From the Ventura County Star:
ROACH DRY LAKE, Nev. — Not a light bulb’s worth of solar electricity has been produced on the millions of acres of public desert set aside for it. Not one project to build glimmering solar farms has even broken ground.
Instead, five years after federal land managers opened up stretches of the Southwest to developers, vast tracts still sit idle.
An Associated Press examination of U.S. Bureau of Land Management records and interviews with agency officials show that the BLM operated a first-come, first-served leasing system that quickly overwhelmed its small staff and enabled companies, regardless of solar industry experience, to squat on land without any real plans to develop it.
As the nation drills ever deeper for oil off its shores and tries to diversify its energy supply, the federal government has failed to use the land it already has — some of the world’s best for solar — to produce renewable electricity.
The Obama administration says it is expediting the most promising projects, with some approvals expected as soon as this month. And yet, it will be years before the companies begin sending electricity to the Southwest’s sprawling, energy-hungry cities.
Read more: http://www.vcstar.com/news/2010/sep/01/land-leased-for-solar-power-unused/#ixzz0yMLDZjM2
– vcstar.com
Subsidies to big oil companies. The oil sands of northern Alberta is the example I know something about, so I will restrict my comments to that.
In the 1990’s, the effective tax rate on net revenue from oil produced from the sands of northern Alberta approached 80%. Simply a matter of provincial royalties of 50% of net revenue, and federal income tax on the entire net revenue. The feds did not allow provincial royalty as a business expense. In the late 1990’s the industry worked with both levels of government to bring the total tax take down to something closer to that applicable to other industries at around 50% of net revenue.
Of course I am over-simplifying, and stress I am not stating any personal opinion as to the appropriate level of taxation on that industry. I am simply providing an example of a “subsidy”. Every since then, the environmental advocacy industry has cited the difference between an 80% tax rate and a 50% tax rate as a “subsidy”.
Tax bureaucrats, of course, love high nominal tax rates from which they can dole out “tax expenditures” making their role interesting and important. But it does make everything confusing.
Advocacy group reports and data such as that cited by Paulm must be understood in the context of my example and many others in the same vein.
paulw says:
September 2, 2010 at 3:27 am
“Fossil Fuel Subsidies Are 12 Times Support for Renewables”
There are a whole host of countries that heavily subsidize electricity rates.
The price Saudi Electric utilities pay for Oil is 46 cents/MBtu. The global price for oil is closer to $13/MBtu. So in effect the Saudi’s are ‘subsidizing’ domestic consumption at the rate of $12.54/MBtu.
Whether or not the Saudi’s subsidize fossil fuel use is their business and as far as I’m concerned not a reason to subsidize solar projects in the US.
paulw says:
September 2, 2010 at 6:28 am
“Is there something that the world does not know about solar energy (is solar futile?) that my fellow commenters know?”
Wind mills are cheaper then solar, both need about the same backup generation.
So even if one has a ‘renewable energy standard’, as we have on the West Coast, it’s cheaper to meet the standard with windmills rather then solar.
Solar might have an application in remote areas with poor wind . Or in applications where the cost of wiring exceeds the cost of the panels.
Further to the discussion on subsidies, here is the taxes that one oil company (Exxon) paid in 2008. Think of how much all these companies contribute to the Treasury per year. Apparently this is not enough for the Obama administration and they want the companies to pay more (hope you realize the consumer will pay more for energy if it is available).
Perhaps someone could tell me how much the solar companies paid in taxes versus how much of a subsidy they get.
Who is going to fund the treasury if we get rid of the taxes paid by fossil fuels companies? How will we tax electric cars to pay for our roads and transportation system.
“According to the company’s income statement, the amount of taxes it paid in 2008 was 2.5 times as much as its net profit. The $45.2 billion profit figure makes a snappy headline, but the $116.2 billion in taxes that it paid is relegated to a footnote—if that. Exxon’s tax bill
breaks down like this: income taxes, $36.5 billion; sales-based taxes, $34.5 billion; “all other” taxes, $45.2 billion. Although the company doesn’t mention royalty payments in its income statement, those payments are likely contained within the sales and “all other” categories.”
“In 2008, Exxon’s tax bill averaged about $318 million per day. And it paid those taxes at the very same time that the whiz kids on Wall Street, the geniuses at AIG, and the mavens at Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, were begging Uncle Sam for multibillion-dollar life preservers in order to prevent financial chaos. Exxon made huge profits—and paid record taxes—at the very same time that the U.S. financial system was undergoing near-fatal convulsions brought about by excessive speculation, uncontained greed, and a basic failure to provide goods and services needed by the overall economy. How many Americans really need credit default swaps or collateralized debt obligations? Now compare that number with the tens of millions of Americans who absolutely must have gasoline every day.”
http://politics.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2009/02/11/exxon-big-oil-profits-evil-only-until-you-weigh-their-tax-bills.html
This gets down the crux of the problem with government subidies:
When governments subsidise production, there’s a disincentive to improve the product. There’s an incentive to be inefficient.
When governments subsidise reasearch and development, they provide an incentive to improve and to innovate.
Government subsidies on products forces all taxpayers to become customers. Subsidised manufacturers become enslaved to the subsidies and the whims of government.
How do we know oil is a fossil fuel and not formed naturally within the earth. Most dead animals and plants are consumed on the surface. Can there be that much that is not consumed to account for all the oil? How many dead dinosaurs does it take to make a quart of oil. And as far as green energy is concerned, shouldn’t it be actually made practical before we commit to it. Practical energy should not eat up thousands of acres of land and should not create a massive oven or be so loud or be a bird swatter. Practical energy should not have to depend on “fossil” fuel when the wind stops and the sun goes down or to just operate. Practical energy should be available 24/7/360. It should be affordable, dependable and not be an irritant.
And why has the federal government got so much land in the first place.
Every one kwh of solar or wind requires one kwh of fossil fuel continuously idling and ready to jump in at any time. Since the fossil fuel electricity has to be there and cost 20% of the wind or solar at most, it begs the question,”Why not just run the fossil fuel 100% of the time’
Worried about running out in 100-200 years…then build nuclear. Nothing else makes sense.
Current CO2 ~385 PPM. 3% from fossil fuel, 97% natural (per IPCC 2007 report). 25% from the US. Proposed reduction with Cap and tax 15 to 20% of that 25%.
385x.03x.25x.20= 0.5775 PPM or 0.0000006 part of the atmosphere. Immeasurable. Why spend the trillions on such a futile effort when the expense is sure to collapse an already teetering economy?
Subsidies (real ones) are a smokescreen to disguise the real problems of any particular enterprise.
The first mistake is in the assumption that the problems of enterprise (A) are economic ones. Let’s say that (A) happens to be a solar cell electric farm. We can’t build it because it is “uneconomic”. If that is indeed true; then the world is full of economists; among whom must be some who are smart enough to solve those “economic” problems.
Hey, I’m not an economist; but even I am smart enough to solve this “economic” problem. I put on my Obamanation hat, and I slap an imperial tax on fossil fuel energy sources. …. BIG one !! $1meg per barrel of sweet Arabian Crude equivalent. And I “invest” all those tax funds in my political friends solar cell electric farms.
See how easy that is….”economic problem” gone poof ! in a few seconds with my oval office pen.
JC !! you should hear all my solar cell electric farm political supporters hollerin’ about the price of solar cells. Seems like when sweet Arabian crude cost $60 per barrel; and my friends could make 20 Watts worth of solar panels out of the energy in a barrel of oil; they were able to break even at $3 per Watt for their solar cells; so they just needed to squeeze a little more cost out to make a profit.
Today; they can still make 20 Watts of solar cells out of a barrel of oil; but they have to sell them for $50,000 per Watt to reach break even. Well I can fix that too with an even bigger subsidy; I think; maybe; dunno, maybe not !
You see, if you perceive the problems to be economic problems then you set economists to work on those problems to solve them (if they can).
Well the problems of solar cell electric farms are NOT economic problems; they are technical problems; the technology does not exist; to make solar cell electric farms that are as energy efficient as Sweet Arabian Crude oil wells.
And no matter how you shuffle the pea under the shells; it will never be economical; unless you solve the technology problems.
You have to reduce the amount of energy capital that it takes to create one Watt’s worth of solar cell power. Solving those technology problems takes scientists to work on basic science, and engineers to work on practical product designs; so you are barking up the wrong tree if you expect economists to fix it.
So the basic test for ANY alternative energy scheme, is to take whatever your favorite technology is; say “clean coal” and you start with a clean coal plant; big as you woulde like; plus a mountain of coal to run it; however many zigaWatt hours production you want. I’ll give you that; free and clear; so no economic problems; and of course you have access to all the natural resources in the univers in their natural state, plus the free energy out of your clean coal plant.
Before you go out and sell your energy at whatever market rate you can get, and get filthy rich; I just need one little favor from you. Build me a duplicate of the plant I just gave you, and replace my mountain of coal, so I can get filthy rich too. And all you have to work with is your output energy; and all those resources.
And hell no; you can’t borrow my bulldozer to go and dig up some coal or steel or concrete; and my brother is too busy to drive it for you so you’ll have to get your own driver; and feed and clothe and house him and his family (everybody else is busy doing something else).
Well but you have all that free energy I gave you to work with. Once I get my duplicate plant then you can start making some real money with yours. Good luck on that !
Here is some informative description of the overall subsidies for the US and the EU,
Source: http://cleantech.com/news/node/554
On related news, China is investing in a 2GW solar park in north China, with the help of First Solar (a US company). The Chinese signed an MoU that includes transfer of technology (to China). Here is the press release,
http://investor.firstsolar.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=201491&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1328913
We do some investment in solar energy but our efforts are dwarfed by what the others are doing. The attitude I see here is that of disdain against solar energy, and religious attachment to fossil fuels (that we need to import) and thorium reactors (which are not there yet – do we have an experimental reactor yet?).
paulw says:
September 2, 2010 at 6:28 am
Is there something that the world does not know about solar energy (is solar futile?) that my fellow commenters know?
Is the world wrong and you (fellow commenters) right about solar energy?
Do not get your fellow commenters here wrong Paul.
Solar energy is real and has a place. Solar’s place is defined by its economics, not the moralistic wants of the hard core environmentalists. Economically there are numerous niche markets for solar, like rover operations on the surface of Mars. It simply makes no sense to try and supply the electric grid of an industrialized country with solar power.
Paul, the commenters here are not rejecting solar power, they are rejecting YOU.
It depends on how you define — the rest of the world. In general the uninformed public is in fact horribly wrong about solar. More importantly to this discussion, solar is not entirely dismissed out of hand as you imply. Many of us both use and like solar for certain applications for which it is well suited, like calculator solar batteries, or solar trickle chargers for cars that are stored most of the year, or solar powered yard lights, or light pole solar used to power small remote applications like stream flow and flood alarm reporting systems in remote areas.
Solar (PV) electric work just fine for applications where you meet certain constraints. Absolute power levels must be low and power usage must be highly intermittent, (like your calculator). Or the power level must be low and non-critical like your solar powered walk lights where no one gets upset if they fade to black at 1:00 in the morning because it was a cloudy day and they did not get enough charge in the nicad internal storage batteries to last the full night.
I have some small solar panel trickle chargers that produce 5 watts of 12V power in full sun.
http://www.harborfreight.com/5-watt-solar-battery-charger-41144.html
They work just fine to keep a car battery topped up when it is parked for an extended period of time, or while camping as a low current power source to run a 12V portable radio.
Solar also works well in highly managed power systems where commercial power is prohibitively expensive like remote cabins or ocean going sail boats.
Go look at the West Marine catalog ( http://www.westmarine.com) and price out the parts it would take to out fit a small sailing vessel with a reliable 12V solar power system that would provide minimal daily use power. In their printed catalog they even have some helpful tech info that helps you design a useful system. By the time you buy panels, inverters, and storage batteries you have a system that will provide minimal power ( ie a few lights at night, maybe a bit of TV, emergency power for the marine radio and some water pumping for showers and pumping the bilge etc).
But you also have high over head in personal time dedicated to keeping the panels clean, monitoring the storage batteries, and managing your power consumption so you don’t exceed the capacity of the system.
You can (and I have) gone off grid completely on solar power, but there are only two choices — spend lots of money for a system that will supply power levels comparable to house hold commercial power ( that is 10’s of thousands of dollars per house hold in solar equipment with a 30 year pay back) or spend a few hundred dollars and live a life style comparable to a 1920’s rural farmer where radio was a luxury that you used for a couple hours a day, and lights out at 9:00 pm.
Solar is not unsuitable for any use, but it is highly unsuited to reliable base load power generation, without the investment of cubic money in supporting infrastructure, like fast spool up backup generation. Even in prime solar generation areas, you still have to deal with when the clouds come in and long lines to carry the power (with lots of line losses) from remote sunny areas to where it will be used. In parts of the country where cloudiness is high you either need to grossly over build the solar panel array to cover for low power production during cloudy weather, or you have to drastically limit your power consumption to match the available power.
Here is a challenge for you — go buy a watt meter. The one I have is called
Kill A Watt They cost about $40 at wall mart.
http://www.walmart.com/ip/P3-International-Kill-A-Watt-EZ-Electricity-Usage-Monitor/14282371
Now use that meter to find out how much power you actually use in your daily life style. Plug it in line with each of your major appliances like refrigerator, TV, lights etc. and get an average daily power consumption for your life style in watt hours.
Then do the math to find out how much solar power panel area you would need to provide that much power at 15% conversion rate and 6 hours of sun per day, then price the panels and the batteries and inverters to store that power at $4 a watt for the solar panels I think you will find that you would rather continue to buy power at 11 – 20 cents a kilowatt hour from the power company.
Larry
Any technology that requires taxpayer subsidy for its existence is by definition a non-viable technology in the free market. As George E. Smith commented, the DC to high voltage AC grid conversion would be grossly inefficient. And it isn’t exactly like a PV panel will “last 30 years”. Output starts to attenuate from Day 1 and after about 10 years the total output is seriously degraded. Then there are all those little things – like keeping the panels clean. Over time the outer protective layers start to oxidize or become pitted from environmental dust and sand. PV arrays require constant maintenance (just like wind turbines).
Solar is simply inadequate for large scale commercial production of electricity. Solar is quite handy for individual applications but even then its pretty expensive. I rigged up a small PV system here at home, ostensibly to provide emergency power for my ham radio equipment. I bought a 55 watt PV panel for about $300. Then I had to invest in a charge controller and a glass-pack deep cycle battery. With wiring and other materials the entire project set me back about $600. Now, just 4 or 5 years later I have to replace the battery. I’ve used this system a few times during local power outages. I ran the output through an inverter and powered my laptop while I was working at home. It worked OK in the middle of a summer day but the laptop drew more than 55 watts and the battery would fail after 3 or 4 hours.
A friend of mine powers his entire home mostly from solar. He has huge, expensive arrays. He also has a big propane tank and a propane generator for cloudy days and a propane refrigerator. He has to service his batteries at least twice a week and keep his PV panels wiped down (bird droppings being a big problem). Total investment in solar energy to power his 1,200 sqft home was about $40,000 (propane not included).
Mainland China has 12 nuclear power reactors in operation, 24 under construction, and more about to start construction soon.
Additional reactors are planned, including some of the world’s most advanced, to give more than a tenfold increase in nuclear capacity to 80 GWe by 2020, 200 GWe by 2030, and 400 GWe by 2050.
China is rapidly becoming self-sufficient in reactor design and construction, as well as other aspects of the fuel cycle.
These capacity increase figures are all the more remarkable considering the forced retirement of small inefficient coal-fired plants: 26 GWe of these was closed in 2009, making 60 GWe closed since 2006, cutting annual coal consumption by 69 million tonnes and annual carbon dioxide emissions by 139 Mt.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf63.html
We have not built a new nuclear plant in 30 years and the 104 in use supply 20% of our power, emission free. Wind and solar are good for road signs, but as real power sources their major role is as pork projects.
Here is what China REALLY thinks about Wind and Solar, in ‘Low carbon plot’ The life and death war between China and the West. Author Gou Hongyang…..
http://libertygibbert.wordpress.com/2010/08/11/the-dragons-dissent/
Solar electricity production was so wonderful in Spain that the owners of several of the solar fields installed oil generators next to their solar arrays to “augment” their wonderful green electricity production. The only reason they got caught was they were stupid enough to run them at night. But please, do continue to regale us with how solar power is saving Europe.
The Calico Solar Project ( 10 miles east of me, in the Mojave Desert) is scheduled to break ground in November, in spite of efforts by wildlife groups (assisted by Senator Feinstein) to squelch it. How Ironic!
Calico will provide peak power to +- 500,000 homes. Build-out is approx. 40 months, but due to the unique aspects of Stirling Engine technology, the site will be providing power to the grid much sooner. The site will eventually have approx. 30,000 self contained”Suncatcher” units at the site. However, they can be brought online in groups of 60.
http://www.blm.gov/ca/st/en/prog/energy/fasttrack/calico.html
http://www.tesserasolar.com/north-america/projects.htm
You can also thank the inept people at the Nevada Commission on Economic Development and Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki for throwing money their way over and over without results.
paulw
“Is there something that the world does not know about solar energy (is solar futile?) that my fellow commenters know?”
It appears to be the case, although I believe a lot of the world knows, too – some have learned by trying to do – the case of those about whom this post is written. Look Paul, it is not a we-they-all-or-nothing situation. It is in the realm of engineering and economics – wishful thinkers’ or world economy iconoclasts’ are not the “world”- its not that these latter know, it is that they don’t care about the effectiveness or economics of alternative energy. Now if you have a nice veranda roof or something like it, go ahead and panel it – I would too had I such, even though I live north of the 49th parallel. It would be a nice contribution relaxing demand on the power grid if enough people who could afford it did this – but make no mistake, solar electricity is not anywhere near free – it is quite expensive. Do you have panels on your house Paul? Do you drive a non-petroleum vehicle? Probably not – its too expensive for most. You see, you can do your very own cost benefit analysis.
If i remember correctly, the spanish subsidies for solar were so high that the solar producers had bought generators to produce electricity that they sold over the grid at a profit.
Look at almost any ‘desert’ scene such as the above and you find some very unique and hardy plants living there. Where there is plant life there is usually animal life as well. You simply cannot put solar panels above or below plants or trees. When will the CAGW enviro-nazis acknowledge this fact? Most of the places they want to put solar panels and or wind turbines will just do more harm than good to the environment.
paulw
Name one coal/NG/Nuclear power plant in any country in the world that has been shut down as a result of converting to wind/solar. Just one!!
Denmark has been on the “green” train for decades, and have yet to dissolve one coal fired plant. Zero. Zilch. Wind/solar waste more fuel in fact.
Most of us are saying there is a place for wind/solar, but not on large scales to replace conventional electricity generation. It’s not going to happen. It is not us that have a religious attachment to fossil fuels, it is the unrealistic vision of converting our power grid to a technology that cannot provide the power required to fuel the economic engine of our country. We are not against new technology. We are against ponzi schemes and government meddling in the free market by creating artificial markets.
The wind and solar industry has been coddled by the government for 30+ years. If they were a viable replacement for coal et al, they wouldn’t need subsidies.
Paulw says
“Here is some informative description of the overall subsidies for the US and the EU,
Greenpeace believes Europeans spend about $10 billion or so (USD equivalent) annually to subsidize fossil fuels. By contrast, it thinks the American oil and gas industry might receive anywhere between $15 billion and $35 billion a year in subsidies from taxpayers.”
Paul,
Do you really think greenpeace is a reliable source for fossile fuel subsidies?
Why do you keep rolling out these phoney studies from sources that have no/zero credibility? GreenPeace Believes??? No facts, just believes!
Seems desperate to me on your part.
Still waiting for your explanation as to why Obama is subsidizing offshore drilling in Brazil. Could it be that Soros is a big investor in Petrobras and this is how payback now occurs occurs in Washington?
Larry T says:
September 2, 2010 at 9:49 am
On these very pages.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/04/13/the-insanity-of-greenery/
Three words about building solar in the desert: water, water, water.
Mark Twain allegedly said: “In the West; whiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting over.” This pretty much sums it up.
These people are talking about developing solar in the DESERT (in an area that averages less than 10 in of rain per year). They’ve staked out some prime locations near transmission lines. Now where do they get water to make the solar plants work? Many types of solar plants need water to generate the power. They also need water to keep the solar panels or mirrors clean.
Contrary to paulw’s statement: “…does not require much maintenance apart from the occasional cleaning with Windex :-)”, Windex isn’t going to cut it in the desert. Atmospheric carbonate dust and any dust that has already settled on the solar panel will disolve in brief desert rainstorms and re-precipitate as carbonate blotches that are hell to clean off. Anyone who has been in the desert and seen their nice new car wash ruined by a one minute shower can attest to how quickly their car beomes encrusted with carbonate crud. The solar panels baking in the sun just exacerbates the effect.
So where’s the water? Answer: there ain’t none. That’s a main reason why these plants haven’t been built. There is no surface water near Roach Lake. There is ground water but most, if not all, has already been appropriated. Use of any ground water that may be unappropriated is hotly contested by claims that additional groundwater pumping will lower the water table and imapct endangered species (which appears to include just about everything near a desert spring).
Sen. D. Feinstein is trying to make this area into a national monument, which would prohibit any such development. For some write-ups with the problems see: http://e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2236
http://www.mojavedesertblog.com/2010/08/desert-expert-find-another-site-for.html
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2010/04/12/story7.html?b=1271044800%5E3167691
http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2010/08/12/12greenwire-calif-desert-on-pace-to-become-worlds-solar-ca-32699.html?pagewanted=all
Here is the WUWT article explaining how solar panels “feed” the grid in Spain in the evening when there is no sun!!
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/04/13/the-insanity-of-greenery/
Where is the integrity of the green folks, only greed and cheating