Nuclear power and the French energy transition: It’s the economics, stupid!

[kristopher]

12. "Externalize the cost of coal"??

You might want to re-examine your phrasing. It would make sense if you meant "internalize the full costs of coal" for that is what a tax would accomplish; it would account for the environmental damage from the coal.

As to the strategy - yes, sure, a carbon tax is a desirable policy that would help accelerate the process I've outlined above. However it faces the reality of getting past the political and economic strength of the fossil fuel interest groups.

What is happening now (with pressure to lower renewable costs by expanding manufacturing infrastructure) drives the same process that a carbon tax would.

Do you have a suggestion that can actually be implemented?

Here is what is happening with the tools we now have: the U.S. wind energy industry installed 13.124 GW of capacity in 2012 with more than 8.3 GW of that installed in the last 3 months of the year. We jumped from 50GW of total capacity in August of '12 to more than 60GW a mere 5 months later.

If you can figure out a way to get a carbon tax passed I'd bet you could land a job at the White House.