Guest Post: 50 cents or “Cap-and-Trade”?
October 31st, 2009 by Paul Tousignant (Tooz)Question: if your monthly electric bill averaged $100, would you even notice a difference of 50 cents?
Idea: A 50 cent per MWh tax on the electricity generated in the US to pay for renewable energy installations: 4,157 million * .5 = $2,078,500,000. per year.
Net generation of electric power in 2007 was 4,157 million megawatthours (MWh). (Energy Information Administration, http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epa/epa_sum.html)
In 2007, the average home in the US used 1 MWh of electricity per month, or 12 MWh per year, with an average monthly bill of $100. (http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/esr/table5.html)
$0.50 per MWH would generate $2.078B/year in revenue. Of that $2B, use 90% ($1.8B) as a 50% credit towards the cost for residential and commercial installations, installing $3.6B worth of renewable energy every year.
Designate the remaining 10% ($200M) for government installations (schools, government buildings, parking lots, etc.).
Think of the economic and environmental benefit of spending $3.8 billion per year on renewable energy installations – the millions of jobs that would be created, the pollution avoided, the sales and income taxes that would be paid… at a cost of 50 cents per month.
The demoncrats in congress argued that the cost of their crap-and-trade bill would be the equivalent of the cost of a postage stamp, if you believe that. Some estimates are as high as $3,100 per family per year. It can and should be done without the mountain of bureaucracy and tremendous expense of the crap-and trade bill!
Tags: cap-and-trade, jobs, renewable energy