Thursday, July 25, 2013

Deferred costs of oil: destruction of wetlands and subsequent flooding

La. Flood Board Sues Oil Industry Over Wetlands : NPR: "On Wednesday, the board sued the industry, arguing that it is responsible for a big part of the problem, and hasn't paid its fair share to protect the city.

Barry says the industry contributed to the problem in a couple of ways: By sucking the oil and gas out of the ground, it caused the land to sink. The industry has also dug thousands of miles of channels to lay pipeline and reach well sites, which allows saltwater to seep in to swamps and marshes."

Monday, July 22, 2013

New report exposes billions per year in new fossil fuel subsidies - The Price of Oil

New report exposes billions per year in new fossil fuel subsidies - The Price of Oil: "Our new analysis dives into a shady corporate structure called “Master Limited Partnerships (MLPs)” and seeks to do a more thorough job of quantifying the value of tax avoidance the fossil fuel industry is able to enjoy by utilizing these structures. MLPs were largely ruled out by the IRS for most US industries some 25 years ago, but special rules continue to provide eligibility for fossil fuels, and have allowed a growing range of oil and gas activities to escape corporate income taxes entirely."

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

One, just one, of the many costs of #autosprawl, traffic congestion.

Urban Mobility Information: "As traffic congestion continues to worsen, the time required for a given trip becomes more unpredictable, and researchers now have a way to measure that degree of unreliability, introduced for the first time as part of the annual Urban Mobility Report (UMR), published by the Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI)."

http://mobility.tamu.edu/ums/report/

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

IMF puts fossil fuel external subsidy at USD two trillion

Energy subsidies are pervasive and impose substantial fiscal and economic costs in most regions.
On a pre-tax basis, subsidies for petroleum products, electricity, natural gas, and coal reached $480 billion in 2011 (0.7 percent of global GDP or 2 percent of total government revenues). The cost of subsidies is especially acute in oil exporters, which account for about two-thirds of the total. On a post-tax‖ basis, which also factors in the negative externalities from energy consumption—subsidies are much higher at $1.9 trillion (2½ percent of global GDP or 8 percent of total government revenues). The advanced economies account for about 40 percent of the global posttax total, while oil exporters account for about one-third. Removing these subsidies could lead to a 13 percent decline in CO2 emissions and generate positive spillover effects by reducing global energy demand.