Comment by Animats
13 hours ago
This company's business is regulatory arbitrage. Of course they have to deal with regulators. Capturing CO2 and pumping it into the ground is not a commercial enterprise. It's something done to get some sort of regulatory credit.
> Capturing CO2 and pumping it into the ground is not a commercial enterprise. It's something done to get some sort of regulatory credit.
I would have said that it's something done to improve the health of the planet, but sure.
You don't make a billion dollars thinking like that. Dude's playing a different game.
Business doesn't have goals beyond money. Any good it does is completely incidental.
That's a wild oversimplification
The problem is that dealing with regulators takes years and millions of dollars, reducing competition and societal benefit. He's quoting $200m in additional health costs borne mostly by Medicare/Medicaid. Regulations aren't a useful part of the system if they're gunked up.
Doesn't that go away as a cost if the government stops paying for healthcare? I heard they were doing this in the US?
The thing is, we really don't need people competing at selling carbon credits because it's an industry that literally only exists due to badly written regulations so it's hard to come up with a ton of sympathy.
Saying it exists only due to badly written regulations is rather bold assertion. It exists, because companies damage what isn't theirs. It is a regulation to protect property rights.
Companies are polluting shared resources. Classic tradegy of commons.
Credits is one of things we have come up that does work.
Sure, we could just ban it outright and say goodbye to industrial civilization. Most people don't agree with that.
> company's business is regulatory arbitrage
This isn't arbitrage any more than selling warships is military arbitrage.