In a fascinating op-ed in the Washington Post today, David Crane of NRG Energy (is that a pun?) calls for a solution to the carbon emissions from coal power. Crane, whose company is the 10th-largest power generation company in the US - and as such dumps 64 million tons of CO2 into the atmosphere every year - readily admits that this is, shall we say, maybe not helping the environment.
Crane calls for a cap-and-trade system regulated to limit carbon emissions by companies like NRG. Such a system, in which companies that pollute more must buy "credits" from less polluting companies, tries to combine the free market and climate control. Admittedly, there’s a lot of good and a lot of bad to these kinds of approaches to the issue - the system usually works a lot better in theory than in practice - but I am just glad to see someone from the big bad coal power companies stepping up and looking for a solution.
Nothing the government does is going to work without the cooperation (at the most basic level) of the power companies. We should be pouring tons and tons of money into renewable energy, and doing as people like Al Gore say and creating an "Apollo program for renewable energy." No doubt about that. But at the same time, Crane is right: we’re "carboholics." Until solar, wind, geothermal and tidal energy technology can be developed to a point that they can replace coal and oil, we’re going to need a temporary fix. Why not just wait? Because time is already up. We have to do something now, and frankly, it’s nice to see someone from the coal companies agreeing with this:
If Congress acts now, the power industry will respond. We will do what America does best; we will react to CO2 price signals by innovating and commercializing technologies that avoid, prevent and remove CO2 from the atmosphere.
I emphasize the word "now." We are not running out of time; we have run out of time. Decisions we make today in the U.S. power industry will have a significant impact on the size of the problem we bequeath to our children.
The polluters aren’t dumb, and, generally speaking, they’re not evil. They're driven by cash. They’re making money by polluting the world, and that’s horrible. But we ought to give them a reason (in the financial terms they understand) to make money without polluting the world. It’s an idea that’s worth exploring. At the least, it’s nice to see the polluters want to solve the problem too. Good or bad, the reality is that they’re going to have to be on board for just about any solution.
Cross-posted at 14fairmount.