What do you think of a carbon tax? I think this would be more effective way to reduce emissions than credits which can be bought and traded between companies. If all fossil fuel emissions incurred at tax, it would provide an economic incentive for people to clean up their act.
The carbon tax revenue could be used to fund the development of clean energy infrastructure or income taxes could be lowed an equal amount.
Might be one way. I want to see more investment in hydrogen injection systems. Using tap water, they cause a 99% clean burn in internal combustion engines, gas or diesel. Not to mention a promised 10% fuel economy gain and nominal power gains. Too bad they're of the size and cost that they can only be used in trucks at the moment, but the technology has a lot of promise.
Really? Wow, that's impressive. It still requires fossil fuels, though - most every form of power nowadays has some great pollution drawback. I've heard that even burning hydrogen is as bad as fossil fuels because, even though the combustion product is simple water, the process of creating the hydrogen leaves about as much carbon dioxide as burning fossil fuels. Even larger scale than vehicals... any fossil fuel plant is plainly polluting. Nuclear would be perfect if not for the the problem of waste (though, I reckon that, if we're ever in space for prolonged periods, it'd be a useful power source there). Water power by dams messes up the local ecology. Wind power isn't so bad, but even that I've heard might have its drawbacks on wind currents. Solar doesn't have any ecological drawbacks, but takes a large area to provide any reasonable amount of power.
The thing is, though, it's not neccessary to provide such large power sources. You see, technically, it should be possible, via precise design and such things as solar power (or whatever is best for the locale) to design houses to be self-sustaining. Commercial buildings as well could be designed in that fashion. Energy to such things as manufacturing would still be a bit of a problem, but it would be easier to deal with that energy issue when all the commercial and residential ones are out of the picture (I'm guessing here; I really don't know what the percentage of power that goes to manufacturing is. It could be something like 90%, which would rather annul what I've said.) As for vehicals... the technology's progressing. It's not there yet, but it's making strides. Even here at my university there are researchers working on it. I had a Combustion Engines class last year, and the professor who taught us was working in that very field. He seemed rather optimistic about where things are going.
With all this, however, there's one problem, and that's the oil companies. Don't worry, I'm not getting all conspiracy theorist with this, but really... it's not in the best economic interest of the oil producing countries to find these alternatives, and as such destroy their major source of revenue. I know my region here would be greatly worsted by a lack of demand for petroleum. As such, even if it would be discovered... the ones who most need to make use of it wouldn't. It's the governments that are keeping these things back. Of course, I'm totally ignorant as far as politics go, but one things I'm not happy about with the Conservatives here (whom I usually prefer) is that they seem all too focussed on big business, and won't go along with Kyoto and the like on the grounds that it would hurt business (of course, I could be wrong; like I said, I don't follow politics much.) Honestly, I don't think the 'leading' countries really want things to change, and rather dread alternative energy sources. Heck, wasn't Bush's family wealthy because of oil? There's not really much incentive there to change things. I think that's what it all comes down to. The oil companies have too much power in the affairs of the state (and it's been so for a century), and too much prosperity is dependant on it. As such, it's lamentable, but things won't change till the oil dries up.
I'm not environmentalist, but I'm not comfortable with the whole oil industry. In this issue I'm rather against the Conservative platform, I think. They're too focussed on business, especially big business, and that's in fact one of the reasons I'm turning my back on engineering. I've become rather frustrated with how much seems to be geared towards money-making and 'success'. I don't know how things are going to turn out in the world, but I can say it sure as hell won't be the petroleum companies who are going to save it. (Admittedly, I actually worked in oil research as summer work last summer... actually rather an interesting job... but it doesn't change the fact that it's not good for the environment. It was a good job, no doubt - especially as it was geared to research and not money-making - and there's something fun about having one's hands covered in raw bitumen, but still... I'm not comfortable with the outcome.)
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