The New York Times ran an article last Friday about how high costs are slowing down the development of technology that can capture carbon dioxide from coal-fired power plants. What the article doesn’t discuss is the best way to drive costs down: put a price on carbon by passing the Climate Security Act.
The Climate Security Act is up for a Senate vote this week, and as a result, there has been a lot of media discussion about the costs of climate change: the price of tackling global warming and the far greater price of not tackling it. But what's been missing from this coverage is the economic reality that charging money for something prompts the market to find cheaper ways of doing business.
Right now, releasing carbon dioxide--the main global warming pollutant--into the air is free. It’s no wonder power companies are hesitant to invest in equipment to capture this unregulated pollutant. Doing nothing is cheaper.
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