Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
On April 18, 1977, President Jimmy Carter announced his new energy policy. His speech included the following predictions of a dire future unless we repented of our evil ways:
I know that some of you may doubt that we face real energy shortages. The 1973 gasoline lines are gone, and our homes are warm again. But our energy problem is worse tonight than it was in 1973 or a few weeks ago in the dead of winter. It is worse because more waste has occurred, and more time has passed by without our planning for the future. And it will get worse every day until we act.
The oil and natural gas we rely on for 75 percent of our energy are running out. In spite of increased effort, domestic production has been dropping steadily at about six percent a year. Imports have doubled in the last five years. Our nation’s independence of economic and political action is becoming increasingly constrained. Unless profound changes are made to lower oil consumption, we now believe that early in the 1980s the world will be demanding more oil that it can produce.
The world now uses about 60 million barrels of oil a day and demand increases each year about five percent. This means that just to stay even we need the production of a new Texas every year, an Alaskan North Slope every nine months, or a new Saudi Arabia every three years. Obviously, this cannot continue.
…
Now we have a choice. But if we wait, we will live in fear of embargoes. We could endanger our freedom as a sovereign nation to act in foreign affairs. Within ten years we would not be able to import enough oil — from any country, at any acceptable price.
If we wait, and do not act, then our factories will not be able to keep our people on the job with reduced supplies of fuel. Too few of our utilities will have switched to coal, our most abundant energy source.
…
Inflation will soar, production will go down, people will lose their jobs. Intense competition will build up among nations and among the different regions within our own country.
If we fail to act soon, we will face an economic, social and political crisis that will threaten our free institutions.
SOURCE Carter’s Speech
His conclusion was that “We must start now to develop the new, unconventional sources of energy we will rely on in the next century.” So he started throwing money at the problem. His “solution” involved inter alia:
• A “gas-guzzler” tax on automobiles
• A rebate on electric vehicles
• A gasoline tax
• Subsidies to buses
• Taxes on aviation and marine fuel
Sound familiar? It should, as these are all parts of the current war on fossil fuels.
A year and a half from now, it will be the 40th anniversary of President Carter’s prophecies of catastrophe. And it will also be the 40th anniversary of the start of the subsidization of the solar and wind power sectors. These subsidies have currently reached astounding levels. Table ES2 from the US Energy Information Agency gives the subsidies of all types (direct expenditures, tax expenditures, R&D, rural utilities subsidy) for 2013, the most recent year available. Here are the results:
In 2013, coal was subsidized about a billion dollars. Natural gas and oil, about $2.3 billion. Nuclear got about $1.7 billion. Total, about $5.0 billion dollars.
Now, how about renewables? Solar energy alone, at $5.3 billion, gets more subsidy than all the fossil fuels put together plus nuclear. And wind energy alone, the recipient of an even larger $5.9 billion dollar subsidy, also is larger than all fossil plus nuclear. In total, the renewable sector got about $15 billion dollars in subsidies, three times that of fossil fuels plus nuclear. More than two-thirds of that went to wind and solar.
And it is getting worse. Despite years of people saying that the solar and wind power were market ready and competitive and all that, in 2010 solar and wind got a total of $6.5 billion dollars in subsidies … and by 2013, the subsidies were up to $11.2 billion dollars.
$11.2
Billion.
Dollars.
Note that this $11+ billion dollar subsidy was just for 2013, and does not include the billions and billions of the past 36 years of solar and wind subsidies since Jimmy Carter. It also doesn’t include the billions upon billions of dollars that the Europeans have poured into solar and wind subsidies of all types. And importantly, it doesn’t include the subsidization of expensive renewable energy sources through “renewable energy mandates”. It also only includes US Federal Government programs, so it doesn’t include any State programs.
It also doesn’t include the implicit subsidy of renewables from the penalties imposed on fossil fuels (Carter’s gasoline taxes, “cap-and-trade” programs, the Kyoto Protocol, “carbon taxes”, and the like).
So we’re talking a playing field which has been tilted in favor of solar and wind energy by something on the order of at least a hundred billion dollars … how’s that going?
Well, yesterday I noticed that the new 2015 BP Statistical Review of World Energy had been released. So I thought I’d investigate the massive progress that the hundreds of billions of dollars of solar and wind subsidies in the US and other countries had bought us. Here’s the latest global data, read’em and weep …
Figure 1. Global consumption of all forms of energy (blue line) in millions of tonnes of oil equivalent (MTOE). SOURCE: 1.6 Mb Excel workbook
I bring all of this up for three reasons. The first is to show just how little our ~ hundred billion dollars in solar and wind subsidies has bought us. If that was supposed to be our insurance policy, it’s not only a failure, it’s a cruel joke. It’s cruel because that amount of money could provide clean water for everyone on the planet …
The second reason is to highlight the continuing failure of these “We’re all DOOOMED!! We’re running out of energy!” kind of prophecies. President Carter was neither the first nor the last of these serial failed doomcasters.
The third reason is to highlight the ludicrous nature of the claims that solar and wind are making serious inroads into the global demand for energy. They are not. Solar and wind are a rounding error. Despite almost forty years of subsidies, despite renewable mandates, despite carbon taxes, despite cap-and-trade, despite a hundred billion dollars spent on this Quixotic quest, solar and wind have barely gotten off the floor. Look at that chart, and give me a guess for how long it will take for solar and wind to catch up with fossil fuels.
Then give me a guess how long it would take if we removed all subsidies as we should.
Here’s the bottom line. It’s not just that solar and wind can’t replace fossil fuels.
It’s worse than that. Solar and wind can’t even keep up with just the increase in fossil fuels … fail. Massive fail.
As far as I’m concerned, giving one more dollar to either solar or wind subsidies is a crime against the taxpayer, as well as against the economy … after almost forty years of fruitless subsidies, they’ve had their chance and they still don’t measure up. Time to stop throwing good money after bad.
Best regards to each of you,
w.
My Usual Request: If you disagree with me or anyone, please quote the exact words you disagree with. I can defend my own words. I cannot defend someone’s interpretation of my words.
My New Request: If you think that e.g. I’m using the wrong method on the wrong dataset, please educate me and others by demonstrating the proper use of the right method on the right dataset. Simply claiming I’m wrong doesn’t advance the discussion.
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The first thing to know about the renewable industry its that its an ‘industry’ which therefore seeks to maximise profits by what ever route works. Subsides have the added benefit of require little to no actual cost on behalf of the industry to bring the money in .
Why do people think so many industrial ‘big boys’ look to expend in this area , because they ‘care about the planet’ or because its ‘easy money ‘ ?
Our inability to move past our complete dependence on fossil fuels is the real tragedy here. One day in the not too distant future it is going to come back and exact a very heavy toll from humankind. This is a chronicle of our biggest failure.
Javier:
You ran away from this thread where your rear end was kicked (by me, JohnTyler and Richard Verney) for your posting illogical nonsense based unsubstantiated assertions. But you did not run far because you have come to here where you have posted this illogical nonsense based unsubstantiated assertion.
O Wise One, please tell we mere mortals why our present “inability to move past our complete dependence on fossil fuels is” a “real tragedy”.
The use of fossil fuels has done more to benefit human kind than anything else since the invention of agriculture. Longer life expectancy, greater medical provision, luxury and leisure don’t seem to be a “real tragedy”.
Why do you think obtaining such benefits is a “real tragedy” and a “failure” that “is going to come back and exact a very heavy toll from humankind”?
Questioning minds want to know what tragedy, what failure, what heavy toll, how will the “heavy toll” be exacted, and by what or whom will it be “exacted”?
Richard
I did not run away. I provided four independent pieces of evidence from four independent works showing that there was an abrupt cooling 5,200 years ago that made glaciers advance and that advance has been reverted only during present warming, plus one meta-study on glacier changes over the Holocene that indicates that present global glacier retreat is not following 5000 years old trends. You had no comment about that except saying that I have not provided any evidence. Well, if I provide the evidence and you ignore it, what else is left to discuss?
Considering the increasing speed at which we are using fossil fuels and considering that their amount is limited, it is evident that our dependence on fossil fuels is going to end badly sooner or later if we don’t leave them before they leave us. There was a time when you only had to poke the ground and oil would come out by itself. Nowadays with fracking the rocks have to be fractured to extract it at great expense and with great environmental damage. That speaks volumes about where we are in the race to reach the limits of fossil fuels. As Willis Eschenbach has clearly demonstrated our dependence on fossil fuels is bigger each passing day.
Javier:
You did “run away” and you provided no evidence for anthropogenic (i.e. man-made) global warming(AGW) which is not surprising because there is none. I again post this link so anybody can check the matter in the unlikely event anyone would want to.
Of course “our dependence on fossil fuels is bigger each passing day”: nobody doubts that. So what?
I asked you
You have not answered that.
This failure to justify your fallacious – indeed, silly – assertions is the same behaviour you exhibited in the discussion from which you ran away:
you make untrue and unsubstantiated assertions and try to change the subject when asked to justify those assertions.
Richard
We have hundreds of years worth of oil left in the ground. As they run out, they will gradually get more expensive on their own. No need to change anything, they will change on their own when the time is right.
As for your pieces of evidence. They impressed you, but then, that isn’t hard.
Richard,
I have if you can connect the dots between increasing rate of consumption, increasing dependency and decreasing amount of resources. I haven’t if you cannot.
The rest of your questions are trivial considering how important is energy for everything. I suppose we are all intelligent people. Don’t waste my time.
I provided evidence for non-natural, excessive and untimely glacier melting on a global scale, which is what I said. You not only did not refute or provide an alternative explanation, but simply ignored what I took the effort to put up for your education.
You remind me of Randy in that episode of “My name is Earl”:
– Good morning, Earl.
– Good morning, Randy.
– You know what team I’ve always wanted to join? The debate team.
– No, you haven’t.
– Yes, I have.
– No offense, but I don’t think you’d be very good at that.
– Yes, I would.
– I think debating is more than just saying the opposite of what the other person says.
– No, it isn’t.
– Yes, it is.
– No, it isn’t. This is stupid. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.
– I win.
Congratulations on your victory, but the evidence remains unchallenged.
Javier says:
I provided evidence for non-natural, excessive and untimely glacier melting on a global scale…
No, you didn’t. You asserted ‘facts’ not in evidence.
Your opinion that current observations are “non-natural, excessive and untimely” has no basis in reality. It is an entirely fabricated scare, just like the whole ‘runaway global warming’ scare was.
When we look at what’s happening, we see that there is nothing either unprecedented or unusual going on. All you have to counter that are your assertions. But they are only baseless opinions. You don’t have any verifiable, testable measurements to support your belief in DAGW.
Mark,
If that was true we would not need to squeeze rocks to get it, contaminating nine billion liters of water per day in the process.
Javier says:
If that was true we would not need to squeeze rocks to get it, contaminating nine billion liters of water per day in the process.
YYou seem to be under the impression that like minerals, water isn’t destroyed, either.
Wrong. The water is there, all it takes is energy to make it fresh water. Cheap energy provides clean water. But you don’t understand why cheap energy is a good thing?
Javier:
I questioned your daft assertion by asking you,
“Why do you think obtaining such benefits {of fossil fuel usage} is a “real tragedy” and a “failure” that “is going to come back and exact a very heavy toll from humankind”?”
You responded with twaddle but no answer to my question and I pointed out that you did not answer it.
You now say
Well, O Wise One, I cannot “connect the dots” I don’t see but you imagine so how about you try to do it for me? After all, you claim the dots exist, you naughty little time-waster you.
My questions ask for explanation of your assertions so I suppose my questions are – as you suggest – “trivial” because your assertions are ridiculous.
And you say
Bollocks! You provided no evidence of any kind “for non-natural, excessive and untimely glacier melting on a global scale”: you only provided data that implied glacier melting was more than you expected. John Tyler and Richard Verney pointed out that what you expect is wrong. For example, Otzi, Hannibal, and farming in Grrenlansd in past epochs demonstrate that recent amounts of glacier melting have happened repeatedly in the holocene.
It is not necessary to “provide an alternative explanation” for something that is not in evidence as happening.
And you refused to be educated by the information provided to you.
As you say, the evidence remains unchallenged” and the only point to be pondered is why you insist on ignoring the evidence.
Anyway, I have refuted your evasions. So, I repeat,
Why do you think obtaining such benefits {of fossil fuel usage} is a “real tragedy” and a “failure” that “is going to come back and exact a very heavy toll from humankind”?
Richard
Richard,
I did answer. But I will explain more. When the raising curve of fossil fuel usage intercepts the falling curve of economically and energetically extractable fossil fuels available, given our complete and increasing dependence on fossil fuels we will face a reduction in available energy to us. With more people and less energy, more and more people’s basic needs won’t be covered.
The best solution is obtaining substantial amounts of energy from a different source, but as Willis Eschenbach has demonstrated this is highly unlikely, as alternative sources are simply not up to the task.
Let’s review your evidence:
Ötzi was buried in ice ~5200 years ago and became unburied in 1991. It demonstrates that the Ötztal Alps have retreated to a point last seen ~5200 years ago. So those repeated glacier meltings between 5200 BP and now have not been as intense as present. Exactly my point.
Hannibal. I don’t know what sort of evidence is this. We lack any data on exact route taken, glacier length at the time, weather conditions, etc. All we know is that he had a terrible time doing it and lost 2/3 of the men and elephants. Claims that it could not be done today are unsubstantiated since nobody has tried and nobody in his right mind would accept such loses today. This does not constitute scientific evidence.
Viking farming in Greenland. This refers more to high latitude climate than to global glacier advance, but anyway. How do yo compare the conditions then to now? They seemed to eke out a subsistence living more from goats and fishing than crops and their main interest in cultivating appears to have been to make beer. Viking settlement remains in Greenland are surrounded by grass now during the summer. How do you demonstrate that conditions were equal or better then? This does not constitute evidence of glacier melting in the medieval warm period that contradicts what I have said.
So the only acceptable evidence that you present is in favor of my argument, not yours. Well done.
Javier,
When you look at the Holocene, do you understand that the planet has been much warmer than now? Thus, your glacier conjecture is wrong:
http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/graphs/lappi/gisp-last-10000-new.png
Javier:
I refuse to be side-tracked onto repeating the ‘glacier debate’ where your silly assertions were so soundly demolished. Anybody wanting the laugh of seeing your rout can read here.
The issue in this thread is your assertion saying
to which I replied
You provided much dodging and weaving in attempt to avoid answering but I pressed the matter and you have at last answered saying
That is more nonsense but – for sake of argument – then let us assume it is right.
Firstly, if we must revert to before we had fossil fuels then we will have gained all the benefits of fossil fuels in the interim. If you think these temporary benefits are “a heavy toll” then I suggest you avoid the toll by living in a mud hut and avoiding any of the benefits from fossil fuels.
Secondly, if “the raising curve of fossil fuel usage intercepts the falling curve of economically and energetically extractable fossil fuels available” then the resulting “reduction in available energy” will occur gradually. This would provide both warning for the need of alternatives and plenty of time for development of alternatives based on e.g. nuclear power.
In other words, your latest assertion is like all your other assertions in that it is ridiculous.
Richard
Between those benefits is the increase in human numbers. The reversion of that could be painful beyond description if forced by circumstances.
You don’t know that.
Javier, you provided evidence that glaciers are melting. It is only your assumption that such melting must be non-natural.
You provided no evidence to support your belief.
“If that was true we”
Thank you for proving that you knew even less about economics than you do environmentalism.
“You don’t know that.”
Yes we do.
That’s the way the world works. As the cheaper sources are exhausted, more expensive sources are developed, causing the average price to rise. This causes reductions in use as well as making alternatives more attractive. It has happened every time in the past as one resource or another approached the point where it could no longer keep up with demand.
Markw,
Some resources collapse.
http://www.fao.org/docrep/005/y3684e/y3684e0e.gif
Javier:
No, resources don’t “collapse”.
Mark W told you (emphasis added by RSC)
“Northern cod” may have reduced but all that does is to reduce the relative price of alternative fish.
There has NOT been a “collapse” in the availability of fish.
There has been no shortage of fish and chips and I enjoyed them for lunch today.
A better example than “Northern cod” would have been the hunting of the dodo to extinction which, of course, has not induced a shortage of birds for eating.
I again refer you to the most recent discussion on WUWT of these economic matters that is here because – as MarkW said – you have demonstrated you know “even less about economics than you do environmentalism”.
Additionally, I remind that in this sub-thread I told you a fear something may exhaust is not a rational reason to refuse to enjoy it while it exists.
Richard
Richard,
Thus far alternatives to fossil fuels are unattractive. That is why our dependence on fossil fuels is increasing, not decreasing. It is not the same as a different fish in your fish and chips.
Concerns over future availability of fossil fuels should constitute a rational reason for wise use, conservation and limitation of wasteful burning.
Javier:
It is clear that you have a problem getting anything right.
YOU raised the issue of fish as an example.
I refuted it.
You now claim YOUR example is NOT appropriate saying
At last you have grasped that at present “alternatives to fossil fuels are unattractive” and “That is why our dependence on fossil fuels is increasing, not decreasing.” So, now perhaps you will admit you made one of your unsubstantiated, untrue and ridiculous assertions when you wrote
Also, people don’t burn currency notes as fuel because they don’t squander money. Fossil fuels cost money and, therefore, people don’t squander fossil fuels. That fulfills all need for inhibition to “wasteful burning” of fossil fuels.
Importantly, it is NOT “rational” to pretend that fear of “future availability” is a useful additional consideration. For all practical purposes all minerals – including fossil fuels – can be considered to be infinite. I explain this in a post in this thread that is in moderation but I anticipate will be here if it passes moderation.
Richard
Richard,
Northern cod catches collapsed. You cannot refute a fact. Some resources do collapse.
Ridiculous. You are going to be proven oh so wrong.
There was a time when Spain was a world leading producer of gold. The Romans had their biggest mining operation of the Roman Empire at Las Médulas
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Las_M%C3%A9dulas
They were so efficient in mining it out that they exhausted the resource and Spain stopped being a gold producer since then.
Resources do deplete and sometimes they do it by collapsing.
Javier doesn’t understand it, but all the gold ever mined is still in existence.
MarkW,
Wrong. It is not my assumption:
1. J. Oerlemans. Holocene glacier fluctuations: is the current rate of retreat exceptional? Annals of Glaciology, Volume 31, Number 1, January 2000, pp. 39-44(6)
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/igsoc/agl/2000/00000031/00000001/art00008
“Integrations for a 10 000 year period, driven by random forcing of a realistic strength, show that the current retreat cannot be explained from natural variability in glacier length and must be due to external forcing.
2. Johannes Koch, John J Clague and Gerald Osborn: Alpine glaciers and permanent ice and snow patches in western Canada approach their smallest sizes since the mid-Holocene, consistent with global trends. The Holocene 2014 24: 1639
http://kochj.brandonu.ca/ho_2014.pdf
“The global scope and magnitude of glacier retreat likely exceed the natural variability of the climate system and cannot be explained by natural forcing alone. This departure is best explained by the ascendancy of another forcing factor – the increase in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
3. B. K. REICHERT, L. B ENGTSSON and J. OERLEMANS: Recent Glacier Retreat Exceeds Internal Variability. Journal of Climate 15 (2002) 3069.
http://www.meteo.psu.edu/holocene/public_html/Mann/courses/EVAT795/Reichertal-JClim02.pdf
“Preindustrial fluctuations of the glaciers as far as observed or reconstructed, including their advance during the Little Ice Age, can be explained by internal variability in the climate system as represented by a GCM. However, fluctuations comparable to the present-day glacier retreat exceed any variation simulated by the GCM control experiments and must be caused by external forcing, with anthropogenic forcing being a likely candidate.”
As you can see the one that is expressing an unsupported assumption is you, not me.
You can’t refute the evidence, but please, try.
Javier,
Get a clue. You link to grant-trolling carp like this:
Preindustrial fluctuations of the glaciers as far as observed or reconstructed, including their advance during the Little Ice Age, can be explained by internal variability in the climate system as represented by a GCM. However, fluctuations comparable to the present-day glacier retreat exceed any variation simulated by the GCM control experiments…
…is best explained by…
And:
…must be due to …
In other words, they give their opinions.
But still no empirical, testable measurements quantifying AGW.
You lose again.
dbstealey,
I lose if:
a) You can disprove the evidence that I have presented showing that glaciers are at their smallest length for 5000 years. You haven’t.
b) You can provide a credible alternative explanation for why glaciers are at their smallest length for 5000 years. You haven’t.
c) You can provide more scientific literature supporting your view that current global glacier retreat is normal within Late Holocene variability than I have presented of the opposite. You haven’t.
I can’t lose against your opinion, which is all you have provided.
Javier,
Re: a) & b):
You are cherry-picking an event. Try arguing using the entire Holocene, not just one anomaly.
Re: c):
As I keep pointing out to you, we don’t need “literature”. We need measurements quantifying AGW. But so far, there aren’t any.
Javier:
Your childishness is becoming tiresome.
1.
YOU raised the issue of Northern Cod “collapsing”.
2.
I pointed out that substitution had previously been explained to you, and your example is a good example of substitution: there is no shortage of fish.
3.
You then admitted that YOUR example is NOT appropriate when you wrote (emphasis added by RSC)
4.
I pointed out that you had – for the first time – admitted that one of your silly assertions is plain wrong.
5.
Your have replied to that by saying
6.
NO! Fish supplies have NOT “collapsed” because “Northern cod catches collapsed”. Other fish were substituted for the cod until they recovered. A better example of fish stocks “collapsing” than the cod would have been the collapse of herring catches in the 1920s which were substituted by the cod.
7.
I pointed to an explanation I provided for you here which explains in full why
8.
Your reply to my explanation says to me
9.
Please say where you obtained the crystal ball that tells you the processes of all human history will cease so I am “going to be proven so wrong”.
Of course individual sources of resources exhaust but – as your fish example illustrates – substitution ensures that is not a problem. And your gold example also demonstrates the reality: more gold has been mined since the Spanish mines exhausted than was mined before then. If you were able to read then you would have seen my linked explanation for you says says
And it fully explains why this is achieved by substitution.
Your silly and unsubstantiated assertions are becoming tiresome.
Richard
dbstealey,
No, I am not. Like Lord Monckton, I am looking from the present asking when global glaciers have been this short and the answer is 5000 years. That is the length in time of the global glacier retreat clock.
I see, you don’t need science. Glacier length is a measurement, and it is not possible to quantify AGW as it is not possible to distinguish natural from man-made warming. You try to impose impossible demands on science to reject scientific evidence that proves how ridiculous and indefensible is your posture.
Javier says:
Glacier length is a measurement, and it is not possible to quantify AGW
Yet you are trying to equate glacier length with AGW.
Richard,
You should know. You are the king of tiresomites. A taste of your own medicine?
I have demonstrated that resources eventually exhaust, like northern cod or cryolite. After 23 years northern cod has not recovered and mineral resources never recover. Global exhaustion is the sum of local exhaustions like Spanish gold ore. Substitution can work for some resources but not everything can be substituted adequately. So far there is no adequate substitute for fossil fuels. Despite whatever you say, resource depletion is a real concern. Obviously closing your eyes to future problems allows you to live happily, but prevents implementation of policies to reduce and postpone the problem while at the same time is totally unfair to future generations that will be left with the bill of cleaning up the environmental disaster we are passing along to them. Your position that all resources are infinite is silly.
Javier:
I am content to allow others to decide which of us is “tiresome”.
Suffice it that
I present information, evidence, links and quotations in support of logical arguments.
but
you present irrational and untrue assertions then have childish tantrums when you are shown to be wrong.
The fish issue is clear demonstration of this. You raised the issue of fish in support of your daft assertions about fossil fuel depletion: when shown your fish example was plain wrong you then said it is different from fossil fuels.
And you add this foot-stamping temper tantrum
You have only “demonstrated” that you don’t have a clue.
No resource eventually exhausts and none ever has. Even you admitted that your cod example was wrong. You, having admitted it is wrong, it is an act of idiocy for you to raise it again. And the Spanish gold example is daft: as I said, more gold has been mined after closure of the Spanish mines than was mined before they were closed. And you have now thrown in cryolite which you did not mention previously because you know your fish and gold assertions have been refuted.
Of course there is no substitute for fossil fuels at present. If you were able to read then you would have read that my explanation said
Fossil fuels are cheap (in time, money and effort) to obtain because they are in abundant supply which makes them cheap so nobody bothers to seek an alternative to them.
Some cranks and rent seekers promote return to wind, solar and other renewables that were abandoned when the greater energy intensity in fossil fuels became available to do work. When fossil fuels start to become scarce then the corporations supplying fossil fuels will start to seriously search for substitutes. No such serious search will begin until there is some indication of coming scarcity of fossil fuels, and that will not be for several centuries if ever.
There is no “environmental disaster”. In developed countries pollution is less now than it has been for millennia. Provision of cheap fossil d]fuel energy to developing countries will enable them to overcome their pollution problems as it has enabled us to overcome ours.
Your position is ridiculous in that it pretends resources cannot be considered infinite for all practical purposes. I have repeatedly explained to you how and why reality refutes your ridiculous position.
Richard
Good comment, Richard. He is clueless, for sure.
How much energy does it take to push a car 10 kms.
– two full days of hard physical labor for a human;
– 1 litre of gasoline or $1 worth;
– 1 windmill taking months and $3 million to build and then $1 million in further subsidies if the car is electric.
That is the value of fossil fuels.
Why on earth would we want to get past our dependence on the cheapest, most reliable form of energy around?
Main answer because we will eventually run out of the stuff. Secondary answer because that stuff is too valuable to just being burned away in inefficient combustion engines where thermal efficiency is 30% at best and the rest of the energy is just lost. You can do a lot of wonderful stuff with oil.
Javier:
We will NOT “run out of the stuff”. For all practical purposes all minerals can be considered to be infinite. This has often been debated on WUWT and most recently here.
On past evidence it is beyond your capabilities to use a link, but I provide it because others may be interested in that discussion.
Richard
Richard,
You seem to consider that you win your debates because you tire of your opponents, but that has nothing to do with the physics of an increasingly exploited resource of a limited non-renewable nature.
Javier says:
…the physics of an increasingly exploited resource of a limited non-renewable nature.
That is just alarmist pablum. Richard is correct, minerals are never “used up”, which is just a Malthusian scare.
Expensive energy is the problem. Because with cheap energy those minerals can be recycled.
Javier strikes me as yet another college student who has been educated past his intelligence.
He knows what he wants to know, don’t bother him with the facts.
MarkW,
Those ad-hominem posts add absolutely nothing to the discussion. Unless you are 13 years old you should mature enough to be able to discuss intellectually with the grown-ups.
Javier:
You say to MarkW
.
And you should, too, but so far you have failed to demonstrate any such ability.
However, for the benefit of onlookers most of whom are “grown-ups”, I again explain why the Malthusian pablum you espouse is nonsense.
The fallacy of overpopulation derives from the disproved Malthusian idea which wrongly assumes that humans are constrained like bacteria in a Petri dish: i.e. population expands until available resources are consumed when population collapses. The assumption is wrong because humans do not suffer such constraint: humans find and/or create new and alternative resources when existing resources become scarce.
The obvious example is food.
In the 1970s the Club of Rome predicted that human population would have collapsed from starvation by now. But human population has continued to rise and there are fewer starving people now than in the 1970s; n.b. there are less starving people in total and not merely fewer in percentage.
Now, the most common Malthusian assertion is ‘peak oil’. But humans need energy supply and oil is only one source of energy supply. Adoption of natural gas displaces some requirement for oil, fracking increases available oil supply at acceptable cost; etc..
In the real world, for all practical purposes there are no “physical” limits to natural resources so every natural resource can be considered to be infinite; i.e. the human ‘Petri dish’ can be considered as being unbounded. This a matter of basic economics which I explain as follows.
Humans do not run out of anything although they can suffer local and/or temporary shortages of anything. The usage of a resource may “peak” then decline, but the usage does not peak because of exhaustion of the resource (e.g. flint, antler bone and bronze each “peaked” long ago but still exist in large amounts).
A resource is cheap (in time, money and effort) to obtain when it is in abundant supply. But “low-hanging fruit are picked first”, so the cost of obtaining the resource increases with time. Nobody bothers to seek an alternative to a resource when it is cheap.
But the cost of obtaining an adequate supply of a resource increases with time and, eventually, it becomes worthwhile to look for
(a) alternative sources of the resource
and
(b) alternatives to the resource.
And alternatives to the resource often prove to have advantages.
For example, both (a) and (b) apply in the case of crude oil.
Many alternative sources have been found. These include opening of new oil fields by use of new technologies (e.g. to obtain oil from beneath sea bed) and synthesising crude oil from other substances (e.g. tar sands, natural gas and coal). Indeed, since 1994 it has been possible to provide synthetic crude oil from coal at competitive cost with natural crude oil and this constrains the maximum true cost of crude.
Alternatives to oil as a transport fuel are possible. Oil was the transport fuel of military submarines for decades but uranium is now their fuel of choice.
There is sufficient coal to provide synthetic crude oil for at least the next 300 years. Hay to feed horses was the major transport fuel 300 years ago and ‘peak hay’ was feared in the nineteenth century, but availability of hay is not a significant consideration for transportation today. Nobody can know what – if any – demand for crude oil will exist 300 years in the future.
Indeed, coal also demonstrates an ‘expanding Petri dish’.
Spoil heaps from old coal mines contain much coal that could not be usefully extracted from the spoil when the mines were operational. Now, modern technology enables the extraction of coal from the spoil at a cost which is economic now and would have been economic if it had been available when the spoil was dumped.
These principles not only enable growing human population: they also increase human well-being.
The ingenuity which increases availability of resources also provides additional usefulness to the resources. For example, abundant energy supply and technologies to use it have freed people from the constraints of ‘renewable’ energy and the need for the power of muscles provided by slaves and animals. Malthusians are blind to the obvious truth that human ingenuity has freed humans from the need for slaves to operate treadmills, the oars of galleys, etc..
And these benefits also act to prevent overpopulation because population growth declines with affluence.
There are several reasons for this. Of most importance is that poor people need large families as ‘insurance’ to care for them at times of illness and old age. Affluent people can pay for that ‘insurance’ so do not need the costs of large families.
The result is that the indigenous populations of rich countries decline. But rich countries need to sustain population growth for economic growth so they need to import – and are importing – people from poor countries. Increased affluence in poor countries can be expected to reduce their population growth with resulting lack of people for import by rich countries.
Hence, the real foreseeable problem is population decrease; n.b. not population increase.
All projections and predictions indicate that human population will peak around the middle of this century and decline after that. So, we are confronted by the probability of ‘peak population’ resulting from growth of affluence around the world.
Reduced economic growth is not the only loss that would be provided by peak population. More people provides more Einsteins, more Beethovens, more Brunels, etc..
The Malthusian idea is wrong because it ignores basic economics and applies a wrong model; human population is NOT constrained by resources like the population of bacteria in a Petri dish. There is no existing or probable problem of overpopulation of the world by humans who consume resources.
Richard
Richard,
Nice piece of opinion. History however demonstrates that time and again civilizations collapse when their basic resources are reduced. Your limited view of past two centuries of development and prosperity have built a sense of security and confidence in the future that is unjustified. You are in a sense the opposite of Malthus. he was wrong because he was too pessimistic and did not allow for critical improvements. You are likely to be as wrong for the opposite reasons. Too optimistic and not allowing for critical failures. Our economy is an extremely fragile construct that we do not control completely, was close to collapse in 2008, and has not completely recovered since. All of this without having had an energy availability problem. The real situation is very very far from the rosy piece you have written as any informed person knows.
Javier:
I see your response to my explanation of why your Malthusian assertions are nonsense is more of your untrue and unsubstantiated assertions. You claim
Please take a course in reading comprehension.
I described principles that have governed all human history and pre-history; NOT a “limited view of past two centuries of development”. Those principles are neither “optimistic” nor “pessimistic”: they are reality.
History does NOT demonstrate that “time and again civilizations collapse when their basic resources are reduced”. Please state any civilisation that has “collapsed” for that reason. Local societies have moved because their local resource exhausted (e.g. people abandon a mining town when their mine exhausts, the inhabitants of Easter Island moved to other islands when they had used all their trees, etc.), but they took their civilisation with them.
The banking crisis in 2008 had NOTHING to do with resource depletion.
All this is known by every “informed person” but you say is not known by you.
Richard
“…the inhabitants of Easter Island moved to other islands when they had used all their trees, etc”
Richard, do you have a reference for migration from Easter Island? I was under the impression the island’s civilization survived the loss of the palm trees, and only collapsed when Europeans arrived. For example:
http://blc.arizona.edu/courses/schaffer/182h/Diamond/Peiser%20-%20Easter%20Island%20(publ).pdf
The same source shows nuclear energy consumption at around 600 million tonnes oil equivalent — not much but far more than the total of wind and solar.
http://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/statistical-review-of-world-energy/nuclear-energy.html
“In 2013, … Natural gas and oil, about $2.3 billion dollars.”
plus a war now and then
“In March 2013, the total cost of the Iraq War was estimated to have been $1.7 trillion by the Watson Institute of International Studies at Brown University. Critics have argued that the total cost of the war to the U.S. economy is estimated to be from $3 trillion to $6 trillion, including interest rates, by 2053.” wikipedia
lgl:
Please explain the relevance of your comment.
It reads as though you are claiming the Iraq War was a subsidy for oil. Clearly, that is ridiculous, so please say what you did mean.
Richard
One annoying feature of oil is that the Middle East has so much of it, often more easily reachable than elsewhere.
Refraining from using oil will not change this.
Those wars would have happened without oil and natural gas.
A bit unfair on Carter. He does not even mention the environment. His point was purely an economic and a strategic one. And that assessment was spot on. And that assessment is still valid: a US dependent on foreign energy supplies is held to ransom by the whims of whoever controls that supply. Look at Europe which bends over backwards to accommodate unpallatable regimes in the Middle East, Russia and farther afield.
Now, you may disagree with the way he wanted to address the problem, but that is a different question altogether. His basic point was right and it had nothing to do with environmental scares.
The knock on Carter was his Malthusian wolf cry, nothing to do with energy independence from the ME. Something no one objects to, but never happens.
So why did he make it so hard for Americans to drill for our own oil, if that was his goal?
Thanks Willis. I reposted this here, https://electricityasia.wordpress.com/
So let us take a quick look at the great achievements of the eco-left and their proposed attempts to engineer the weather.
So far they have managed to protest against, discredit and resist the expansion of the nuclear and hydro industries – which really were capable of replacing a significant proportion of electricity production.
For example 80% nuclear in France. Or 90% hydro in Norway. About 80% in Brazil.
AND – they have been relatively successful in this goal.
THEN – they have hoodwinked the masses into believing that solar parks and wind-farms represented a cost effective and reliable alternative to conventional power sources.
When, as shown above, the total output of all the wind and solar in the world is so miniscule as to be hardly worthy of consideration.
The net result of all of this shenanigans – is a BIGGER SHARE FOR FOSSIL FUELS.
Which may help us understand why Putin and the Arabs actively promote weather fear and pipe-dreams about glorious micro-generation.
And just one question – Imagine yourself as an evil oil baron type of a purely self-interested mind set, and imagine that you were trying to advance the interests of your company with no regard for the outcome.
Now, taking into account the simple consideration given above.
Who would you want to secretly support with funding incentives?
A thinktank/blog that frequently made references to the utility of nuclear and hydro?
Or thinktank/blog where nuclear and hydro were demonized and the future was being bet on replacing all energy production with solar pavements?
Because, if I was Big Oil then I’d be funding the anti-nuclear, solar pavements idiots.
+several Mr/Ms frog.
We will need more energy in the medium to long term. We have the ability to produce it using cheap and reliable nuclear power, once it is unshackled. Fossil fuel interests are currently probably cheaper, but also have an incentive to discourage viable alternatives while ‘promoting’ alternatives that will not be viable.
Many greens wish to discourage everything that that is viable.
Don Lancaster wrote columns for Popular Electronics and other magazines. He had a lot of good advice for inventors. One of my favorites: If folks have been working on something for a long time, don’t expect that you will do much better than has already been achieved.
We’ve been working on solar, wind, and batteries for a long time. The low hanging fruit has already been picked. We shouldn’t expect breakthroughs any time soon. It is a big waste of money to expect that subsidies will cause the technology to improve a lot.
Good point Bob. Actually, batteries ARE getting better. cheaper, lower self discharge rates, etc. For example, electric cars are sort of becoming practical for many people in warm climates. But battery improvement a slow process and it’ll probably be a long time before they are practical for routine long term power storage in most situations.
Likewise solar cells are getting better. As I understand it, the cost of the cells no longer dominates solar installations. And it’ll likely drop more in the future. The problems with solar are it’s low capacity (i.e. what a normal person would call availability), the cost of backup storage, the need for a clear Southern exposure, etc, etc,etc
Don,
You may believe the claims that batteries are getting better, but the market with intelligent buyers speaks otherwise. Except for special cases and the need to impress others with a very expensive TESLA, the electric car still has limited use even with the massive subsidies and constant push by governments.
Read this article if you believe otherwise and need some data.
https://dddusmma.wordpress.com/2015/10/09/stalled-ev-and-phev-sales/
Large oil and other energy companies have been working on better batteries without subsidies decades before the current craze to subsidize and implement premature ideas. Remember there was a time when there was lots of evidence of peak oil and they were looking at alternative businesses. Research is OK but forced implementation of a bad idea lacks good judgment and intelligence. .
Bob is absolutely correct, with all the efforts to date to think that a magic breakthrough is just down the road requires an absence of common sense and reality. Some things are simply not possible given the laws of thermodynamics and chemistry despite what non scientific politicians believe.
Electric cars are only becoming practical because the govt picks up most of the cost for them.
While solar cells are improving, at the current rate of improvement it will take 1 to 2 centuries for them to become practical.
Don K:
Electric cars predate the internal combustion engine.
Nothing more about electric cars needs to be said to anyone without a vested interest who can think.
Richard
A corollary is that we will not get a breakthrough just because we need one when we will need one, as many people wrongly believe.
Technology advances, trying to impoverish ourselves now in order to avoid possibly being impoverished sometime hundreds of years from now is the kind of idiocy only a leftist/environmentalist could ever find intelligent.
Good post! Hope such understanding becomes more widespread. Unfortunately those of us with some memory find ourselves facing greater numbers who have no memory, weren’t or age and/or who are unwilling to look at history. They say optimism springs eternal, but this weird mix of doomsaying on one hand and excess optimism on the other seems to cycle through continuos rebirths.
“It’s cruel because that amount of money could provide clean water for everyone on the planet …”
Units of population are not important to the watermelons!
Every piece of Nuclear Fuel used in US Nuclear Plants ever — was subsidized by the US Government.
The US Nuclear Industry has been subsidized an order of magnitude more ($100 Billion not accounting for inflation) than Solar and Wind when you include fuel, accident cleanup, and construction loan subsidies.
If you add rate increases by Public Service Commissions to pay for new nuclear plants — it goes higher still.
Cleanup of which accidents?
How was fuel subsidised?
How do you measure the added cost created by institutional radiophobia?
The Government created a Federally Run Company — completely for the development of Nuclear Fuel
Then they passed a bill to privatize it
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Enrichment_Corporation
Karl,
Lots of the research dollars was for defense purposes, not power plants which the enviro’s lie about. We have nuclear powered ships as the result of these research programs. Also significant $$ was spent for disposal in Nevada which Harry Reid arbitrarily blocked to make Nuclear look bad, despite support from scientific studies. Now we find the media is calling Harry a liar..
At least there has been lots of reliable nuclear energy generation for decades at rates well below the cost of intermittent wind/solar power. Due to the Defense and other uses such as medical, the subsidy/economics is not simple as you suggest.
@Willis – I believe you need to change the title. The US government was involved with “Subsidies” to a wind farm in North Dakota way back in 1940. That makes 75 years of “subsidies.”
The US subsidized the Nuclear Industry from 1947 to 1999 at a rate of $3.5 Billion a year. Accounting for inflation, the subsidy in 1947 is equivalent to 32 Billion totday.
Overall, direct taxpayer subsidies from 1947-1999 totaled 178 Billion Federal $$ — Half a Trillion when factoring inflation.
This does not include rate hikes approved by PSCs to pay for Nuclear Plant Construction.
Even Garbage Dumps and McDonalds gets a “subsidy.” Read the definition of “Tax expenditures.” – “These are largely provisions found in the Internal Revenue Code (IRC, or Tax Code)—Title 26 of the United States Code—that reduce the tax liability of firms or individuals who take specified actions that affect energy production, distribution, transmission, consumption, or conservation.” that means EVERY business expense, Every other tax they pay to local , city, county , state in the form of taxes. The company you work for, even if self employed, gets a “Subsidy.” Now subtract the annual licensing Fees that the NPP pay By law, the NRC must recover, through fees to applicants and licensees, 90 percent of its budget. That is about $5,000,000 per NPP, How if tax breaks are a subsidy, what is this fee? Why do they not subtract that n figuring out subsidies. There is also a fee for the never approved Yucca Mt. storage facility, about a 1/10 of a cent per kWh (suspended until they get their act together). The total collected now totals over $30 Billion. Why is that ignored – it is just like a tax. EVERY business is allowed to subtract legitimate, IRS tax laws to determine their tax bill. Even you get a “Subsidy,” by that twisted logic.
Apply the same twisted logic, propaganda meme, to the Airline industry and determine what their “Subsidies” are. Apply that twisted propaganda and make them pay their “Fair Share” i.e. the cost of the NTSB and the FAA, and see what happens to the price of a plane ticket.
Further, most state PUC, and even Municipal Public Utility Commission governing bodies DO NOT allow increasing the rate base based upon “Construction in Progress. Which is actually BAD,WORSE, makes your electricity cost more. because YOU then have to pay twice as much to build a power plant. WHY? Because the utility has to borrow all money and then pay interest on the money they have borrowed until the plant is declared “operational” by the PUC. This would belike you being required to make the payments on the construction loan for the new house you were having built for you, from the day you signed the contract to start building the house, even before there was a hole in the ground.
Worse yet, since you are no millionaire, you would be forced to make payments by using a “line of Credit” established at your loan company (since you are not allowed to collect money to pay off the loan). Then when you finally can move in your new house the loan company will combine the two loans into one loan. That means that you will add about 10 to 20 percent to the cost of your new home – all do to interest charges. Large power plants take five to 10 years to build and another five or so years, That can make the plant cost as much as 50% more – due to interest only.
Karl,
You overlook the Defense purpose of the Nuclear Subsidy which was the major driver.
Jimmy Carter loved Nuclear considering the embargo threat from the Arabs for a good reason. Need to put things into perspective of the threats from Iran, etc.
The DOE still has a budget of $26.4 Billion per year with negligible energy contribution based on waste from wind/solar subsidies.
The Government spends over $20 Billion for climate change every year, why go back to the 70’s to justify today’s negligence with tax dollars?
@catcracking Good Point!
I didn’t even mention the real military aspect. As a retired Nuclear trained Nuclear Operator I know how well the information was kept classified. Yes The government did help with Shipping Port But that was in the LOW millions and was not operational till 1957 – could not have offered much help (subsidize) in 1947 – more smoke and subterfuge. The earliest Licensed/operating commercial nuclear power plants were GE Boiling Water Reactors and the government did not help much with them and they did not go on line till 1967 – ten years after Shipping Port. And Shipping Port was a PWR not a BWR. Shipping Port was also a “proof of concept” reactor and had heavy military involvement for specific military purposes. In my opinion the only real subsidy was to the education of engineers that went on to work on commercial nuclear power plants – don’t see how that was in the multiple millions of dollars as the trolls that claim nuclear power is heavily subsidized. As I started my first post the average garbage dump receives a larger subsidy relative to the size of the industry. Think of it, You buy an abandoned stone quarry for peanuts, and then right off the loss of capacity each year as you fill it up – which was the reason they bought the pit in the first. That to me is the biggest scam going.
What about all of the “Subsidies” that all of the industries got from the Space Race? Like tang, and freeze dried food and satellites, and cell-phones.
How is writing off the loss of capacity a scam?
It’s standard depreciation, exactly the same as a company writing off the drop in value of a building as it ages, or a machine as it gets older?
The alternative is to allow the companies to expense the cost of buying that pit, plant, or machine in the year that it was purchased. Which I assure every company would prefer to do.
“The US government was involved with “Subsidies” to a wind farm in North Dakota way back in 1940.”
You sure about the date? My impression was that the first serious wind turbine in the US was erected on Grandpa Knob in Vermont in 1941. Not only was it not subsidized, it couldn’t even get a government allocation of material to fix a damaged blade that eventually parted company with the device putting an end to the experiment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith-Putnam_wind_turbine
(Turns out that wind wasn’t economically viable in the 1940s either although the cost differential wasn’t all that big).
From – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_the_United_States
“The first municipal use of multiple wind-electric turbines in the USA may have been a five turbine system in Pettibone, North Dakota in 1940. These were commercial Wincharger units on guyed towers.[11]”
Can’t find the one I read last month but the military was involved with it.
usurbrain November 6, 2015 at 8:39 am
I’ve dealt with Winchargers. They are a 12 volt system. The town of Pettibone put in five of them and connected them to batteries … from the picture, they look like the big Winchargers, 1200 watts at 32 volts.
So the five of them, with a good wind, could put out about 6 kilowatts. However, it is likely that they ran at a capacity factor of about 0.2, which means that on average they put out 1.2 kW or so …
One point two kilowatts? Color me unimpressed. Wind power no more ready for the grid-scale market back then than they are right now …
w.
[snip – commenter using a fake identity -mod]
ERCOT does not cover ALL of Texas, just most of it, yet, in true Texan braggadocio fashion, they always inflate their accomplishments by claiming 10% of TEXAS and not 10% of MOST of Texas. And even that relies upon getting wind power from outside the ERCOT area.
The only subsidy that oil and gas get are depreciation allowances. The same subsidies that every single company in the country gets. BTW, wind and solar get those same depreciation allowances, but they aren’t counted as subsidies for them?
PS: Depreciation is not really a subsidy. Normally companies that buy stuff get to deduct those business expenses in the year the expenses occurred. Depreciation means that companies have to take those deductions and spread them out over a number of years. So by depreciating instead of expensing, companies end up paying more in taxes.
You can’t expense a capital improvement, its against the tax code, that’s why they take depreciation. Companies or individuals must depreciate a capital expenditure — like a new roof on a rental property, new plant equipment, new real property.
I’m looking real hard, and I can’t find anywhere were I claimed that capital improvements could be expensed at present. The whole point was that by forcing companies to depreciate instead of expense, depreciations cost companies money, they aren’t a subsidy.
The renewal subsidies does not include the mandate that power companies must by from them, regardless of cost.
Please cite the mandate. Net metered power from small producers is purchased at the utility’s avoided cost by statute in the majority of states.
avoided cost: the cost the utility would have incurred had it supplied the power itself or obtained it from another source
I believed the definition of a “net meter” was a meter that measures the net energy move (only one reading), not avoided cost!
CA for one requires that a set percentage of all power generated come from renewable sources. CO is another recent addition to that list.
There are others.
Karl November 6, 2015 at 6:22 am Edit
ANY state that has a renewable energy mandate is forcing the utilities to buy at inflated prices. These, as MarkW points out, include CA and CO
In addition, your claim that rooftop solar is purchased “at the utility’s avoided cost” is certainly not true here in California. The utilities pay much more than the avoided cost for rooftop solar. I’ve never heard of a state that just pays “avoided cost” for their rooftop solar. As you say … please cite the state that you are talking about.
Finally, you appear to be ignoring the fact that (in California at least) the installation of rooftop solar is highly subsidized, and that the benefits of rooftop solar mostly flow to the rich …
I do have to admire you, though, for your unwavering support for a system of rooftop solar panels that enriches the rich and further impoverishes the poor. It’s very green and noble of you.
w.
@ur momisugly willis —
States don’t pay the utility pays — or they get the NEG credited to them like in Hawaii
Net excess generation — HI Credited to customer’s next bill at retail rate; [b]granted to utility at end of 12-month billing cycle [/b]
California Net Metering “Credited to customer’s next bill at retail rate. After 12-month cycle, customer may opt to roll over credit indefinitely or to receive payment for credit at a rate equal to the 12-month average spot market price for the hours of 7 am to 5 pm for the year in which the surplus power was generated. [b] (If customer makes no affirmative decision, credit is granted to utility with no compensation for customer.) [/b]”
or buy at avoided cost like in NJ “Generally credited to customer’s next bill at retail rate; excess reconciled annually at avoided-cost rate”
http://www.dsireusa.org/
Green energy to solve the worlds energy problems:
looks much like homeopathy to treat a medical emergency:
When I read the headline, I thought the graph would be how the subsidies varied by year. That may be a good graph to add as an additional data set, with the magnitude along the right vertical axis.
Again, follow the money. Conventional energy producing corporations give more money to Republicans, solar and wind enterprises give more to Democrats. Evidently, the Democrats are more generous in payback to those bribing them than are the Republicans. The difference is, of course, that the public gets so much less in return from the solar and wind scams and suffers the negative economic effects of the poor policies.
There is a monument to the Carter folly just up the highway from my home in Arvada CO. The TOSCO Corporation (I believe that’s right, but could have been another subsidy taker) built a retort to treat oil shale from the western slope of Colorado. Word is that no oil shale was processed and no oil was produced…but the structure still stands.
Solar does not need a tax credit subsidy at this point. The best of breed solar firms did it with technology improvements and not the wasteful demonstration project money slinging of DOE. Yes, these top tier solar firms benefited from the financing subsidy for the large projects that helped bring economies of scale to the utility scale projects. But they also had to deal with fake companies bidding on projects that they had no capability of completing in order to spin the project for a fee and tax benefit to others. We would be just as far along today in solar industry development and cost reduction without all the politicized program fails and misdirected taxpayer funds. Misguided DOE and WH involvement amounts to 1,000 times the $43 million CNG filling station fiasco in Afghanistan audit findings. A society that rewards such incompetents is doomed. It amounts to Napoleonic finance and excess.
Resourceguy November 6, 2015 at 10:25 am
And yet every attempt to end the subsidies on solar receive huge opposition from the solar industry … why might that be?
As to subsidies, please point me to any grid-scale solar system that does NOT enjoy subsidies of one form or another. I ask because every one I’ve seen looks like this one, which is hugely subsidized in a variety of ways from start to finish, and STILL ends up getting paid way over market value for its product simply because of California’s insane renewables mandate …
Given your ignorance about the subsidies granted to solar and wind, I find your alias highly ironic.
w.
“Why might that be?”
Because the “huge opposition” is mostly comprised of the also rans in the industry that should have been flushed out of business by now, but for misguided tax policy and political treatment of the sector as a protected social class. It is a numbers issue that you above all others should be able to comprehend (two competitive U.S. solar firms out of 1,000 others). It also requires reading the quarterly earnings reports on a regular basis like any due diligence process, a trait severely lacking on both sides of the debate and at DoE. Recall the DoE tagline of “we don’t pick winners” that separated it from sane industrial development strategy instead of the current political theme strategy. I’m invested in the former as a tech play while the rest is noise. Expensive noise that is.
Thanks for more uncited claims, Resourceguy, you seem to have lots of those to spare. But somehow, in the midst of providing new claims, you’ve neglected to answer my question, viz:
Still waiting ….
w.
They (solar) all enjoy the subsidy on projects because the tax benefit is an open door benefit to all takers, from Warren Buffett on down the line. The same applies to tax benefits in the set of tax laws that oil and gas firms tax advantage of. These are not some kind of special gifts from the WH or DoE but plainly stated in the tax law.
Resourceguy November 6, 2015 at 12:56 pm
Thanks for the reply, Resourceguy. There are plenty of states and countries where there are no subsidies available. Those states and countries also have no solar power development. Coincidence? You be the judge.
My point is simple. Without subsidies neither solar or wind are economically competitive in todays marketplace. We’ve been told since Carter’s time that in only a few years solar and wind would be competitive. Still not true.
You are right. Instead, they are special gifts from the WH or DoE that have been written into the tax law. However, you are ignoring the elephant in the room, the direct subsidies.
Coal, gas, oil and nuclear together got $173 million in direct subsidies in 2013. Solar and wind, on the other hand, got $7.25 billion dollars in cash-in-pocket direct subsidies.
All the best,
w.
W.,
Here is supporting information.
See latest presentations and updates as they roll out. The tech aspect of solar has arrived and will be more evident to wider audiences in 2016-18 as it rolls over the competition, both pre- and post- ITC tax credit change.
http://investors.sunpower.com/events.cfm
http://investor.firstsolar.com/
We will know the day when these new technologies are viable and that is the day when they pay net tax.
But as another commentator noted, the fossil fuel industry pays countless billions in tax, and society lives off the benefit of that tax income. There will never be a day when windfarms and solar farms pay billions in tax; they will never replace the income that the government gets from the fossil fuel industry, and which income all of society enjoys. Indeed, how is welfare to be paid, if the fossil fuel industry is shut down? The lefties have not thought of that.
It would be a disaster for society if the fossil fuel industry is hounded out of business, and Politicians have given insufficient thought to that.
PS. Willis a very good article, well worth the read..
Here in Ontario Canada, land of the phenomenally catastrophic Green Energy Act, one can track electricity demand and supply at the web site of the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) at http://www.ieso.ca
As of today, November 6, 2015, a windy day with a mix of sun and clouds, wind is providing 13% of the province’s electrical requirements (yesterday it was just over 5%). Solar is providing 0.2% of the demand. (Yes, that’s zero-point-two percent from solar.) Nuclear (60.6%) and hydro (20.5%) still do the heavy lifting. (These percentages change from day to day, but overall the ratios are similar.) And of course, consumer rates went up November 1st, and will increase again January 1st.
first time I was over the horizon, was on Kariba dam. since then mainly only on oil/gas rigs – never sailed the oceans like Willis and others…
yet the awesomeness never left me;)
apart from ‘been there, done that’, the multitudes of poor people (and wildlife) displaced by this GREEN projects is never mentioned? if it is, I missed it. feel free to search for the numbers, that is not my point…
rather the INSANITY of ‘well meaning persons’ – taxing/subsidising/whatever – everyone is righteous somehow?
talking HYDRO projects here – fauna flowned into turbines and/or roasted (poor turkeys) on solar fields excluded.
@willis
“One point two kilowatts? Color me unimpressed. Wind power no more ready for the grid-scale market back then than they are right now …”
Definitely agree with that.
However, Have you seen an electric meter from before the war though? I have one – used for a lamp base. The rating on it is Five (5) amps 120 VAC single phase. – that is less than five “100” watt light bulbs or ten “50” watt light bulbs. People did not use a lot of electricity back then. In the 60’s I took a generator from a Model “T” a few pulleys and a belt and hooked it up to a AerMotor windmill we no longer used and that charged a battery for lights in our barn. Which used 4 of the internal bulbs from the (not sealed beam) head lights, of the Model “T.” More than sufficient for milking on winter mornings and safer than the kerosene lamp. Even though the salvaged battery would not start a car it kept the lights on for about an hour each morning/evening – most of the time.
“Time to stop throwing good money after bad.”
Especially with the current levels of debt.