CO2 emissions down 20% in US

Superfreak said:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/storie...ME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-08-16-22-39-40

No government regulation, no government cap and trade scheme... just market forces... nat gas found in abundance pushes prices down and many coal plants switch over. Amazing how that works. Still doesn't make the fear mongers happy though... read the article for more.
Click to expand...

I was just pointing out recently that cheap gas from fracking and gas powered electricity plants are an excellent and very cheap way to reduce emissions but I got jumped on by the treehuggers.

http://www.justplainpolitics.com/showthread.php?43039-Fracking-is-Our-Future!&p=1055041#post1055041
 
It's great that co2 emissions are down but the claim that it's the result of no government forces or regulation is pretty dubious. First, coal is fairly heavily regulated and additional regulations are going to kick in soon, so those costs are built into the price of coal to begin. Fracking is a new technology that is fairly lightly regulated and can produce relatively cheap natural gas. It has a market advantage relative to coal because of government regulations on coal and the lack of it on fracking.

Also, too, I'd be careful to call fracking very cheap as we don't really know the true cost of it in terms of environmental impact. Low priced is not synonymous with low cost as prices don't reflect externalities.
 
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