Falling carbon price could result in higher bills, energy firms warn

Quote :

"Electricity bills could go up as a result of the weekend's feeble agreement on climate change at Copenhagen, energy suppliers have warned. The price of carbon – paid by heavy polluters such as power plant operators – plummeted yesterday by almost 10% on Europe's emissions trading market. This was in response to the EU scrapping a planned commitment to cut emissions by 30% by 2020 because other countries failed to show similar ambition. E.ON and Centrica warned that they would not invest the tens of billions of pounds to build expensive new nuclear reactors and clean coal plants at today's carbon price, which is supposed to penalise dirty coal and gas plants. Spot prices are now around €12 (£10) a tonne, close to a six-month low, and experts say that to make building new nuclear reactors financially viable, a price closer to €40 is needed. A spokesman for E.ON said that without government action to tighten carbon markets, companies would wait until ageing reactors and coal plants close over the next decade and until power prices rocket before they made the investment."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/21/falling-carbon-price-higher-energy-bills

ha!

So we have to suffer another couple of years of dirty, inefficient energy generation because certain people don’t want to take care of the environment?

12/21/2009 7:31:42 PM

we're going to keep using EFFICIENT coal plants until stupid cap-and-trade policies stifle the economy to the point that people can't afford electricity anymore. When that happens, we won't be building new reactors either.

12/21/2009 11:08:50 PM

NUCLEAR. I wish people would stop being afraid of what they have no fucking clue about. If you think about it nuclear is "cleaner" than wind power if you consider all the materials, land use, and other by products of building 10,000 wind turbines in order to generate the power of one nuclear plant.

12/22/2009 8:06:47 AM

^^ i don’t think that’s true.

The article implies that companies use the money they save or make from selling carbon credits to keep energy costs down, as well as put in to new, more efficient (because that’s how they get teh credits) plants.

12/22/2009 9:18:18 AM

If the governments didn't screw with energy regulations every other day then power companies would built new plants when the demand necessitates it.

12/22/2009 10:11:46 AM

or they could not and make more money. do you really think we'd start consuming that much more energy to offset the price decline if prices dropped? people don't just turn on everything in the house for the hell of it, that's just stupid.

that's like the same argument that was had about oil production, when most oil companies weren't even drilling on the lands they had.

12/22/2009 4:39:29 PM

If the gov. didn’t regulate energy, there’d be no financial reason for power companies to run electricity to remote areas.

12/22/2009 6:17:05 PM

nowhere did I say eliminate all energy regulation

economies grow and thrive on cheap energy. without it you don't have a chance.

12/23/2009 9:21:41 AM

^^government regulations don't force electric utilities to serve rural customers. There are some stipulations regarding the effort you have to put into making new connections if you are an RUS borrower, but they still only allocate a certain dollar amount (~$5,000 for residential) for new service construction and you will be required to pay the remainder of construction costs up front before they'll even consider making a new connection.

12/23/2009 9:45:08 AM

It looks like the 2010 climate change conference is underway:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_Nations_Climate_Change_Conference

Quote :

"The 2010 United Nations Climate Change Conference is being held in Cancún, Mexico, from 29 November to 10 December 2010.[1] The conference is officially referred to as the 16th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 16) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the 6th session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties (CMP 6) to the Kyoto Protocol. In addition, the two permanent subsidiary bodies of the UNFCCC–the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) and the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI)–will hold their 33rd sessions. The 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference extended the mandates of the two temporary subsidiary bodies–the Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP) and the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention (AWG-LCA)–and they will meet as well."

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/dec/04/local/la-me-climate-islands-20101204

Quote :

"Climate negotiations in Copenhagen ended in acrimony last year, with 120 heads of state, including President Obama, in attendance. This year, except for a few leaders of smaller nations, ministers and diplomats are doing the talking. Rather than raise hopes for a global treaty, Cancun delegates aim to make progress on a "balanced package" of side agreements. Among them: pacts on deforestation which is responsible for 15% of global carbon dioxide emissions, and on the verification of pledged emission cuts, a thorny issue between China and the United States."

Did the GOP send their own "truth squad" again this time?

12/6/2010 2:36:28 AM

Haha. I doubt it. Mountain Inhofe is too busy helping to raise taxes to be concerned with that. Consider he punked out the last time I doubt this is even on his radar.

12/6/2010 6:14:49 AM