The California Air Resources Board has imposed a limit on carbon dioxide emissions on California businesses.  The limits will be lowered each year until 2020.  Industries can obtain carbon credits, initially free but which later must be purchased, in order to emit more carbon dioxide than the regulations decree.  See more of the story from the San Francisco Chronicle here.

These regulations will increase the cost of energy, hence the cost of doing business.  These costs will be passed on to consumers.

The carbon credits can be bought at auction and traded.  Experience in Europe and in other markets  in the U.S. shows that these schemes are ripe for fraud.  Back in 2010 it was found that 90% of the carbon trading volume in Belgium was due to fraudulent activities.

The U.S. used to have a climate exchange but that collapsed, see Carbon Credit Trading Collapses in US.  In 2010, The Chicago Climate Exchange saw prices of carbon credits go from $7.50 per ton to a nickel per ton before it ceased operations.  The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a consortium of ten Northeastern states, also collapsed last year.

Carbon trading is a wholly artificial market created by government edict rather than any real need for the product. Unlike traditional commodities, which sometime during the course of their market exchange must be delivered to someone in physical form, the carbon market is based on the lack of delivery of an invisible substance to no one.   And it may have contributed to the current financial crisis.  Major financial institutions such as Goldman Sachs, Barclays, and Citibank hosted carbon-trading desks.

The alleged rationale behind this scheme is that it will forestall global warming.  But observational evidence shows that carbon dioxide has no significant effect on global temperature.  Take a look at the graph below from a 1988 prediction made by climate guru James Hansen (h/t to Steve Goddard):

For more on Hansen and his predictions see: “Climastrologist” James Hansen versus reality

I predict  businesses that can, will leave California.  That will help reduce emissions.  This will be an interesting experiment; one whose negative impacts will perhaps show the foolishness of imposing a national cap & trade scheme.

See also:

A Perspective on Climate Change a tutorial

The hybrid Chevy Volt is touted by General Motors as producing less carbon dioxide than purely gasoline-powered cars.  But that may not be true according to an analysis by Junkscience.com:

According to the EPA the 4-seat Volt is capable of driving 35 miles on its 16 kilowatt hours (kWh) of stored electric charge. The Volt’s gas-only fuel economy rating is 37 mpg.

Since two oxygen atoms from the atmosphere combine with each carbon atom when gasoline is burned, a gallon of gas produces about 19.6 lbs. of carbon dioxide (CO2) when burned. So when operating on gasoline, the Volt produces 0.53 lbs. of CO2 per mile (19.6 lbs. of CO2 per gallon divided by 37 miles per gallon).

Since we can’t quantify accurately just how much transmission loss there is between electricity generation and charging points, we’ll assume an impossible 100 percent efficiency at the charger to work out the CO2 emissions for the Volt’s 16 kWh stored charge.

In 2007, national “average” CO2 emissions were 2.16 lbs per kWh from coal-fired generation and 1.01 lbs per kW for gas-fired generation. according to Power Systems Analysis. Given that 44.46 percent of electricity in the U.S. is coal-fired and 23.31 percent is gas-fired, on a national basis, then, the mean emission of CO2 per kWh is 1.2 lbs/kWh. (2.16 lbs/kWh x 0.4446 = 0.96 lbs/kWh from coal, plus 1.01 lbs/kWh x 0.2331 = 0.24 lbs/kWh from gas).

The Volt’s “emissions mileage” from its stored charge is then 16 kWh x 1.2 lbs/kWh divided by 35 MPG = 0.55 lb CO2/mile.

So on an “average” basis, the Volt emits more CO2 from battery use than from gasoline use (0.55 lbs/mile vs. 0.53 lbs/mile).

Maybe you don’t think that’s a big difference, but the difference becomes more pronounced when the Volt is charged in states that rely more on coal-fired electricity.

When I first read this analysis I wondered how one gallon of gasoline, which weighs about 6 pounds could produce almost 20 pounds of carbon dioxide.  Well according to a Department of Energy website, it works like this:

It seems impossible that a gallon of gasoline, which weighs about 6.3 pounds, could produce 20 pounds of carbon dioxide (CO2) when burned. However, most of the weight of the CO2 doesn’t come from the gasoline itself, but the oxygen in the air.

When gasoline burns, the carbon and hydrogen separate. The hydrogen combines with oxygen to form water (H2O), and carbon combines with oxygen to form carbon dioxide (CO2).

A carbon atom has a weight of 12, and each oxygen atom has a weight of 16, giving each single molecule of CO2 an atomic weight of 44 (12 from carbon and 32 from oxygen).

Therefore, to calculate the amount of CO2 produced from a gallon of gasoline, the weight of the carbon in the gasoline is multiplied by 44/12 or 3.7.

Since gasoline is about 87% carbon and 13% hydrogen by weight, the carbon in a gallon of gasoline weighs 5.5 pounds (6.3 lbs. x .87).

We can then multiply the weight of the carbon (5.5 pounds) by 3.7, which equals 20 pounds of CO2!

According to a study titled “Energy up in smoke, the Carbon Footprint of Cannabis Production” by Dr. Evan Mills, a scientist with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, marijuana grown indoors in the U.S. uses as much energy as 2 million homes and produces carbon dioxide emissions equivalent to 3 million automobiles.  If you believe that carbon dioxide is responsible for global warming, then potheads are partly responsible for our hot heads.

Mills estimates that in 2011, national production of marijuana will be 17,000 metric tons, one-third of that produced indoors.  Based on the energy requirement estimates for high-intensity lighting, dehumidification, space heating, water heating, and air conditioning, it adds up to 1% of our national electricity production and produces 17 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions.

Read the whole study here.

UPDATE April 18:

Upon reading the many comments to this post, I realize that I should have put a question mark at the end of the title so it would read “Marijuana causes global warming?”

The cited paper is just another example of climate silliness.  For those who believe carbon dioxide has a significant effect on temperature, then the author of the study shows that marijuana grown indoors uses lots of energy which implies the practice can produce carbon dioxide emissions.

Regular readers of this blog should know that I do not believe that human carbon dioxide emissions have a significant effect on global temperature because there is no physical evidence to support that contention, there are only speculations from computer modeling  – garbage in-garbage out.  Go over to the Quick Links page and scroll down to the climate section to see my posts on the matter.