Warmer Than It Used To Be
David Leonhardt posts this graph from NASA climate data:
Energy Consumption by Sector
I ginned up this modest little pie chart from U.S. Energy Information Administration data after reading this post from Ezra Klein.
Interestingly, even though transportation uses account for about 28% of our energy consumption, very little of the projected emissions reductions to be achieved under climate legislation would have come from the transportation sector. As David Roberts notes, “The reason for this is simple: It takes an extremely high price on carbon to substantially raise the price of gasoline.” Roberts:
Under the American Power Act, the ceiling on the price of a ton of carbon in 2013 is $25. Even in the unlikely event that the price hits the ceiling, that will boost the price of a gas by just under a quarter per gallon. Given that gas has swung around over a $2-3 range just in the last few years, a quarter isn’t much more than noise. A recent study at Harvard found that in order to reduce carbon emissions in the transportation sector 14 percent from 2005 levels by 2020, gas will need to rise to $7 a gallon by then. Getting there from today’s $4 gas would require a carbon price of well over $300 a ton, and that, in turn, would completely upend the utility sector. So it won’t happen.
Which is all a propos of the new “utilities-only cap-and-trade bill” trial balloon floating around Washington. Even if it’s not ideal, it sounds like a productive development in what has been looking like a politically moribund debate. Read David Roberts’ piece for more.
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