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I wonder what the economics would be without the federal tax incentives for wind and solar. Does anyone know? EDIT: Someone above provided a link that provide

I wonder what the economics would be without the federal tax incentives for wind and solar. Does anyone know? EDIT: Someone above provided a link that provides the figure I was looking for: "Between 2010 and 2016, subsidies for solar were between 10¢ and 88¢ per kWh and subsidies for wind were between 1.3¢ and 5.7¢ per kWh. Subsidies for coal, natural gas and nuclear are all between 0.05¢ and 0.2¢ per kWh over all years." [1] I wonder how much of a subsidy there is for LED lighting. A lot of energy goes for incandescent lighting. Also, there should be a lot of subsidies to replace heaters in building burning #6 and #4 fuel oil which is very, very dirty and pollution (NYC where I live banned #6 a few years ago but #4 is allowed to persist until 2030 I think). https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2017/05/30/why-do-federal-subsidies-make-renewable-energy-so-costly/#69da9278128c https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2017/05/30/why-do-fe...

Tade0 9y ago
In short: 5 years ago - bad. Currently - pretty good. In 5 years - wonderful. Tax incentives and their predictable phase-out gave enough momentum to the market that it can currently continue on its own.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
rpedela 9y ago
I don't know the economics specifically but coal, gas, oil are all subsidized too.
- sremani 9y ago
  per kwh, they are miniscule compared to solar or wind. The scale difference between ONG and Solar-Wind is huge
  - macawfish 9y ago
    A large part of the U.S. military budget is implicated in fossil fuel security.
    - sremani 9y ago
      That has not been true for a while, I would actually contend, that US spends more for subsidizing defense of Europe than any Middle Eastern security. US Shale with Canada and Mexico already made North America energy independent.
      - rpedela 9y ago
        Source?
    - mason240 9y ago
      That is completely false.
- tasty_freeze 9y ago
  Some fraction of the US military expense should be attributed to obtaining energy, both explicitly (eg, patrolling shipping lanes) and implicitly (as a superpower, we can get considerations other countries don't). I don't know enough about it to hazard a guess, but I'm hoping someone, somewhere, has done an analysis.
  - tonyedgecombe 9y ago
    I expect the military has.
  - rconti 9y ago
    I'm sure this is also non-zero for, say, elements required to construct solar panels, however it's almost certainly (currently) dwarfed by those for fossil fuels. That may change in the future, though.
  - cheaprentalyeti 9y ago
    I dislike this line of thought because it seems to imply that oil producers in the United States need to be taxed to pay for the military defense of all the overseas producers trying to put them out of business.
    - sqeaky 9y ago
      It is reasonable to have arguments about whether or not certain wars were fought of fossil fuels. This is not the case for any other industry I am aware of. When pressed I could not categorically refute those claims and there is at least some shady evidence pinning some of our responsibility for violence in Iraq on oil companies. This is not a stance I personally hold or reject, but there are many with strong convictions about at least some evidence with regards to this. These people cannot easily be dismissed as tinfoil hatter. If true the most certainly they should be accountable for the cost of military action and life lost. If false then I don't know how to prove it, proving negatives and all that.
leephillips 9y ago
It's a complex question. In trying to answer it, one should keep in mind that the tax incentives for fossil fuel production dwarf the $15 billion per year or so that supports renewable energy. In addition, fossil fuels impose an estimated $200 billion/yr in social costs (external costs), in the form of pollution, etc. And it would be hard to estimate how much of our defense spending should be attributed to the need to secure the middle Eastern oil supply.
- rayiner 9y ago
  The Harvard study estimated the negative externalities of coal at 200-500 billion annually. The study estimates the effective subsidy from not including these costs at 9-27 cents per kilowatt hours.
  - ErikVandeWater 9y ago
    Not taxing a negative externality is a 'subsidy'? This a huge stretch. If this is true, the government must be subsidizing obese men to wear banana hammocks.
    - rayiner 9y ago
      Say the government decided to let Wal-Mart park delivery trucks on your property for free (i.e. decline to enforce your property right in favor of a business). Economically, it'd be indistinguishable from a subsidy. Shareholders don't care whether the government policy increases Wal-Mart's revenue or decreases its expenses. The same is true for power generation.
      - IsaacL 9y ago
        But with the level of compensation people think energy producers should pay to offset their "negative externalities" -- if governments forced them to pay it, the price of energy would rise by a huge amount, disrupting the economy, and making the previous calculation of the externalities meaningless. Even the renewables would then need more subsidies, to pay for increased manufacturing costs and the fuel for the trucks that repair their transmission lines. Point is its obviously misleading to say that fossil fuels are more heavily subsidied than renewables. People who hear that will assume that fossil fuel companies are being given taxpaper money, as the renewable companies are, when that is not the case. I don't think lumping together "companies that receive free money" and "companies we think should be fined" is an honest way to frame the situation.
maxerickson 9y ago
My utility sent some LED bulbs in the mail. I expect it was attached to some government incentive (they probably get green credits for the difference in consumption). Lighting isn't that big though, ~10% of US electrical consumption, when you include commercial and street lighting. https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=99&t=3 https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=99&t=3 (It's a big chunk, just not a huge one. If you figure on a fair amount of it already being florescent or other relatively efficient lighting, the savings aren't going to be dramatic)
- davidf18 9y ago
  Thanks for the link. Still, incandescents consume a lot of power, and LEDs little.
  - ams6110 9y ago
    It's too bad that the light "quality" from incandescent bulbs is vastly better than either LED or CFL.
    - karlshea 9y ago
      You've just got to pick the right bulbs. I tested out a Feit LED bulb in one of my kitchen can fixtures and it was totally indistinguishable from the other incandescents so I replaced all of them. 13 watts each instead of 65, and they are the same brightness and color temperature.
    - phil248 9y ago
      LED can produce just about any kind of light you want. Don't confuse them with the terrible CFL bulbs that were forced upon us. LED is likely the end game for lighting in our lifetime.
    - puranjay 9y ago
      Used to think the same. Got good quality LED lights with "warm yellow" color (same as an incandescent bulb). Even at 5W, they are far superior to a 60W regular bulb.
Spooky23 9y ago
It's a hard to say, but in your case every dollar of solar subsidy probably reduces ratepayer cost by $1.50 or more. Adding marginal capacity to the NYC grid costs a fortune to ratepayers, as siting a plant will take a decade and cost billions, and transmission capacity is already constrained -- nearly limitless hydropower is available from Quebec, but it requires massive infrastructure investment to move! That's why New York subsidizes solar and heavily subsidizes peak load reduction.
- davidf18 9y ago
  Our brilliant governor Cuomo has decided to remove Indian Point power plant from the grid. It generates electric with no greenhouse gas for 1/4 of NYC and Westchester County which in total is a population of about 10 million (8.5 + 1) meaning that the equivalent of a city of 2.5 million will go from no greenhouse gas back to carbon-based fuels. The power company that runs Indian Point wants to shut it down because it costs more to run than natural gas. Are you certain that there is limitless hydropower in Quebec? I think we are using capacity and that more damns would have to be built? We already get a lot of power from Hydro Quebec, some of which runs our subway system.
sorenjan 9y ago
Maybe you should do like the EU and ban incandescent lightbulbs?
cakedoggie 9y ago
And I am way more concerned about the economics of all that pollution, and how that seems to be ignored by so many people.

Tade0 9y ago

In short: 5 years ago - bad. Currently - pretty good. In 5 years - wonderful. Tax incentives and their predictable phase-out gave enough momentum to the market that it can currently continue on its own.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

rpedela 9y ago

I don't know the economics specifically but coal, gas, oil are all subsidized too.

sremani 9y ago
per kwh, they are miniscule compared to solar or wind. The scale difference between ONG and Solar-Wind is huge
- macawfish 9y ago
  A large part of the U.S. military budget is implicated in fossil fuel security.
  - sremani 9y ago
    That has not been true for a while, I would actually contend, that US spends more for subsidizing defense of Europe than any Middle Eastern security. US Shale with Canada and Mexico already made North America energy independent.
    - rpedela 9y ago
      Source?
  - mason240 9y ago
    That is completely false.
tasty_freeze 9y ago
Some fraction of the US military expense should be attributed to obtaining energy, both explicitly (eg, patrolling shipping lanes) and implicitly (as a superpower, we can get considerations other countries don't). I don't know enough about it to hazard a guess, but I'm hoping someone, somewhere, has done an analysis.
- tonyedgecombe 9y ago
  I expect the military has.
- rconti 9y ago
  I'm sure this is also non-zero for, say, elements required to construct solar panels, however it's almost certainly (currently) dwarfed by those for fossil fuels. That may change in the future, though.
- cheaprentalyeti 9y ago
  I dislike this line of thought because it seems to imply that oil producers in the United States need to be taxed to pay for the military defense of all the overseas producers trying to put them out of business.
  - sqeaky 9y ago
    It is reasonable to have arguments about whether or not certain wars were fought of fossil fuels. This is not the case for any other industry I am aware of. When pressed I could not categorically refute those claims and there is at least some shady evidence pinning some of our responsibility for violence in Iraq on oil companies. This is not a stance I personally hold or reject, but there are many with strong convictions about at least some evidence with regards to this. These people cannot easily be dismissed as tinfoil hatter. If true the most certainly they should be accountable for the cost of military action and life lost. If false then I don't know how to prove it, proving negatives and all that.

leephillips 9y ago

It's a complex question. In trying to answer it, one should keep in mind that the tax incentives for fossil fuel production dwarf the $15 billion per year or so that supports renewable energy. In addition, fossil fuels impose an estimated $200 billion/yr in social costs (external costs), in the form of pollution, etc. And it would be hard to estimate how much of our defense spending should be attributed to the need to secure the middle Eastern oil supply.

rayiner 9y ago
The Harvard study estimated the negative externalities of coal at 200-500 billion annually. The study estimates the effective subsidy from not including these costs at 9-27 cents per kilowatt hours.
- ErikVandeWater 9y ago
  Not taxing a negative externality is a 'subsidy'? This a huge stretch. If this is true, the government must be subsidizing obese men to wear banana hammocks.
  - rayiner 9y ago
    Say the government decided to let Wal-Mart park delivery trucks on your property for free (i.e. decline to enforce your property right in favor of a business). Economically, it'd be indistinguishable from a subsidy. Shareholders don't care whether the government policy increases Wal-Mart's revenue or decreases its expenses. The same is true for power generation.
    - IsaacL 9y ago
      But with the level of compensation people think energy producers should pay to offset their "negative externalities" -- if governments forced them to pay it, the price of energy would rise by a huge amount, disrupting the economy, and making the previous calculation of the externalities meaningless. Even the renewables would then need more subsidies, to pay for increased manufacturing costs and the fuel for the trucks that repair their transmission lines. Point is its obviously misleading to say that fossil fuels are more heavily subsidied than renewables. People who hear that will assume that fossil fuel companies are being given taxpaper money, as the renewable companies are, when that is not the case. I don't think lumping together "companies that receive free money" and "companies we think should be fined" is an honest way to frame the situation.

maxerickson 9y ago

My utility sent some LED bulbs in the mail. I expect it was attached to some government incentive (they probably get green credits for the difference in consumption). Lighting isn't that big though, ~10% of US electrical consumption, when you include commercial and street lighting. https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=99&t=3 https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=99&t=3 (It's a big chunk, just not a huge one. If you figure on a fair amount of it already being florescent or other relatively efficient lighting, the savings aren't going to be dramatic)

davidf18 9y ago
Thanks for the link. Still, incandescents consume a lot of power, and LEDs little.
- ams6110 9y ago
  It's too bad that the light "quality" from incandescent bulbs is vastly better than either LED or CFL.
  - karlshea 9y ago
    You've just got to pick the right bulbs. I tested out a Feit LED bulb in one of my kitchen can fixtures and it was totally indistinguishable from the other incandescents so I replaced all of them. 13 watts each instead of 65, and they are the same brightness and color temperature.
  - phil248 9y ago
    LED can produce just about any kind of light you want. Don't confuse them with the terrible CFL bulbs that were forced upon us. LED is likely the end game for lighting in our lifetime.
  - puranjay 9y ago
    Used to think the same. Got good quality LED lights with "warm yellow" color (same as an incandescent bulb). Even at 5W, they are far superior to a 60W regular bulb.

Spooky23 9y ago

It's a hard to say, but in your case every dollar of solar subsidy probably reduces ratepayer cost by $1.50 or more. Adding marginal capacity to the NYC grid costs a fortune to ratepayers, as siting a plant will take a decade and cost billions, and transmission capacity is already constrained -- nearly limitless hydropower is available from Quebec, but it requires massive infrastructure investment to move! That's why New York subsidizes solar and heavily subsidizes peak load reduction.

davidf18 9y ago
Our brilliant governor Cuomo has decided to remove Indian Point power plant from the grid. It generates electric with no greenhouse gas for 1/4 of NYC and Westchester County which in total is a population of about 10 million (8.5 + 1) meaning that the equivalent of a city of 2.5 million will go from no greenhouse gas back to carbon-based fuels. The power company that runs Indian Point wants to shut it down because it costs more to run than natural gas. Are you certain that there is limitless hydropower in Quebec? I think we are using capacity and that more damns would have to be built? We already get a lot of power from Hydro Quebec, some of which runs our subway system.

sorenjan 9y ago

Maybe you should do like the EU and ban incandescent lightbulbs?

cakedoggie 9y ago

And I am way more concerned about the economics of all that pollution, and how that seems to be ignored by so many people.