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posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday June 02 2020, @05:11PM   Printer-friendly
from the cloud-of-junk dept.

Orbital Use Fees Proposed As the Most Effective Way to Solve the Space Junk Problem:

The most effective way to solve the space junk problem, according to a new study, is not to capture debris or deorbit old satellites: it's an international agreement to charge operators "orbital-use fees" for every satellite put into orbit.

Orbital use fees would also increase the long-run value of the space industry, said economist Matthew Burgess, a CIRES Fellow and co-author of the new paper. By reducing future satellite and debris collision risk, an annual fee rising to about $235,000 per satellite would quadruple the value of the satellite industry by 2040, he and his colleagues concluded in a paper published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"Space is a common resource, but companies aren't accounting for the cost their satellites impose on other operators when they decide whether or not to launch," said Burgess, who is also an assistant professor in Environmental Studies and an affiliated faculty member in Economics at the University of Colorado Boulder. "We need a policy that lets satellite operators directly factor in the costs their launches impose on other operators."

[...] A better approach to the space debris problem, Rao and his colleagues found, is to implement an orbital-use fee — a tax on orbiting satellites. "That's not the same as a launch fee," Rao said, "Launch fees by themselves can't induce operators to deorbit their satellites when necessary, and it's not the launch but the orbiting satellite that causes the damage."

[...] "In our model, what matters is that satellite operators are paying the cost of the collision risk imposed on other operators," said Daniel Kaffine, professor of economics and RASEI Fellow at the University of Colorado Boulder and co-author on the paper.

Reference:
Akhil Rao, Matthew G. Burgess and Daniel Kaffine, Orbital-use fees could more than quadruple the value of the space industry", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1921260117


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  • (Score: 2) by darkfeline on Tuesday June 02 2020, @10:50PM (3 children)

    by darkfeline (1030) on Tuesday June 02 2020, @10:50PM (#1002469) Homepage

    > how about we start down here in the mud and charge impact fees for things like plastic bottles that end up in the oceans

    But we do (if you live in one of states with deposit laws)? That deposit is what you're getting back if you return the bottle for recycling.

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  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday June 02 2020, @11:13PM

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Tuesday June 02 2020, @11:13PM (#1002483)

    Minor New England states are not nearly as important or impactful as they think they are. Plastic bottle deposits never really caught on elsewhere.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @11:50PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @11:50PM (#1002499)

    Time is money. All that nickle-and-diming is designed to cost enough of a mark's time that anyone holding a job would lose more, money-wise, if he spends time "getting back" the, in essence, private tax. The result? As designed: the bottles flow to the oceans as before, and money flows to some "green" pockets.

    • (Score: 2, Interesting) by anubi on Wednesday June 03 2020, @01:24AM

      by anubi (2828) on Wednesday June 03 2020, @01:24AM (#1002530) Journal

      The exact reason I put my refundable cans into big bags and leave them in homeless areas.

      It's an "economy of scale" thing. I simply don't have time to mess with it. But if I catch someone rooting through a dumpster after cans, I'll offer them mine to add to theirs. Same when passing by a recycling center line. Give it to somebody. Especially if they don't have much. They must need the money awful bad to wait in line that long for it.

      I will very rarely give money, but I will give recyclables, considering they earned what they got from it.

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