Via the WSJ energy blog, follow the money:
Since 1999, federal energy subsidies have more than doubled-from $8.2 billion to $16.6 billion in 2007. Who gets the most?
'Renewables' landed $4.8 billion last year, but that includes $3.25 billion for ethanol and other biofuels.
Coal and cleaner-burning "refined" coal took home $3.3 billion, while the nuclear power industry got $1.3 billion.
In all, about 40% of the energy subsidy pie went toward electricity production; the rest for things like alternative fuels and energy conservation.
More here.
Copenhagen, U.S.A. December 7
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greenfire8 Posted 12:11 pm
29 Apr 2008
From the original DOE report:
Fiscal Year 2007 Electricity Production Subsidies and Support
Coal - 3.3 bil
Nuclear - 1.3 bil
Renewables - 1 bil
I have to agree w/ a comment in the WSJ blog...
$1.3B per year for Nuclear is a little misleading don't you think though? The figure should be closer to atleast $10B once you start including all the ancillary "non-weapon" nuclear power programs. If not much higher than that. Just the Price Anderson Act alone is monetized to atleast $4B annually.
Also from the report:
Subsidy and Support per Unit of Production (dollars/megawatthour)
Coal & Refined Coal - 30.3
Nuclear - 1.6
Biomass (and biofuels) - 0.9
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greenfire8 Posted 12:26 pm
29 Apr 2008
"Though impossible to capture every government support to energy, even partial evaluations indicate the large scale of subsidies to this sector. In a paper for the the National Commission on Energy Policy Koplow (2004) estimated federal subsidies at between $40 and $69 billion per year in 2003 (2006$)."
"Earth Track's preliminary subsidy estimates for 2006 peg federal support at between $49 and $100 billion per year. This is well above the 2003 estimate. Neither the 2003 or the 2006 estimate includes credit subsidies to energy enterprises, which would boost the totals by a few billion dollars more."
"the distribution of the subsidies across energy sources in 2006 continues to favor conventional energy. More than 50 percent of the total benefits the oil and gas sectors. Nuclear power is the next largest beneficiary at 12%, benefiting from a range of new subsidies aimed at new plant construction. Subsidization of ethanol is on par to support of all other renewables combined (at roughly $5.6 billion/year), though this may in part be due to more comprehensive recent assessments of ethanol than other renewables."
http://www.earthtrack.net/earthtrack/library/SubsidyRefor ...
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Pompey Road Posted 10:16 pm
29 Apr 2008
Sorghum, switch grass, and a host of others, more efficient and will come closer to working without pushing the cost of food out of sight.
Natural gas would be good for transportation, burns cleaner, and the natural gas car would not cost that much more than the traditional gas engine car. Wind for power generation, the belt from Texas to Canada with transmission lines running east and west. Boone Pickins is already putting money into it, he is an oil man, that should tell you something.
Honda already produces a NGC and a company sells natural gas charge stations that you can use with your home natural gas supply. Fleet natural gas has been around for years.
They actually will have to come up with another measuring device to measure the pollution from the NGC, it is so low the ones they use now can't get an accurate measurement. That is for the new engines that were developed for Natural Gas. The conversions are pretty good but not clean enough.
The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.
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amazingdrx Posted 10:48 pm
29 Apr 2008
Nuclear, fossil,and fuel farming subsidies are a great tax neutral souce for direct subsidies to investors in renewables and conservation. Like home solar panels, plugin hybrids, geo heat exchange heating/cooling, farm biogas, and wind machines on farms.
Get this energy revolution going now! 10 cents per GHG free kwh would send it into a boom phase. Reviving our economy and making us a real world leader again.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Jonas Posted 3:57 am
30 Apr 2008
Wind and solar don't work without a baseload technologye, that is coal, and can therefor not be considered to be true renewables sources. Unless energy storage is invented that works (but that doesn't exist yet); or unless you couple wind and solar to biomass.
Biomass is the clear loser. Sadly so, because it is by far the most cost-effective of all the renewables.
(Liquid fuels and biofuels are an other discussion - they must be seen apart from the renewables that generate electricity.)
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