Answering Global Warming’s Hottest Debate: A Better Way to Tax Carbon

Some of you are sick of hearing about it, some of you don’t really care, and the rest of you are probably the reason the first group is sick of hearing about it, but regardless of which category you fall into, one thing is certain: climate change is real and it’s already happening. With that said, I’m moving forward under the assumption that all of us here believe in science and understand this phenomenon to be largely a result of post-industrial anthropogenic activity. In which case, reducing our emissions is the only way to prevent climate change from becoming a global catastrophe. Enter the IRS’s Section 45Q tax code, the best solution you’ve never heard of for reducing carbon emissions. Alright, so what is Section 45Q and why is it so great? Long story short, 45Q is a performance-based tax credit being legislated by the IRS to incentivize the construction and operation of carbon capture & sequestration (“CCS”) projects by large industrial polluters. To clarify, this is different than a pure “carbon tax,” where polluters are forced to pay for their emissions. Instead, this tax credit provides economic reward to firms who successfully implement CCS projects. Without getting overly technical, Section 45Q will work by granting eligible firms a tradeable tax credit for each metric ton of carbon they successfully capture and sequester (securely store underground) with their CCS equipment. However, many of the firms eligible for these tax credits have limited tax appetite (taxable income) and are unable to efficiently utilize all the credits they earn. This creates a market where institutional investors can get involved, because firms with CCS projects will turn to investors for cash in return for future discounted tax credits to develop projects—a proven concept derived from the PTCs and ITCs I describe later. As a result, projects get structured in a mutually beneficial manner and the CCS industry gets access to a substantially larger pool of capital. The involvement of institutional investors is important because their additional capital will foster the development of country-wide CCS infrastructure, similar to what we’ve seen happen with wind and solar in recent years. Switching from fossil fuels to renewables won’t be enough to curb GHGs, which is why reducing emissions in existing industries is critical. However, without these tax credits, implementing a CCS project would yield significant economic loss to developers, so Section 45Q is essential to reaching a point of wide-scale commercial operation. Referencing my earlier comment, this tax credit structure has already proven extremely successful in accelerating the adoption of new and expensive technologies. Consider the results Production Tax Credits (“PTCs”) and Investment Tax Credits (“ITCs”) have generated for wind and solar power. Since ITCs were enacted in 2006, the U.S. solar industry has grown by more than 10,000%, creating hundreds of thousands of new jobs and stimulating the investment of billions of dollars into our economy . Similarly, since 2007, PTCs helped generate over $143 Billion of private investments in our economy to support wind energy, quadrupling the country’s wind power capacity, creating over 114,000 new jobs, and reducing the cost of U.S. wind power by nearly 70% . I firmly believe carbon tax credits will do the same for CCS. Nevertheless, detractors of Section 45Q persist. Many opponents of Section 45Q argue it is counterproductive to subsidize the industries causing much of our country’s emissions in the first place, ultimately slowing our transition off fossil fuels. In reality, many eligible industries—like cement manufacturing—emit even larger amounts of carbon than power plants and would continue operating long after a full transition to low-carbon fuels. Furthermore, some industries will become carbon negative by implementing CCS. For example, the CO2 released from ethanol refineries during fermentation is the same carbon plants absorbed from the atmosphere during photosynthesis. Therefore, sequestering these emissions reduces atmospheric carbon, something even wind and solar can’t do. Other opponents of 45Q worry firms will earn credits for emissions they didn’t truly mitigate. Although, if a CCS project shows even the slightest risk of having its credits recaptured by the IRS for improper mitigation, institutional investors will deem it too risky and withhold the capital necessary for the project to begin. Granted, Section 45Q isn’t the perfect answer, but it is the better answer to a carbon tax, one that helps firms reduce emissions without punishing them, and follows a proven method for fostering the development of new industries while benefitting the economy. I stand behind the implementation of CCS subsidies and urge you to do the same

Answering Global Warming’s Hottest Debate: A Better Way to Tax Carbon

Some of you are sick of hearing about it, some of you don’t really care, and the rest of you are probably the reason the first group is sick of hearing about it, but regardless of which category you fall into, one thing is certain: climate change is real and it’s already happening. With that said, I’m moving forward under the assumption that all of us here believe in science and understand this phenomenon to be largely a result of post-industrial anthropogenic activity. In which case, reducing our emissions is the only way to prevent climate change from becoming a global catastrophe. Enter the IRS’s Section 45Q tax code, the best solution you’ve never heard of for reducing carbon emissions. Alright, so what is Section 45Q and why is it so great? Long story short, 45Q is a performance-based tax credit being legislated by the IRS to incentivize the construction and operation of carbon capture & sequestration (“CCS”) projects by large industrial polluters. To clarify, this is different than a pure “carbon tax,” where polluters are forced to pay for their emissions. Instead, this tax credit provides economic reward to firms who successfully implement CCS projects. Without getting overly technical, Section 45Q will work by granting eligible firms a tradeable tax credit for each metric ton of carbon they successfully capture and sequester (securely store underground) with their CCS equipment. However, many of the firms eligible for these tax credits have limited tax appetite (taxable income) and are unable to efficiently utilize all the credits they earn. This creates a market where institutional investors can get involved, because firms with CCS projects will turn to investors for cash in return for future discounted tax credits to develop projects—a proven concept derived from the PTCs and ITCs I describe later. As a result, projects get structured in a mutually beneficial manner and the CCS industry gets access to a substantially larger pool of capital. The involvement of institutional investors is important because their additional capital will foster the development of country-wide CCS infrastructure, similar to what we’ve seen happen with wind and solar in recent years. Switching from fossil fuels to renewables won’t be enough to curb GHGs, which is why reducing emissions in existing industries is critical. However, without these tax credits, implementing a CCS project would yield significant economic loss to developers, so Section 45Q is essential to reaching a point of wide-scale commercial operation. Referencing my earlier comment, this tax credit structure has already proven extremely successful in accelerating the adoption of new and expensive technologies. Consider the results Production Tax Credits (“PTCs”) and Investment Tax Credits (“ITCs”) have generated for wind and solar power. Since ITCs were enacted in 2006, the U.S. solar industry has grown by more than 10,000%, creating hundreds of thousands of new jobs and stimulating the investment of billions of dollars into our economy . Similarly, since 2007, PTCs helped generate over $143 Billion of private investments in our economy to support wind energy, quadrupling the country’s wind power capacity, creating over 114,000 new jobs, and reducing the cost of U.S. wind power by nearly 70% . I firmly believe carbon tax credits will do the same for CCS. Nevertheless, detractors of Section 45Q persist. Many opponents of Section 45Q argue it is counterproductive to subsidize the industries causing much of our country’s emissions in the first place, ultimately slowing our transition off fossil fuels. In reality, many eligible industries—like cement manufacturing—emit even larger amounts of carbon than power plants and would continue operating long after a full transition to low-carbon fuels. Furthermore, some industries will become carbon negative by implementing CCS. For example, the CO2 released from ethanol refineries during fermentation is the same carbon plants absorbed from the atmosphere during photosynthesis. Therefore, sequestering these emissions reduces atmospheric carbon, something even wind and solar can’t do. Other opponents of 45Q worry firms will earn credits for emissions they didn’t truly mitigate. Although, if a CCS project shows even the slightest risk of having its credits recaptured by the IRS for improper mitigation, institutional investors will deem it too risky and withhold the capital necessary for the project to begin. Granted, Section 45Q isn’t the perfect answer, but it is the better answer to a carbon tax, one that helps firms reduce emissions without punishing them, and follows a proven method for fostering the development of new industries while benefitting the economy. I stand behind the implementation of CCS subsidies and urge you to do the same

Update on the Environmental and Legal Consequences of the Recent Lebanon-Israel War

The most widely publicized environmental consequence of the war was Israel’s attack on the Jiyyeh power plant, located south of Beirut. A report by the United Nations Environmental Programme (“UNEP”) stated that up to “75,000 cubic met[ers] of heavy fuel oil could have been burned, spilled or leaked into the ground after the Israeli air raids of 13 and 15 July 2006, though the exact amount is still unknown.” The attack resulted in the spill of 15,000 cubic meters of oil, which spread across the Mediterranean coast, reaching the Syrian coastal city of Tartus to the north and Tyre in the south. Approximately 150 kilometers of Lebanon’s coastline, out of a total 220 kilometers, was directly affected by this spill. That Israel targeted the plant on three separate occasions and had even threatened to bomb the power plant again clearly indicates that Israel’s attack against the plant was willful and deliberate, and therefore could constitute a war crime based on principles of international humanitarian law (“IHL”), due to the civilian-use nature of the plant

Effects of cryoprotectant concentration and cooling rate on vitrification of aqueous solutions

Vitrification of aqueous cryoprotectant mixtures is essential in cryopreservation of proteins and other biological samples. We report systematic measurements of critical cryoprotective agent (CPA) concentrations required for vitrification during plunge cooling from T=295 K to T=77 K in liquid nitrogen. Measurements on fourteen common CPAs including alcohols (glycerol, methanol, isopropanol), sugars (sucrose, xylitol, dextrose, trehalose), PEGs (ethylene glycol, PEG 200, PEG 2 000, PEG 20 000), glycols (DMSO, MPD), and salt (NaCl) were performed for volumes ranging over four orders of magnitude from ~nL to 20 mkL, and covering the range of interest in protein crystallography. X-ray diffraction measurements on aqueous glycerol mixtures confirm that the polycrystalline-to-vitreous transition occurs within a span of less than 2% w/v in CPA concentration, and that the form of polycrystalline ice (hexagonal or cubic) depends on CPA concentration and cooling rate. For most of the studied cryoprotectants, the critical concentration decreases strongly with volume in the range from ~5 mkL to ~0.1 mkL, typically by a factor of two. By combining measurements of the critical concentration versus volume with cooling time versus volume, we obtain the function of greatest intrinsic physical interest: the critical CPA concentration versus cooling rate during flash cooling. These results provide a basis for more rational design of cryoprotective protocols, and should yield insight into the physics of glass formation in aqueous mixtures.Comment: 8 pages, 6 jpg figure, 2 table

Toward a better architecture in the Arab world

Call number: LD2668 .T4 1979 H87Master of Architectur

Effects of anions and amino acids on surface tension of water

Hofmeister series is a set of ions in order of their abilities to affect physical properties in aqueous solutions. Franz Hofmeister was the first to discover the specific ion effects on protein solubility in aqueous solutions. Although the Hofmeister phenomena are general, their mechanisms are still not fully understood. Herein, we use optical tensiometry by a pendant drop method to study the Hofmeister anion effects on the surface tension of water. It has been observed that the surface tension of water increases linearly as the salt concentrations increase. The effects of salts follow a specific trend with respect to the surface tension increments: SO42- \u3e CO32- \u3e H2PO4- \u3e F- \u3e Cl- \u3e Br- \u3e I- \u3eNO3- \u3e ClO4- \u3e SCN-. Using the same method, the effect of solution pH and amino acids ions on the surface tension of different amino acid solutions is also being investigated. So far the surface tension measurements of glycine, L-alanine and L-serine suggest that the surface tension increases due to the abundance of ionic species comparing to the neutral species and the hydrophobic chains. These studies will provide us with some valuable data that would help further the understanding of the behaviors of salts and amino acids at the air/water interface