his calculations showed that such a plant would be cost effective if the price of carbon dioxide emissions ran into “double digits” per ton.
To read the whole article, see the NYT business section The Carbon Calculus