Cash for Clunkers and Climate Change
October 30, 2009 by Scientific American - Alternative Energy Technology
Filed under Clean Energy, Transportation
A Clunker of a Climate Policy
The Cash for Clunkers program offers a cautionarytale for the future of climate change control. The federal program paid individuals up to $4,500 to replace their “clunker” automobiles with new, higher-mileage vehicles. Part of the purpose was to give a lift to the ailing auto industry. Another part, at least it was claimed, was to mitigate climate change by getting old high-carbon-emissions vehicles off the road. But billions of dollars were spent quickly without clear answers on what we were getting for our money.
The broad principle of climate change mitigation is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, including carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) from the combustion of fossil fuels, to target levels at the minimum net cost to society. There are many ways to reduce emissions: drive more efficient or electrically powered vehicles; produce electricity with renewable energy sources; capture CO 2 from power plants and store it geologically; restart the nuclear power sector; weatherproof homes to reduce energy for heating and cooling…. The list is long, with different time horizons, costs and uncertainties.
