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"efforts made to slow this transition by Trump and others in his administration should be seen as a protectionist, nonsensical, and amoral top-down defense of t
by ryao 10y ago
"efforts made to slow this transition by Trump and others in his administration should be seen as a protectionist, nonsensical, and amoral top-down defense of the harmful fossil fuel industry."
As a solar panel owner, I want to know, is this a response to the tax credit going away or is there something else of which I am not aware? If solar is able to stand on its own, the tax credit would seem to have served its purpose. The discontinuity in the level of feasibility when it goes away will not be fun, but I thought that people expected that to happen when it eventually does go away.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- vertex-four 10y agoA reasonable different position to take would be to drop the subsidy in line with increases in effectiveness of solar panels, rather than dropping the subsidy all at once.
- aoeuasdf1 10y agoHow about dropping the subsidy on the condition that coal and oil subsidies are dropped?
- marvy 10y agothat sounds politically difficult, though I know next to nothing about politics so I could be wrong
- m_mueller 10y agoAs long as politicians bought by Oil/Gas/Coal get majorities in House and Senate there's no gatekeeper to impose such compromises. For this election cycle this seems a non starter to me.
- ghouse 10y agoOil, gas, and coal enjoy their own subsidies. Both direct and indirect. Increasing these subsidies for fossil fuels will slow the transition.
- CountSessine 10y agoI always hear these vague allusions to oil and gas subsidies, but never concrete examples. In fact, we actually tax the hell out of oil and gas at retail, so it seems a bit strange that we would actually be subsidizing it at the same time. What kind of/magnitude of subsidies does oil and gas enjoy?
- smallnamespace 10y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_subsidies#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_subsidies#United_States $3.2bn / year for fossil fuels, about half of what went to renewables
- CountSessine 10y agoThose figures seem to come from here: https://www.cbo.gov/publication/43993#section0 https://www.cbo.gov/publication/43993#section0 In particular, the $3.2bn/year is a tax write-off sort of 'subsidy', not a grant sort of subsidy, which I believe solar has received recently (section 1603). Without doing more digging, I can't tell whether what those oil and gas write-offs are for. Exploration? Research?
- smallnamespace 10y agoWhy is that an important distinction here? Both direct subsidies and tax credits/rebates/write-offs have the same net effect on the government's coffers. The Wikipedia article cites another article that has the breakdown (over a period of years): 1. Foreign tax credit ($15.3 billion) 2. Credit for production of non-conventional fuels ($14.1 billion) 3. Oil and Gas exploration and development expensing ($7.1 billion) https://www.eli.org/sites/default/files/eli-pubs/d19_07.pdf https://www.eli.org/sites/default/files/eli-pubs/d19_07.pdf
- jimlawruk 10y agoThe tax credit going away is not a big worry, but rather net-metering laws going away. It really depends on what state you live in. Arizona has been in the news lately regarding the net-metering fight. More states will follow.