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The regulatory uncertainty is built in.

There's no amount of clarity on regulation that can save coal in its current form.

These projects have a 50 year outlook. Even if we impose a carbon tax right now there will be tremendous uncertainty whrther that wkll be raised significantly higher 10 years from now. And the best bet is it will be raised until coal isn't viable anymore because if the price is low enough that coal burning is not dropping we will continue to be screwed.

The only thing that can save coal is technology. Unfortunately new coal is already as if not more expensive than new renewable. New technologies wkll only make it more expensive.

The other part is that the natural gas industry suffers from the same uncertainties. Yet it's destroying coal. The uncertainty is likely a very small factor at best.

You've convinced me. Complaints about regulations and coal are a distraction and a dodge. There's no future in which newly-constructed coal generators are profitable, except for niche applications. I think that complaining about coal regulations is just a way to avoid facing reality. The large coal companies have already gone bankrupt recently; they will continue to go through restructuring for years as the sector shrinks massively.

For natural gas, and for oil (transportation), we will see similar death throes as the carbon-free alternatives become cheaper than natural gas and oil. That's probably 15 years out, but the time will come, with or without the carbon tax.

Sweden implemented a carbon tax in the early 90's at $150/T that seems to have worked pretty well. The goal was a bit different and our attitude towards taxes are different then yours but if you're interested..

https://www.carbontax.org/where-carbon-is-taxed/#Sweden

On the list of problems, CO2 is actually not the biggest damaging aspect of coal, not by far.

Then what is?

Sulfur ->acid rain, radioactive elements in the smoke plume, mining deaths to name some others that can have just as big an impact. Not sure which, if any, GP was thinking of.

The death toll from coal due to worsening air quality can be measured in multiples of Chernobyls each year (using the worst-case estimates of deaths from Chernobyl) for starters.

Maybe not in the short term but over the long term it could be globally catastrophic. We’re only starting to see the effects from global warming now.

Reducing coal usage is a goal of environmentalists. Government inaction, creating uncertainty, is achieving that goal. Why do we need to tax the industry and raise rates on consumers when coal usage is falling and renewables are on the rise without it?

Because coal isn't the only problem, carbon in general is one of coal's problems. Coal also causes tons of premature deaths from other non-CO2 emissions as well, but the long term problem is the CO2.

An economic system is more efficient and overall wealth increases if externalities are priced closer to their costs.

Because a tax is more efficient than wild, emotional guess-work.

>Why do we need to tax the industry and raise rates on consumers when coal usage is falling and renewables are on the rise without it?

The cost to the consumer is higher with uncertainty. Uncertainty means lower overall investment and therefore a higher cost of electricity. Investors face risk on both sides: if they invest in renewables, they might lose money to coal. If they invest in coal, they might lose money to renewables. That causes them to invest in other industries and opportunities.

A tax gives a quantifiable return and makes the industry as a whole a better investment. Pigovian tax is best tax

It should be everone's goal. Pollution from coal plans is simply deadly.

> The energy industry is willing to impose a carbon tax in the US in exchange for immunity from lawsuits from emissions up until now:

Of course they would agree to a carbon tax in exchange for immunity. They would be getting immunity and their customers would be paying the carbon tax. They'd be getting immunity for free.

> That's how certain everybody is about the need for legislation, that an industry would invite a tax that amounts to $0.36/gallon of gas.

But they aren't inviting it. They are demanding immunity for it.

> But I think that clear carbon taxes, at $40-$120/ton, would help both the environment and the proper structuring of our economy.

Clear to whom? How is a carbon tax going to help the environment?

Carbon tax has nothing to do with the environment. It's a global regulatory control platform for the financial elite to control energy. It's a way to unify and control the global economy and skim off a percentage from the entire world via a tax.

And it wouldn't properly structure our economy. It would distort it by creating arbitrary taxes.

If you want to help the environment, you write environmental laws and enforce them.

> Uncertainty about regulation can be worse than the regulation itself.

And terrible regulation can be worse than uncertainty.