UK Business Leaders Call For Carbon Pricing, Government Action - Reuters

[hatrack]

LONDON - Leading British businessmen called on the government on Wednesday to create the conditions for a viable long-term carbon market if the investmnent needed for vital low emission power plants was to start flowing.

The calls came with the government half way through a six-month review of the country's energy needs in the face of international commitments to cut carbon dioxide emissions and the forced closure of ageing coal and nuclear power plants. We need carbon prices that make investment in low carbon technologies attractive," Paul Golby, chief executive of E.ON, formerly Powergen, told the Energy Challenge seminar.

He said up to 50 billion pounds ($87.29 billion) would be needed over the next 20 years to replace the ageing power plants, but noted that virtually no investment was taking place because of uncertainty over future government policies.

With Britain already set to be importing 80 percent of its gas needs within 15 years from having been a major net exporter for years, the government had to decide if it wanted to be so exposed to the vagaries of geopolitics for its energy supplies. "If we want to avoid becoming so dependent on gas we must develop other fuels. For that we need a credible long-term carbon price," Golby said.

EDIT

http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/35673/story.htm

[rfkrfk]

1. what should the price be?

I give up, what does this guy want the price to be?

I'm getting tired of,

the gasoline tax should go up, but someone else decides how much,
so it not my fault that the tax went up...

as an editorial position

[phantom power]

2. Near as I can tell, all tax-rates are fairly arbitrary.

Tax rates get set based on some hashed-out combination of what politicians think the public will/can bear, and how much money they need to fund various government projects and services.

I would imagine that a fuel tax would get worked out in pretty much the same way. Figure out what projects to do, in this case I assume projects for replacing fossil fuels, and set a tax rate that pays for those projects.

Or, maybe there is some completely different way to do it. The goal is to avoid the economic blunder that is currently in progress: fossil fuels are dirt cheap, right up until they start to run out, at which point their price skyrockets, and/or they become unavailable at any price, thus ringing in world-wide economic catastrophe.

To say nothing of the GHG problem. How much would you pay, to see civilization, or your grandchildren, survive the next century?