permafrost Loc: Minnesota

hate to use so much space, and knowing few will read it does not help, but this is a good artical from the HILL and all should read it..

https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/351728-federal-energy-subsidies-go-to-far-more-than-nuclear-and-coal

Any intellectually honest discussion about energy markets requires acknowledging that all energy is subsidized, a fact that experts sometimes forget.

In a Sept. 8 column for The Hill, for instance, one author argued that eliminating renewable energy incentives was key to increasing prosperity and that, short of eliminating renewable energy subsidies, our nation would suffer “through energy poverty … in the future.”

But as Ronald Reagan said, “facts are stubborn things.”


The coal and nuclear plants supposedly harmed by increasing amounts of renewable energy are also beneficiaries of government subsidies. And rather than renewables, cheap, abundant and subsidized natural gas is of much more concern to coal and nuclear facilities because these “base load” plants cannot react quickly to market signals like a new, efficient gas-fired energy facility, as the Department of Energy’s grid study recently concluded.



Let’s look at some of the implicit incentives for fossil fuels and nuclear energy.

Coal plants, for example, do not bear the full cost of the byproducts they create to generate electricity (e.g., emissions, solid waste, cooling water discharge, etc.). Experts can disagree on the cost of these, but no one disagrees that the profits from these investor-owned coal plants go to the shareholders.

Furthermore, only “mineral or natural resource” businesses such as oil, natural gas and coal (but not wind or solar energy) are able to use a government-subsidized financing structuring called a “master limited partnership” (MLP). These publicly-traded vehicles are not subject to corporate taxation and are extremely tax efficient, which allows those privileged businesses to access investment capital at low rates for large infrastructure projects. This implicit tax subsidy lowers the cost of gas-fired electricity, in addition to other implicit subsides available only to oil and natural gas.

Finally, the nuclear industry is the beneficiary of the Price-Anderson Act, which became law in 1957 (and is regularly renewed—most recently in 2005 for 20 years) as an incentive for the private production of nuclear power. In short, because investor-owned utilities cannot acquire insurance in the marketplace to cover its potential exposure in case of a nuclear disaster, the act covers liability from nuclear incidents above $13.6 billion—with the remaining cost covered by taxpayers. The Japanese government has estimated the cost of the Fukushima nuclear disaster to be $188 billion. Should such a tragedy befall a nuclear plant in the United States, in addition to the untold social and emotional loss, the Price-Anderson Act means taxpayers would be on the hook for $174.4 billion.

In reality, the key to increasing prosperity would be to eliminate all energy subsidies, which are often buried deep in government statutes for the benefit of fossil fuels and/or nuclear energy. The production tax credit (PTC) for wind energy and the investment tax credit (ITC) for solar face fierce opposition from special interests that derive their wealth primarily from oil and gas, which state their opposition to the PTC and/or ITC because they want “the market, not government, to pick winners and losers.” Yet their concern doesn’t extend to the subsidies discussed above, which are at least equal to the tax subsidies for renewable resources.

As for concern over the intermittent nature of renewable energy and its supposed impact on grid reliability, grid operators constantly balance fluctuating electricity supply and demand for energy. Why single out renewable energy technologies when the grid is built and operated for a rare event such as a massive coal or nuclear plant tripping and going offline? The amount of redundancy built into the grid for this contingency in the form of operating reserves (both spinning and supplemental) is breathtaking. This extra cost was there long before renewable technologies starting injecting energy into the grid. Because the grid has been built to support these massive “base load” plants, the incremental cost of integrating renewables is marginal.

And the men and women charged with keeping the lights on say the grid is as reliable as ever. “The state of reliability in North America remains strong, and the trend line shows continuing improvement year over year,” according to the CEO of the Norther American Electric Reliability Corporation, a regulatory group charged with monitoring grid reliability and security.

Growing wind and solar energy fosters energy independence and a diversified energy portfolio. Renewables reduce air pollution and save water, which is heavily used in other forms of energy production. Renewables also employ hundreds of thousands of Americans across all 50 states. Many of those workers have 21st century manufacturing jobs, with more than 500 U.S. factories now building parts for wind turbines. Renewables like wind energy provide a drought-resistant crop to farmers in the form of lease payments totaling $245 million annually for hosting turbines, and wind vastly boosts revenue in rural areas for local town budgets through increased property taxes.

kemmer

Try some Miracle-gro. My hydrangeas love it.

Common_Sense_Matters

Will have to try that on my windmills, am somewhat concerned about the ingredients of Miracle-grow where it comes to my solar energy plants that also failed to sprout, will it harm the glass? I planted the solar cells of some calculators, I really hope they grow.

kemmer

Solar energy plants do best in elephant dung-enriched alpine soil. It's harmless to glass.

Common_Sense_Matters

Okay, will try that.

pafret Loc: Northeast

Those subsidies are used to make the green energy price competitive otherwise the companies producing it would go bankrupt.

Fit2BTied Loc: Texas

First, sorry, didn't know about issues with the site. I run an adblocker and other add-ons and didn't notice the problem. I understand that some of the subsidy dollars go to things like tax breaks for installing solar for example. I think I'm being misunderstood a bit, so let me be clear. I'm not against renewable energy. I believe in supporting the technologies (although I think solar shows a lot more long term promise than wind). But I don't believe that it's sensible to try to push them faster than it makes sense in the big picture. It's going to take a decade or more for the technologies to mature enough to make costs acceptable. One thing I'm definitely for is US companies gearing up to build the solar panels needed. I also am aware that there are problems that must be resolved in the fossil fuel arena. So you're making valid points. Then you said "coal/oil/gas ISN'T an inexhaustible source". Technically you are correct, but based on proven reserves:

https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.php?page=coal_reserves The US has over 300 years of coal left (used at current rates - and we're trying to wean ourselves off of it so...)

https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=58&t=8 The US has about 90 years of natural gas.

https://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Energy-Voices/2014/0714/How-long-will-world-s-oil-reserves-last-53-years-says-BP Oil is a different animal in that the world has been swapping it around forever, so US reserves aren't what matters. But BP says current proved reserves gives us over 50 years to find a replacement.

We don't need to find more coal. We WILL find more natural gas and oil reserves.

Remember this started out talking about the war on coal. Let's work to find ways to supplement oil, gas, and coal (thereby extending the life of those reserves), but let's NOT be foolish about the resources we have in abundance.

Fit2BTied Loc: Texas

I read your comments and looked at the article. I agree with a lot of what you're saying. Like I told Common Sense Matters, I'm not anti-renewables - my biggest gripe is that it doesn't make a lot of sense to force renewables to mature faster than they are able, especially considering where we are with current energy production, usage, and proven reserves. We absolutely should work on new energy sources in parallel with established ones.

permafrost Loc: Minnesota

I read you above post to CSM, good point and I mostly can agree with you..

But I feel that renewables are resisted more then they should be, at one time I expected the energy companies to jump on the wagon of new products.

Now it seem they are working to slow the use of all renewables while the get the dollars from fossil fuels with not regard to any downside of their use..

This could be coal, in or out of the port of Duluth..

Fit2BTied Loc: Texas

Another valid point. I have trouble blaming them for their strategy. But one would hope they're planning for the long term which does include us all still living here in 2050 and beyond. Well, I won't be here unless they do that brain in a jar thing, lol - but my son and his family will. And so will the progeny of these energy producing families.

Hogback

Only when we are ready for a change. We should not ban gas and oil and force all industry to switch over to a method that is not able to do the job. We should actually allow technology to develop until we have solar cells the size of a cell phone and batteries that last a lot longer than now. We need to make a lot more advancements in technology. It will come. Also, we can't believe the science concerning global warming because of all of the twisted reports that have been proved false.