This does not bode well for California’s cap-and-trade program.
The San Francisco Chronicle reports,
Pacific Gas and Electric Co.’s ClimateSmart program, which lets the utility’s customers go “carbon neutral” for a price, will close at the end of the year after signing up far fewer people than expected.
Begun in 2007, ClimateSmart gives participants a way to offset greenhouse gas emissions from the power plants that supply their electricity.
PG&E customers who joined the program pay a little extra on their monthly bills – about $3.30 for a typical homeowner. PG&E uses the money to fund projects that fight the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, such as preserving forests from logging or capturing methane from cow manure.
But the program attracted just a fraction of the roughly 168,000 customers that PG&E predicted. Enrollment peaked in 2008 at just under 31,000. By the end of last year, it had slipped to 29,623…
ClimateSmart was created as a three-year experiment, and California energy regulators extended it until the end of this year despite concerns about weak participation. PG&E did not seek a second extension, said company spokeswoman Katie Romans.
The program, she said, accomplished its most important goal, reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 1.3 million metric tons. Participants contributed a total of about $10 million over four years, she said…
Critics also questioned whether the money coming from participants actually made a difference…
The laws of economics and physics cannot be socially engineered away — especially by the low-brows in the green/clean energy racket.