I also hunch that cap and trade is not a very good system and carbon taxes could work better for a variety of reasons. Note that the letter included carbon taxes.

I do drive for removal of unrealistic barriers for nuke construction. I actually think that is the most realistic way of shutting down most of the coal plants. There are other things that can be done too. If CO2 is taxed, the free market can figure out ways to make the most efficient cuts to it. If that means nuke plants, then so be it.

Yes, ad hominem one part of my argument was, and it made good sense. There is a long history to some specific industry saying that some regulation or law change is going to end up disastrous. Reducing CO2 emissions is not going to be cheap or easy, but in the long term it’s the best choice.

The rest of your post is hard to take seriously. I don’t care about Al Gore or unicorns.

If so, is “cap and trade” the only way to reduce CO2 emissions from fossil fuel consumption? Is it even the best way? Are there better alternatives?

Is “cap and trade” really about reducing CO2 emissions? Or is it about reducing electrical power production, increasing federal revenues generally, increasing the funding for dubious “alternative energy” pet projects specifically, expanding government meddling in the economy, increasing the transfer of wealth to global warming panic profiteers like Al Gore, or some combination thereof?

If “cap and trade” were being pushed along with a serious move to block the luddite tactics used to halt development of nuclear power plants in this country (not talking rational safety and environmental codes, but the absurd and arbitrary BS that environmentalists have used to block new construction for the past thirty-odd years by making the undertaking too expensive and economically risky), I might be less suspicious of the motives behind the scheme, and I might be willing to consider the cost to consumers (who will pay it – not the coal plant owners) worthwhile as a rational tradeoff.

“Of course the coal plant owners say a carbon tax will devastate the economy.” Ad hominem argument (you’re asserting the claim of economic devastation is to be disregarded because of who is making it). Does the mere fact of coal plant owners making the claim automatically render it invalid? Maybe they know more than you do about the scheme’s potential effects, and maybe they are being more honest about those effects than the scheme’s backers. Remember, when you’re dealing with any economic policy (or public policy generally), you have to take into account “that which is seen, and that which is not seen”…one can’t merely uncritically accept the claims by one side that everything will be unicorns and rainbows, while dismissing without argument the warnings from those most directly affected by the policy.

“Since these new proposals – cap and trade, tiered rates, or a carbon tax – would result in trillions of dollars of additional power costs nationwide, devastating our economy and quality of life whil yielding little or no practical benefits, we plan to actively oppose such proposals.”

That reducing CO2 production costs something, and it still should be done. (Though it should not be done inefficiently.)

Of course everyone would like cheaper electricity.

Everyone would like not having to pay for waste water treatment either – yet it is beneficial and it is forced through regulations. It would not exist in a “totally free market” fantasy environment, which is really just another word for anarchism.

Of course the coal plant owners say a carbon tax will devastate the economy.

And what “free market” are you referring to? If only we *did* have a free market in energy in the United States. No market is free when the government oversees the producers’ prices and subjects them to endless, arbitrary regulation and punitive interference.

Nuclear power has some problems, all energy generation methods have. I do support it. Especially research into much more advanced nuclear power, that seems to be relatively easily reachable (prototypes having been built 40 years ago).

A CO2 tax or a cap and trade system would take into account, at least crudely, the external costs caused by CO2 producing power generation. Then, the free market can optimize however it wants once the playing field is more level.

If one looks at just competitive economics, most environmental stuff doesn’t make any sense at all. It would be the best to release mercury into rivers, if that saved a cent – after all, it’s usually not the company directly that is affected.