Tuesday, February 16, 2010

the economics of climate change

i'm reading through the "yale symposium on the stern review."

it's funny that climate economics always highlights the high costs of mitigation, but then when it comes to pricing out the technology, nothing is off the table.

e.g., scott barrett (beginning p. 104) suggests that international cooperation is needed on technology. the example he gives is the ITER, "the next step in nuclear fusion research" (p. 108).

really, scott?

how expensive is this undertaking? how expensive would it be to deploy fusion reactors? is it less or more expensive than reducing end-user inefficiency?