Environy. CA led the world in trash-to-energy tech, but has now fallen behind because under CA guidelines, it may present a danger on the air pollution front. So many environments to save, so little time and so little understanding of the larger ramifications in the rush to get it done. Par for the course.
The Long Beach plant, for all its promise when it began operations roughly 20 years ago, still churns out megawatts. But it is a relic, a symbol of how California, one of America's greenest states, fell behind other countries in the development of trash-to-energy technology.
"I am having a hard time explaining why California is so far behind," said Eugene Tseng Tseng, a University of California, Los Angeles law professor who spent the last three months leading delegations on overseas tours.
While so-called biorefineries have blossomed abroad, concerns that technique would undermine recycling efforts and create worse air pollution stalled efforts in California. With space for garbage dumps dwindling, proponents of a new breed of the technology hope to win over detractors.
This is an area I have researched time and again in looking for investment opportunities. There are lots of viable technologies that will sort and convert paper trash (about 65-70% of trash) into pulp but there never seems to be a market for it. You could burn it to drive power plant turbines or recycle it into paper (Georgia Pacific was buying pulp from at least one such plant until the project folded 2-3 years ago) or sell it to the Chinese and Japanese floating pulp plants off of our coast.
I've never been able to figure out why these projects never work. The technologies are certainly viable and you would think there would be markets for the output. My guess is that the subsidy jungle stifles market development and warps the economic factors.
There is a big difference between government says (good intentions) and what it does (undesirable consequences). We need to level the international trade playing field and re-rationalize subsidies. Instead of continually complicating the subsidies to appease the various competitors, we need to find the political will to wipe the slate clean of all subsidizes and re-think duties and tariffs
I know, those are dirty words for the "free trade" crowd but "free trade" is not the same thing as "fair trade". Regulating interstate and foreign commerce is one of the very few explicit constitutional powers grants to our federal government. But in a one-world-without-borders model, there are no nations, just markets.
Posted by: Pasadena Phil | Sunday, September 05, 2010 at 02:44 PM
"Free trade" has a meaning: allowing people liberty to trade with who they will, on what terms they will.
"Fair trade" has no meaning: what it usually reduces to is "protect my rice-bowl" or "forbid those products in the name of my religion" (environmentalism).
BIG GOVERNMENT ruins.
Markets innovate, and raise the standard of living.
It really is THAT simple.
Posted by: Ragspierre | Sunday, September 05, 2010 at 03:15 PM
Ragspierre, are you sure you are a college graduate? That is the most ridiculously ignorant comment you have ever posted. Slave labor, subsidized materials, rigged currency, and so on. That is UNFAIR trade. Maybe we look into outsourcing personal bankruptcy cases to China. Their lawyers work for pennies and don't claim to be "experts" on everything under the sun. I'm sure you would have no problem with that right?
International trade REQUIRES government involvement. And unfettered capitalism does not create efficient economies internationally nor domestically. Slavery was very profitable in our early American "free" markets too. It took a war to correct it and it is only governments that have the authority to declare war.
Government involvement in trade is a core constitutional responsibility of the US government and it should be. No one else can defend our domestic economy from predatory practices. American jobs matter. The rest of the world isn't free and we won't be either if our government doesn't do it job.
Posted by: Pasadena Phil | Sunday, September 05, 2010 at 03:26 PM
"International trade REQUIRES government involvement. And unfettered capitalism does not create efficient economies internationally nor domestically. Slavery was very profitable in our early American "free" markets too."
You need to read a little economics, Philly. Then get you head out of your butt.
What series of idiot comments.
I recommend you start with Milton Friedman and Thomas Sowell. You might need to work up to Adam Smith.
Gawd, what a jerk.
Posted by: Ragspierre | Sunday, September 05, 2010 at 03:40 PM
Rags are you a Libertarian? What you said makes no sense whatsoever.
Posted by: Pasadena Phil | Sunday, September 05, 2010 at 05:12 PM
My own personal troll stalking me.
Posted by: Pasadena Phil | Sunday, September 05, 2010 at 05:15 PM
No sense...
Try this...
"There is a big difference between government says (good intentions) and what it does (undesirable consequences)."
By the same "mind" that then offers this...
"International trade REQUIRES government involvement. Government involvement in trade is a core constitutional responsibility of the US government and it should be."
Hmmm... Another adjustment in the meds in play, Philly?
Posted by: Ragspierre | Sunday, September 05, 2010 at 05:37 PM
Hmmmm.
@ Ragspierre
Free trader eh? Oh then let's do a logic game.
1. You're a free trading manufacturer making widgets for the global market.
2. I'm a Chinese manufacturer of widgets for the global market with access to money from Chinese government owned and operated banks that are willing to "lend" me money that I will never repay. In addition the Chinese government will protect me while I steal all of your trade secrets that I can and reverse engineer anything I can't steal. You'll file lawsuits against me but the American State Dept will step in, at the behest of the Chinese government, and ask the courts to dismiss the case.
Meanwhile the money garnered from those NPL "loans" will be used to offset the price dumping I'm doing on you as I sell these widgets for 20% under *your* cost to manufacture and thereby drive you and your fellow competitors out of business while "free traders" wring their hands and recite the free trade mantra of "the market always works".
After I've driven you into bankruptcy I'll simply buy the discarded carcass of your business and your intellectual property and continue pushing into your former markets while continuing to drive down prices until the only companies left in the global widget market are all Chinese. After that I'll drive up prices, fake scarcity and intimidate any potential competitors with the knowledge that I can do all of this again and again and again. As much or often as necessary so that anybody with 2 brain cells to rub together would rather dump their money into a shredder than take a chance on competing with me.
...
Free trade is a nice concept. But like all concepts the rub is in the details and the implementation. If free trade really were universally free then it might work. But like trying to sell California made carbonated wine in Champagne, France, quite often there are barriers.
Posted by: memomachine | Monday, September 06, 2010 at 11:27 AM
Wow. What a crock. A long, silly, imaginary crock with its own contradictions.
"Logic Game"? I never got a chance to play anything approaching "logic". You spelled out your own fantasy and arrived at you conclusions...solo.
But you make the cardinal error of taking the particular and generalizing. Dumb...and wrong.
Free trade is not just a nice concept; it is what free people do. Markets tend to fix distortions over time.
And, as in your example's self-contradictory scenario, you can count on government to screw things up.
Nez pa?
Posted by: Ragspierre | Monday, September 06, 2010 at 01:09 PM