Charles Komanoff

 

Fossil Fuels and Earth's Climate

I co-founded the Carbon Tax Center in early 2007 with attorney Dan Rosenblum. The CTC Web site is the repository of most of my writing since then on climate and energy. The CTC Web site is also a great source of analysis, perspective and advocacy on carbon pricing, including my powerful but user-friendly Excel model estimating emissions and revenue impacts of possible federal carbon taxes. Download and run your own carbon-tax scenarios! All content is updated regularly.

From 2006 to 2010, I posted several dozen pieces on climate, energy and transportation, including broadsides against "Big Green" groups for pushing cap-and-trade or regulatory measures over carbon taxes, on the environmental blog Grist. For a listing of titles and links, go here.

NYC Air Quality

In 2012, I sought funding for a study to document and quantify the gains in New York City's air quality since 1970, and to establish the resulting health and economic benefits. In my preliminary proposal, I wrote that "Through inspired citizen activism, enlightened governance and improved technology, air quality in New York City has improved steadily and markedly over the past 40 years," and that this improvement has "contributed to NYC's economic resurgence." Today (2019), with a pro-pollution federal government, the value of such a study appears even greater than when I wrote the proposal. A copy of my 3-page preliminary proposal is available here.

The Price of Power: Electric Utilities and the Environment (by Charles Komanoff, Holly Miller & Sandy Noyes, CEP, 1972)

Brand-new! (to the Web, that is): a scanned copy of the complete 620-page report, The Price of Power: Electric Utilities and the Environment, published in 1972 by the Council on Economic Priorities, which conceived and sponsored it. The report, which I co-authored with Holly Miller and Charles (Sandy) Noyes, was an early broadside in the "war on coal" and documented the pervasive antipathy toward environmental protection and R&D in the U.S. electric power industry at the height of its political power in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

You may download the entire 35 MB report via the link directly below, or, if you prefer, in smaller sections.
Complete volume (620 pp, 35 MB).
Front Covers, Title Page, Contents, Preface, Acknowledgments (10 pp, 0.6 MB).
Intro, Fossil Fuels, Air Pollution, Nuclear Power (46 pp, 3.2 MB).
Thermal Pollution, Hydro Power, R&D, Advertising & Growth (59 pp, 4.2 MB).
Study Scope + Findings, Summary Charts, Notes (42 pp, 3.1 MB).
Company Profiles: American Electric Power, Baltimore Gas & Electric, Central Maine Power (85 pp, 4.6 MB).
Company Profiles: Commonwealth Edison, Consolidated Edison, Florida Power & Light (108 pp, 5.8 MB).
Company Profiles: Houston Lighting & Power, Iowa Power & Light, Northern States Power, Oklahoma Gas & Electric (68 pp, 3.4 MB).
Company Profiles: Pacific Gas & Electric, Portland General Electric, Southern California Edison, the Four Corners Project (88 pp, 4.4 MB).
Company Profiles: Southern Company, Virginia Electric Power (75 pp, 3.9 MB).
Appendices, Bibliography, Errata, Back Covers (38 pp, 2.4 MB).

Other Archival Material by Komanoff

1989 op-ed in Washington Post, "Instead of a Gas Tax, How About a Carbon Tax"

Pollution Control Improvements in Coal Fired Electric Generating Plants: What They Accomplish, What They Cost, comprehensive review of pollution-control progress, published in Journal of the American Pollution Control Association, September 1980. Same material appears as Chapter 6 in my 1981 book, Power Plant Cost Escalation.

Speech at Global Day of Action for Climate Justice, New York City, Nov. 30, 2009

"Albert, Martin and ... Ralph? Solving the Real Energy Crisis." A challenge to Ralph Nader in Grist (August 2006)

"Carbon Offsets: What Would Gandhi Do?," Essay in Grist (July 2006)

"Fuel Tax Magic," Essay in Grist (June 2006)

A Campaign for Fair Energy Taxes (PDF)

Energy Taxes - Rebutting the Myths (PDF)

"Carbon Taxes: A Green Priority" (2004 essay)

Letter in NY Times Book Review, July 2003, on climate change and green politics

Debunking Madison Avenue, broadside against retrograde utility company American Electric Power -- by far the largest U.S. coal-fired electricity generator and acid rain polluter -- published in Feb. 16, 1974 issue of Environmental Action magazine.