"William Sweet is the news editor of Spectrum, the magazine of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers" discusses the problems inherent in Ca's go-it-almost-alone strategy in today's NYTs. And:
The United States as a whole gets about half its electricity from coal, the most carbon-intense of fuels, and coal generation accounts for more than a third of its greenhouse gas emissions. So if the United States decided to get with the Kyoto program, it could comply just by replacing half its coal-fired plants with proven low-carbon sources like wind, natural gas and nuclear energy. A simple tax on carbon emissions or a national cap-and-trade system could get the job done.
/.../
No matter what happens, the end message will surely be that there’s no real substitute for concerted national action. Simply put, though California deserves praise for attacking the climate problem head on, it may be trying to do too much on its own.
Yep.
