TEQ's "too difficult to implement"

[Andy Hunt]

Well, I hope they figure it out. I certainly don't know how to make it work, except to change it from a trading system to one in which people get rebates from the government for any carbon allowances they dont use after x months. In other words you increase the tax on emitting carbon massively and give the cash to those who emit very little.

Sounds very similar to the Renewable Obligation Certificate scheme. If energy companies don't meet their obligations to meet renewable energy generation targets, they are fined and the money distributed amongst the individuals/organisations who did meet the targets. This works right down to household level - you can get ROC payments if you have a PV roof, for example.

So I don't see why it shouldn't work for TEQs too - good idea, Tess. You might just have cracked it!

[Pippa]

I agree with Tess that its difficult to put into practice but on the basis that it is just too complicated (like everything these days ). Mind you it would propably mean that another trench of recently unemployed people, whose jobs had de-materialised in the west to re-materialise in the east, could add to the 6 million already employed by the state in the UK (thereby reducing the number officially unemployed).

[RevdTess]

So I don't see why it shouldn't work for TEQs too - good idea, Tess. You might just have cracked it!

Let's not get overexcited . Some of the best brains in Europe are involved in setting up big schemes like emissions trading and NHS IT projects and Identity Cards and so on, and they still manage to fail to foresee all the major flaws in their plans. It's hardly likely I'm going to succeed where they failed. I just want the people who *do* think they have the answers to think a little more about how people (individuals, businesses and governments) will react to their plans, and try to build in enough flexibility so that even the unknown unknowns are catered for

[Andy Hunt]

even the unknown unknowns

Speaking of our American friends, I read somewhere recently that the value of the metal in an American 'penny' (one cent) now exceeds the value of one American cent. So if you are American, you are better off collecting them, melting them all down and flogging the scrap metal.

What a strange world is this peak oil world . . . ?!

[RevdTess]

I agree with Tess that its difficult to put into practice but on the basis that it is just too complicated

I actually dont think theses schemes are all that complicated. What does concern me is the apparent inability of the architects of such schemes to be able to place themselves in other people's shoes and imagine how they will react to change.

If you've ever played an online multiplayer roleplay game like Everquest et al you'll know what I mean. System Architects add insufficient flexibility to their designs and then can't understand it when people 'game the system' or react in completely unforeseen ways that render it irrelevant.

Being able to foresee as many eventualities as possible is a rare skill. Being able to design a sufficiently flexible system that transcends those eventualities is even rarer. And something tells me that these sorts of creative imaginative people are not those drawn to a life as a beaurocrat or politician.

[RevdTess]

Speaking of our American friends, I read somewhere recently that the value of the metal in an American 'penny' (one cent) now exceeds the value of one American cent. So if you are American, you are better off collecting them, melting them all down and flogging the scrap metal.

If it weren't, alas, illegal, and you had a copper smelter handy

The same is true of our two-pence-pieces by the way. The copper is worth about 3p.

[Pippa]

I agree with Tess that its difficult to put into practice but on the basis that it is just too complicated

I actually dont think theses schemes are all that complicated. What does concern me is the apparent inability of the architects of such schemes to be able to place themselves in other people's shoes and imagine how they will react to change.

If you've ever played an online multiplayer roleplay game like Everquest et al you'll know what I mean. System Architects add insufficient flexibility to their designs and then can't understand it when people 'game the system' or react in completely unforeseen ways that render it irrelevant.

Being able to foresee as many eventualities as possible is a rare skill. Being able to design a sufficiently flexible system that transcends those eventualities is even rarer. And something tells me that these sorts of creative imaginative people are not those drawn to a life as a beaurocrat or politician.

I agree! In practice it's just too complicated. We have already got 6 million civil servants - how many more will we need to impliment this sort of legislation, deal with all the forms, build all the new offices, recruit all the new personnel, look after the new personnel, get the system working, monitor the system, revise the system, catch the people working the system, help the people not able to work the system etc etc etc. Really, we are way to "clever". Look at how much more complicated our government systems are now compared with only 30 years ago - look at the complications spun by the European parliment alone - too many well intentioned folks getting paid way too much money (in my uneducated opinion). The more we try to account for all the possibilities the more complicated we make things and the more unexpected the results.

Keep it simple - its worked for millions of years! Natural order rules not human order

[GD]

Unfortunately, the natural order, in this instance, will be to ravage the poor, crash the markets and screw the atmosphere.

I can't see why it would need to be all that complicated. How complex is PAYE, for example? Of course, it's less efficient than having no Income Tax, but we do it for good reasons, and it works.

[Pippa]

Unfortunately, the natural order, in this instance, will be to ravage the poor, crash the markets and screw the atmosphere.

I can't see why it would need to be all that complicated. How complex is PAYE, for example? Of course, it's less efficient than having no Income Tax, but we do it for good reasons, and it works.

Ah, I see what you mean! If we manage to impliment this particular piece of legislation we would protect the poor and save the planet.

Now, how many times have I heard that before?

Don't get me wrong - I'd love everything to turn out OK and TEQ sounds great on paper. Sadly, experience of the blunt end of the stick tells me

a) Too many people who have the influence to make it happen will realise that they will be worse off (even though it will be very short sighted of them) because of it - and they will be able to find enough "hard evidence" to counter the argument

b) Humans will screw the system no matter what - either by over regulation at the admin end or cheating at the receiving end or by simple human error

c) Time/nature will change the name of the game



Our society has become like a circus act - first we wobbled one plate, then two, then three, four, five, etc etc until we needed two people to wobble the plates, then three, then four until there was no one left in the audience (and no one there to pay for the entrance fees for all the plate wobblers).

[Bandidoz]

Keep it simple - its worked for millions of years! Natural order rules not human order

Indeed Nature does work but it is chaotic and thus pretty brutal. Fundamentally it comes down to a choice of one of two approaches:

1) Let Nature "take its course" and reduce population, as we've seen in Rwanda, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Nazi Germany, Hastings etc. If you extrapolate this approach to eradicate all systems it has the advantage of no bureaucracy but the disadvantage of having to impale people with spears whenever more land is needed. I can't see people wanting to adopt this strategy somehow.

2) Try to run a system that either controls how many people live (birth control) or allows more people to live but controls their "behaviour". If the system fails, or is abandoned, then goto (1).

No system is perfect at its inception, no matter how much forethought is applied. No system can be run without administration. However these are not good reasons to not even try. We just have to accept that any new system will have problems when it's introduced.

[GD]

Good old Kurt Cobb put something up in this vein

What we are witnessing is the collapse of the politics of left and right and the replacement of those politics with what I call the politics of survival. Those who come to understand the gravity of our energy situation quickly abandon their previous political views and instead focus pragmatically on how we can make a successful energy transition. They do so because they know the cost of failure is too high a price to pay for ideology. In the politics of survival ideology counts for almost nothing. Pragmatic plans count for everything.

Well, I went and emailed my MP with this last week anyway. Only had a token acknowledgement in reply.

[clv101]

David has written a short intro to TEQs for The Oil Drum: http://uk.theoildrum.com/story/2006/8/4/163554/8625

[SherryMayo]

I've been reading the comments on DTQs on the Oil Drum. The comments are mostly negative and often in a hysterical ideological kind of way. It's as if the idea of rationing/quotas is tantamount to communism.

In an article on the DTQs published in a US journal I remember reading the throwaway line that something like this wouldn't even be considered in the US. Sadly I suspect the objections given on TOD are at heart cultural rather than practical and a useful assessment of the idea will not come out of it. On the UK of the pond people do seem to be more prepared to consider ideas that involve some personal sacrifice/restrictions for the greater good.

I was interested in Tess's more rational objection (here on Powerswitch) that the poor might be tempted to sell them straight away. I think there may be ways around this - what if you could only sell them a year in arrears (this does create problems for starting the scheme which would have to be resolved somehow - perhaps via a year or two of rebate and tax)?

[Blue Peter]

I've been reading the comments on DTQs on the Oil Drum. The comments are mostly negative and often in a hysterical ideological kind of way. It's as if the idea of rationing/quotas is tantamount to communism.

It seems quite surreal.

"Oh no, we're going to hell in a hand cart. Why can't we do anything?"

"Well, here's a possible way of fairly reducing consumption."

"Oh no, we can't have that, you can't have people using less oil. Now, where was I? Oh yes, we're going to hell in a hand cart. Why can't we do anything?"


Not that there might not be problems with TEQs, but any solution is going to have to involve reducing oil/energy use, and it's either done in an organised fashion, or an unorganised one (the invisible hand by which, overall, everyone benefits, or something like that),


Peter.

[Ballard]

I was musing over my gas and electricity bill the other day?
And I thought it was interesting that the charge rates seem to be (from a peaknik perspective) set up back-to-front. Currently you generally get charged a high rate for the first XXX units of energy used followed by a lower rate for the energy used beyond that.

Well rather than TEQ?s etc why not apply a reversed principle to all energy sales, i.e. The first minimum, amount is FREE, (this will take all people out of fuel poverty!)
Then we have a low charge rate for the units up to a low average (lets say 3.3)
Followed by a higher rate for high-energy users and a prohibitive rate for the energy profligate (this would pay for the free energy at the lower end).

I?m only talking domestic here, and based on a meter per household basis, so no additional technology required.

So, it would be easy to implement, ensure people could meet their basic needs, the levels could be slowly moved to encourage reduction in consumption to meet depletion rates.

Of course it will never happen because those at the top would end up paying more, much better to let the poor pay high rates, whilst the rich pay less per kW the more they use.