Sat, 20 Aug 2022 07:52:36 +0000
Global oil production capacity cannot materially increase beyond roughly current levels before about 2028–2030; significant new capacity will not come online until that timeframe.
“There is very little room right now to expand that without pushing the date in which that capacity is available out until 2028 to 2030, so effectively a decade from now.” View on YouTube
The Inflation Reduction Act effectively ends the political viability of a U.S. carbon tax; a federal carbon tax will not be implemented in the United States in the foreseeable future.
“I actually think that what this bill did was kill the idea of a carbon tax? I think it makes it completely. Unimportant. And it'll never see the light of day.” View on YouTube
Implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act will reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions to roughly 40% below the target baseline level policymakers are using for 2030 (i.e., achieving about 40% of the desired emissions reduction by 2030).
“this plan will still get us to about 40% of the way there, where we want it to be by 2030” View on YouTube
Voluntary/offset carbon markets and carbon trading will not become the large, central climate solution many expected, and direct air capture companies will remain small, marginal "toy" projects rather than large, mainstream, economically credible businesses over the coming decades.
“So I think carbon markets and carbon trading are not going to be the thing that we thought it was going to be. I think stuff like direct air capture again are going to be toy projects off to the side. I don't think that those are those are not those are not going to be credible businesses like we thought they were going to be.” View on YouTube
Global decarbonization and climate-change mitigation will not be substantially "solved" by 2050; meaningful completion of the project of addressing climate change will likely slip to around the years 2150–2200.
“Nothing's going to get solved by 2050. Maybe you'll see something done by 2100. Probably not. It'll probably be a 2001 52,200. 2200 kind of an objective.” View on YouTube
The U.S. government will not succeed in hiring the full 87,000 additional IRS employees authorized in the Inflation Reduction Act; actual hiring will fall significantly short of that target.
“It'll be impossible for these guys to find 87,000 humans that want to work at the IRS.” View on YouTube
The U.S. Inflation Reduction Act will serve as a template for other countries, which will adopt their own similar subsidy- and permitting-based climate frameworks in the following years.
“the bill has actually cleaned up a lot of future question marks about what we have to do as a country to go about doing our part for climate change. And I think it probably creates a reasonable blueprint for everybody else. And now they're going to have to do some version of the same thing.” View on YouTube
If the U.S. later passes a streamlined permitting framework for hydrocarbon projects as envisioned alongside the IRA, that reform will significantly increase U.S. fossil-fuel production revenues and improve U.S. national security in subsequent years.
“if we actually pass this framework, which is still yet to be written, uh, around how to make permitting more seamless and efficient for these hydrocarbon projects, it will really unleash, um, a massive torrent of both revenues back to the United States. Um, it'll increase our national security” View on YouTube
Climate-tech businesses whose unit economics are not contribution-margin positive without Inflation Reduction Act subsidies, and whose path to profitability depends solely on those subsidies, will ultimately fail as sustainable standalone businesses.
“If you're not contribution margin positive today, pre this bill in climate change and the bill is the only way that you get there. Your dough, you just don't know it.” View on YouTube
If the enhanced ACA (Obamacare) subsidies extended for three years in the Inflation Reduction Act are renewed instead of sunsetting after those three years, the IRA will increase the federal deficit by roughly $155 billion over its 10‑year scoring window instead of reducing it by about $305 billion.
“if you extend that subsidy three years from now, just that one item alone makes the deficit reduction in this bill go from $305 billion over the ten year period to -155 billion. So just that one item, if you continue it and don't sunset it, just that one thing makes this a hugely deficit not reducing bill but deficit increasing bill.” View on YouTube
The bulk of new IRS audit activity enabled by hiring tens of thousands of additional agents will fall on middle- and upper-middle-income taxpayers and small business owners, rather than on ultra-wealthy individuals who are already routinely audited.
“They're gonna find a lot. They're gonna find a lot of middle class and upper middle class, folks, and they're going to have to focus on them...it's going to touch the folks that are not audited. And by and large, a much, much larger majority of middle income and upper middle income people are not audited” View on YouTube
Additional significant information will be revealed in the future about the FBI unit that conducted the Mar-a-Lago search, including its prior misconduct in investigations involving Donald Trump.
“I think there's still more to come out about this.” View on YouTube