Study: Global Warming Solvable If Fossil Fuel Subsidies Given To Clean Energy 385
An anonymous reader writes A research team at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Laxenburg, Austria, says it has studied how much it would cost for governments to stick to their worldwide global warming goal. They've concluded that for "a 70 per cent chance of keeping below 2 degrees Celsius, the investment will have to rise to $1.2 trillion a year." Where to get that money? The researchers say that "global investment in energy is already $1 trillion a year and rising" with more than half going to fossil fuel energy. If those subsidies were spent on renewable energy instead, the researchers hypothesize that "global warming would be close to being solved."
Wait until those lamers find out... (Score:4, Insightful)
That if you REALLY want to eliminate fossil fuel usage, the big spending is going to have to be on dams and nuclear reactors.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Nuclear Reactors generate Nuclear Waste.
Solar Power demands Big Batteries, which are inevitably Highly Toxic Waste.
Stop living in one-sided fantasy land.
Re: (Score:2)
Don't forget coal, producing more radiation than a nuclear reactor.
Re: (Score:2)
Define 'produce radiation' please! ... unless there is an accident, as we know. ...
Both, nuclear power and coal plants, don't emit any meaningful radiation
Ah, you mean the ash of coal plants is radioactive?
Well, in first world countries no one is harmed by it
Re: (Score:2)
First of all: solar power does not demand batteries.
Second: battery production does not produce huge amounts of toxid waste, actually it produces none at all.
Re:Wait until those lamers find out... (Score:5, Insightful)
It would be more like what is happening in Germany. Massive investment in wind, solar, wave and geothermal, but crucially also a massive investment in a new smarter grid to support it all.
I have no doubt that it will happen in Europe, but the US is going to find it hard. Things like subsidising residential solar are seen as un-American and socialist, even though it's fine to heavily subsidise companies building fossil fuel or nuclear plants. The grid is a money-making privately owned infrastructure, not something that is supposed to work for the public's benefit. In other words, the problems are all cultural.
Re: (Score:3)
Residential solar is already subsidized via a tax credit. So are hybrids and electric cars.
Are you referring specifically to the business subsidies?
Re: (Score:3)
It would be more like what is happening in Germany. Massive investment in wind, solar, wave and geothermal, but crucially also a massive investment in a new smarter grid to support it all.
I have no doubt that it will happen in Europe, but the US is going to find it hard. Things like subsidising residential solar are seen as un-American and socialist, even though it's fine to heavily subsidise companies building fossil fuel or nuclear plants. The grid is a money-making privately owned infrastructure, not something that is supposed to work for the public's benefit. In other words, the problems are all cultural.
Yeah man, I concur.
would have to flood 80% of the country, cause ggw (Score:3)
Hydroelectric is good, in the places where it makes sense such as Niagara Falls.
To provide for all of US energy needs would require 20,000 dams, each with the capacity of Hoover dam. Because Hoover was located in one of the best places possible, it flooded only 100 square miles. We' e already dammed most of the best spots, so new dams would be in less ideal places.
The 20,000 dams required would flood 80% of the continental US, so that's probably not a solution. There may be a few places remaining to add a
Re: (Score:2)
That if you REALLY want to eliminate fossil fuel usage, the big spending is going to have to be on dams and nuclear reactors.
Hydro power won't do. The world technical potential for hydro power is about 16 PWh, while the world demand for energy is something like 500 PWh, so there is no way that those 16 PWh could ever make a significant contribution.
Nuclear power's technical potential is only limited by the effectiveness of the technology, so nuclear could be a viable replacement given the right advances in nuclear technology. It is unfortunately possible to rule out current nuclear technology because it simply takes too long and
Re: (Score:3)
"Nuclear reactors are actually a BAD choice for funding currently due to the bureaucratic gridlock around adopting new (safer) reactor designs, which *do* exist. "
The bureaucratic gridlock part is what we are against.
I don't like the mindset: 'Oh well, they beat us. Can't be done now.'
Concrete and steel don't cost that much...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
True. Building them in the Sahara would mitigate some of these issues, however there are three major impacting factors there: erosion, sand deposits and savages.
Re: (Score:2)
As for batteries -- they don't generate energy.
How is it that batteries work in your little world then? Please, enlighten us. Because here in reality they operate by using a chemical reaction to transfer electrons between two differing metal plates. You could try to argue and say that isn't generating energy, it is simply releasing it. But then I would be unable to help myself from pointing out that energy in fact cannot be created or destroyed.
Batteries != Capacitors;
You're right about solar panels in that they do take up a metric butt-load of space. A
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You're being pedantic of course, but for all intents and purposes, batteries aren't the real source of the power we use every day. Gas, coal, or nuclear generating stations are. Batteries get charged up with that power, then take it to where it's needed and release it. You said it yourself, energy cannot be created nor destroyed. All the batteries in the world aren't going to stop global warming if electricity is coming from Coal. Some battery chemistries form batteries that have a full charge when man
Re: (Score:2)
Solar panels are usually cleaned by rain, but even in absence of rain as in California the small increase in efficiency is usually not not considered to be worth it.
Re: (Score:2)
A big problem with both wind and solar is that output can vary effectivly at random.
Re: (Score:2)
It is only random for someone who is not in that business. ... and remember a plant consists of hundreds of wind mills, we are not talking about a single one.
Plant operators or grid operators usually know very well how much power they are generating or transporting.
Hint: weather reports, forecasts
Re: (Score:3)
The battery tech is a necessary part of using solar as it allows you to timeshift the power from the middle of the day and use it after the sun sets.
Re: (Score:3)
If you are using concentrated solar thermal instead of photovoltaics, the molten slag is your battery. Use both so you get PV in the morning when your salt is cool. Winds are higher in the morning too. And of course a safe thorium reactor for baseline never hurt anybody.
Re: (Score:3)
The reason thorium never hurt anybody, is because it is complete fantasy. Nobody has ever built one that has demonstrated any degree of industrial reliability and usefulness. Thorium is up there with Fusion, as far as being a demonstrated technology.
Re: (Score:2)
I go up on my roof and clean off the panels twice a year with the hose. What's the problem again? Space? On my ROOF? Cleaning? With the HOSE?
Every system needs maintenance. Hosing down solar panels is probably a LOT easier than shipping off nuclear waste or doing the maintenance on the scrubbers for a coal power plant.
Re: (Score:2)
Isn't one of the main problems we're facing right now that we're running out of jobs that are both low-skill yet necessary enough to keep our economy going to be worth paying a decent wage for?
Re: (Score:3)
There's a huge amount of space available - it's called a roof, and many people have them.
The PV panels on my roof are, to a certain extent, self-cleaning. They're designed that way, and it works quite well as long as they're mounted properly. Panels should be mounted at an angle roughly corresponding to your latitude (I'm at ~26 deg south), and rainfall is enough to keep them clean. I get up on the roof to inspect them every couple of months, and I clean them once a year or so. All it takes is a long-handle
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
An even better idea would be to put all of the "renewable" subsidies into nuclear. Which is more truely described as "renewable" anyway.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Germany had commercial nuclear power since the sixties. There is still no permanent waste repository here. Besides, Germany has invested a lot of money in nuclear power in the 80ies. It didn't work out. Thorium pebble bed reactors were a massive failure.
Besides, the German population doesn't want nuclear power.
Here is a pretty good explanation, why: http://www.worldpolicy.org/blo... [worldpolicy.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Germany had commercial nuclear power since the sixties. There is still no permanent waste repository here. Besides, Germany has invested a lot of money in nuclear power in the 80ies. It didn't work out.
Actually, it did work out quite well. Germany had a stable clean air energy source upon which they built the predominant economy in Europe. German nuclear plants have already produced more CO2 free energy than their solar and wind combined can hope to come close to in the next two decades.
Abandonment of nuclear based on misconception of risk is resulting in a big setback for CO2 free generation in Germany, high energy prices, grid stability issues and an increasingly chaotic energy market.
They have ma
Re: (Score:2)
Energy prices on the market have been declining while end-user price have been increasing, but only a small part of this is from the feed-in-tarif fee. So high energy prices are clearly not caused by abandonment of nuclear (otherwise the market price would be up but it is not). While renewables are demanding to the grid and require some investment, grid stability issues are a myth: Germany has one of the most stable grids in Europe and this did not change in recent years with a downtime as measured by the S
Re: (Score:3)
If you're serious about solar, you don't necessarily need better tech, you just need enough investment money to build massive solar-thermal [wikipedia.org] plants in the desert. These produce energy through heat-driven turbines, thus they don't require solar panels, can be as efficient as material science lets them (the hot end is the surface of the Sun, so theoretical efficiency is a bit over 94%), and can store energy in the form
Re: (Score:3)
Actually, two countries--India and China--are pouring a LOT of money into make the molten-salt reactor (a nuclear reactor fueled by thorium-232 dissolved in molten fluoride salts) commercially viable. If they succeed, it could fulfill the promise of nuclear power minus the many downsides of uranium-fueled nuclear power plants.
Re: (Score:3)
I am always surprised about people promoting nuclear. Nuclear is hopelessly un-economocal, which means that investing in it even as a stopgap measure is a waste of resources. Even today, conventional power plants are not usually build without large subsidies. But conventional nuclear power plants are no solution to our energy problems. Only with breeder reactors is it possible to scale up nuclear to provide a significant part of the world's energy needs. And breeder reactors are even more expensive and cost
Re: (Score:2)
People promote nuclear because it's really the only alternative to fossil fuels we have. Hydro, tidal, and geothermal are limited to certain areas and are limited by scaling, solar and wind have limited uptime and take space.
Re: (Score:2)
Why would you think this? To me it seems that an energy mix consisting of renewables and some saving by the use of more efficient technlogies could easily solve all our energy problems. And I seriously don't see how space is a problem. Nuclear could in theory, but only at a much higher cost.
Re: (Score:3)
For example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L... [wikipedia.org]
Google for "levelized cost of energy sources"
And this is about actual costs with mature technology, not even about some hypothetical future closed nuclear cycle, which - pardon the pun - is vaporware.
OPEC to subsidize its demise? (Score:5, Insightful)
TFA is loonie. According to its own data, the "fossil fuel subsidies" it is hoping to redirect are those that third-world OPEC type countries currently give to their own populations in the form of supercheap oil. Withholding that money would be regime suicide (plus possibly population genocide).
Re: (Score:2)
This.
The subsidies for fossil fuels by first-world western nations (and China) (those in a position to fund green energy technologies) are a small percentage of the total. Most fossil fuel subsidies are done by oil producing nations as a form of population pacification. The idea that these funds are available for redirection is ludicrous.
Re: (Score:2)
Sure, but that's only half the problem. The other half is the idea that throwing money at renewables will actually reduce CO2 production.
Re: (Score:2)
Sure, but that's only half the problem. The other half is the idea that throwing money at renewables will actually reduce CO2 production.
Huh, what makes you think it does not?
Re: (Score:2)
This.
This 'this' thing is really starting to grate.
This.
Re: (Score:2)
That.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
This.
Re: (Score:2)
Withholding that money would be regime suicide (plus possibly population genocide).
If first world countries were to redirect the massive amounts of money spent to invade and conqueror those third world, oil producing countries over to renewable research and development, the end result would comparable: enough funding to end the need to invade and conqueor said oil producing countries.
Why subsidize energy? (Score:4, Insightful)
Subsidies and lobbying (Score:2)
Maybe it could theoretically work (or maybe not), but it's irrelevant because almost impossible to do.
The problem is: how do you take away money (subsidies) from those who have a lot of it (partly precisely from subsidies)?
They can spend a lot for lobbying and public relations in general. The industries which would need to receive these subsidies don't have comparable means for their campaigns, and in part these industries don't even exist yet, because the money is lacking to develop them.
In social movement
You think? (Score:2)
Well we have known this for a long long time. Problem is how do we get the government to stop subsidizing fossil fuel?
Voting against the tea party nutcases might be a good start. They are they ones forcing these subsidies: http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/29/... [cnn.com]
Land Area that is needed to power the whole world with solar panels using existing technology: http://www.gembapantarei.com/s... [gembapantarei.com]
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Today on /. we find out who doesn't know the difference between subsidies, tax deductions, tax breaks, and taxes.
From the linked CNN article above:
Among other things, the measure killed on Thursday would have ended oil production's categorization under the tax code as a form of domestic manufacturing eligible for a deduction worth 6% of net income, according to New Jersey Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez, the bill's author.
The measure also would have prevented oil companies from claiming foreign royalty payments as a credit against American taxes, and cut the ability of companies to deduct numerous costs associated with the drilling process.
So we have a bunch of tax deductions that literally every company in the country is eligible for, but when the oil industry takes them they become subsidies and are bad.
Wow.....
Re: (Score:2)
Most things that are talked about by politicians when it comes to subsidies are not only bending of the truth but straight up lies. For example the lie that the oil companies pay no taxes. it is a bullshit lie that many love to believe and keep perpetrating the myth for example EXXON payed a REAL tax number of 9.5 BILLION Dollars in total taxes in 2010. http://www.washingtonpost.com/... [washingtonpost.com]
people LOVE
Subsidies (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The less-energy-for-poor-countries "solution" (Score:2)
I'm absolutely sure that you can reduce emissions that way. But at what cost?
Power plants are not being built for fun, they actually serve a purpose, namely that of generating electricity in places that need electricity. In the world today, that happens mainly in places where electricity is scarce and absolutely needed to get out of poverty. It so happens to be the case that fossil power plants are much less expensive on a per-kWh basis and far more reliable than wind and solar. Hydro is a serious competito
Re: (Score:2)
I'm absolutely sure that you can reduce emissions that way. But at what cost?
What's the cost of not reducing emissions?
Developing countries are going to have to not only choose renewables, but also encourage the rest of us to use them, or we will all suffer. It doesn't matter what the cost is, does it? The cost of not doing it is far higher.
Re: (Score:2)
You go to a developing country and tell them they're fine. They don't need development. They don't need electricity unlike all the developed countries.
And what is all the "suffering" you're talking about? You mean like New Orleans where all the politicians were too corrupt to build a couple of levees for a few tens of million dollars, even though engineers had warned them for decades in advance that the city will be flooded the next time cat 3 hurricanes comes along? Or do you mean hurricane Sandy that was
Start with coal... (Score:3, Interesting)
We need to start by ending ALL money spent by the governments that supports or benefits the coal industry (direct subsidies, governments building rail lines, ports etc to benefit the coal industry, building new coal fired power stations instead of building better alternatives etc)
And no I dont care if you loose your job because no-one wants the coal your mine (or mining town) produces anymore, much like I dont care that people no longer want asbestos or buggy whips or any other obsolete technology.
End ALL subsidies (Score:2, Insightful)
The problem is not that fossil fuels gets subsidies. The problem is that there are subsidies. Don't shift the subsidies and give them to someone else. It is time to end all subsidies.
No fossil fuel subsidies -> gasoline will rise to it's natural price of about $16/gallon, electric prices will rise and there will be more interest in renewables and efficiency.
No farm subsidies -> food prices will rise for the worst foods but less so for better foods and more local foods.
No mortgage deduction (a subsidy)
Re: (Score:2)
Government should create money, as the private sector does all the time, everyday.
Re:How about (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The article seeks to equate subsidy with investment. Those really aren't the same thing.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
On a per-unit energy generated standpoint, renewables get the heftiest subsidies by far in most countries, yet the net impact of CO2 reduction in any of those countries is not yet helping improve the situation on a global scale.
There is also naivety in assuming simple renewable approaches will work just anywhere, and ignoring the cost of 'backup up' of wi
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Your own citation says you're wrong. That's gotta hurt....
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:1600/to:1014
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1600/to:10142
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:1600/to:2014/trend
That's a neat little tool, but... I'm sorry, we ARE warming. Ah, yes, technically you said we haven't been warming for the last 18 years. That's wrong too, but I see how you might have thought that, sort of, if you look at the RIGHT data sets presented and squint a
Re: (Score:2)
You say that like it's true. You could go to that word for trees site listed and play with the raw data yourself. You can play with several statistical tools to smooth out the data. You could look yourself... Or, you know, continue in your beliefes despite the evidence presented.... If you don't trust that site, the data is on Wolfram Alpha, or lots of other sites. RAW data, not put through any statistical tools...
You've never TOUCHED the data, or even LOOKED at any of the models you're griping about. I h
Re: (Score:2)
Conclusion, "Applied Systems Analysis in Laxenburg, Austria is full of b@ts#it."
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
In other words, you don't have any facts to back up your claim.
Business expenses are not subsidies.
Re: How about (Score:5, Insightful)
It never ceases to amaze me how Progressives can so blithely condemn BIG corporations and their answer to solving the "BIG Corporation" problem is always to give more power to the largest, most powerful organization on the planet. Because large size causes corruption in companies, but it must only cause nobility in governments, right?
Re: (Score:3)
It's because it's much easier for somebody who isn't rich to appeal decisions by the government. Congress exists, everyone has a Congressperson, and every Congressperson has an office with 25 staff. Quite a few of those people are devoted to something called "constituent service," which is helping people deal with government bureaucracies.For example I have a coworker who had some income from Social Security when she was a child. She's not really a sophisticated consumer of government documents, so she had
Re: How about (Score:5, Interesting)
Government is of the people, by the people, for the people. Business's sole purpose is to serve those with money.
Government protects rights that apply to the least popular person as much as to the most popular person. Business gives the rich more rights.
No CEO swears to uphold the General Welfare. Government is mandated to by the Constitution.
The way I look at it is this (Score:2)
At least with the Gov't I have a chance, however small. It's happened before. In the 50s, 60s and 70s we saw a massive decline in the power of the aristocracy (fyi, America has an aristocracy, they just don't like to talk about themselves). We saw huge decreases in
Re: How about (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: How about (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll take a government that I can vote in or out over a corp that I can't, and often HAVE to do business with because it's a monopoly. :D
OR! Maybe it's not that black and white, and we need a decent balance. Oh, sorry, I'm off the talking points. Still, I don't think progressives are off to say that corporate power has grown tremendously in the last few decades and they need to be reigned in a bit. No one is saying to get rid of corps. Hell, I USE an LLC. The benefits are obvious. It's also obvious that our representatives don't represent us, they represent their donors. We need to reclaim our government from moneyed influence.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'll take a government I can vote out of office than a corporation that can rebrand, hide behind subsidiaries, operate out of tax havens, etc.
Large corporations have proven time and again that, when left to their own devices, they will screw over consumers, each other and anyone unfortunate enough to live near their factories. The only check on this type of amoral behaviour is responsible, democratically elected governments.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
If you have enough money to choose whether you do business with people it's fairly simple to choose your government. Quite a few of them will actually sell you citizenship.
Re: (Score:3)
if I want to travel to a particular city by rail
well sure if you limit your options, if you had the statement "if i want to travel to city A, I can take a car built by many different companies, I can take a plane, run by many different companies. and theres also a train"
that is the same logic as if i want to play a video game i only have nintendo, well no you have other options out there, if you pigeonhole yourself thats on you.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Or instead of giving subsidies, maybe the governor should give out monetary prizes for results like the X-Prizes. Subsidies is just asking for abuse and a waste of tax payer money. But giving out prizes for results would probably be cheaper and more effective.
The problem with this argument is that energy production isn't a wide-open field. Everybody already uses energy.
Lets say you've got a state with 35 million people, and 10 prizes. The prize goes to the people who cut their energy use most in percentage terms. At least 30 million of them aren't gonna change squat because a) changing their lifestyles would cost tens of thousands of dollars, and b) they know the guy down the street who bikes to work, only uses his Toyota to pick up groceries, doesn't have kids,
Re: (Score:2)
For anyone who would like to see an ACTUAL progressive utopia, written by a dirty hippy, take a look at the book Ecotopia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecotopia). I'll say that it bears a striking resemblance to a libertarian ideal, but then, we have a lot in common. Please note that the book was written a while ago. Some of the tech presented in the book is a bit silly from today's standards, but oh well. It's still an awesome book, and I'd live there in a heartbeat.
As for Smitty's little corporate depe
Re: How do you solve a problem that doesn't exist? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah. Relativity is just a Theory guys.... There's still debate! I know this guy, who knows a guy, who totally says it's not legit. Why haven't we heard from him! There's a conspiracy! Just because he's not a fancy "scientist". Because he's not an "expert" in their Ivory Tower. We should teach the controversy man.....
Science grows. We continue to discover new principles about the way the universe works, and new nuances every day.... but yes, some science is settled. We can predict what happens when we put
Re: (Score:2)
If your doctors know as much about physiology as scientists know about climate, you are gonna die either way.
Re: (Score:2)
There IS no debate. No one is name calling, but I can start if you'd like. Please show me these faked studies. Please show me this manipulated data. Please. Where is it?
There are links in THIS discussion where you can go play with the raw data sets.... Perhaps you should?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Your assumption there is no compassion contained in those with these infinite bank account owners reveals you have the same level of blinders as your hippies. Neither is your example compassionate. It cannot be as you are leading the reader to choose the option of taking by force what is not theirs under the name of misplaced altruism and attempted shaming.
There is no dilemma, the answer is simple; keep what I got and use it as I see fit; the hippies and you can kiss my ass.
Re: (Score:2)
Give up 99% of it, still be insanely rich and make a name for yourself in history as the guy who fixed the world?
Look at Bill Gates. Used to be a complete dick in business, totally ruthless. Eventually had more money than he could ever spend and decided to do something interesting and good with it. Doing so did not really impact his quality of life, maybe even made it better as people are less hostile to him now in light of his charitable work.
The real problem is corporations. Individuals can do that kind o
Re:Infinite Bank Account (Score:5, Insightful)
"Money" that people have "in the bank" is really ownership of companies. What you call "withdrawing" means reallocating that money, closing one kind of business and firing its employees, and opening another kind of business and hiring people there. Whether that's a good or bad deal depends on exactly what the new business does compared to the old business.
They choose to attempt to maximize the return on their investment, which is both in their interest and in society's interest.
No, the "dilemma" you imagine doesn't exist. Rich people aren't hurt by shifting their investments from one kind of company to another kind. If Obama pours billions of subsidies into "green energy", the same people who own oil companies and profit from it will just switch over to those companies. So will your pension fund.
Really the only question is whether the new "green energy companies" will deliver what they promise; that's the part that's doubtful, because if they did, why wouldn't people be investing in them voluntarily?
Re: (Score:3)
I may be wrong, but I feel like you missed the point of the post above you... the "$20 trillion dollar bank account", I took to be an analogy for the world's fossil fuel reserves. Which, if we want to avert climate change, we probably have to take a significant fraction of and leave it in the ground.
All the focus is on reducing demand by reducing usage, and that would theoretically force fuels to be sold cheaper until the point where it's not economically viable to extract them. But it seems like an indir
Re: (Score:2)
Don't wait behind me in the ATM line. I'm going to be a while.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:all for ending subsidies (Score:4, Insightful)
I usually ignore ACs, but your post is the standard rebuttal about "what subsidies?" and it's totally wrong...
1. Tax credit for paying foreign taxes. This is a "subsidy" as far as EVERY SINGLE COMPANY gets the same thing. If you pay $1 in income tax overseas, you do not have to pay that same $1 on the same income. It applies to profits earned overseas, and already taxed. ALL companies get this; if you want to call this an energy subsidy, then you can also call it a subsidy for renewables/solar/wind - because they get it as well (oh, and you can also say that every overseas US worker gets the subsidy because when they pay taxes on their overseas income, they get to deduct those paid taxes from the US taxes they owe).
2. Credit for alternative fuel production. Uhhh, you mean ALTERNATIVE energy credits? Yep - there's that dastardly Big Oil stealing the money from alternative energy to, uh, fund traditional oil/gas? Nope. It's for GREEN initiatives, like ethanol and the like. Fuels that would NOT be competitive on the market unless they are subsidized, fuels that are "green" and alternative. Why this is not included in the alternative energy subsidies I don't know - guess something had to stick somewhere?
3. Oil and gas exploration and expensing. I guess R&D for technology shouldn't be deductible. That land prep for farmers shouldn't be deductible. That planting new trees for tree farms shouldn't be deductible. That clearing land for solar and wind shouldn't be deductible. It's a standard business expense - R&D - that ALL BUSINESSES get to deduct.
Yep, some great list! Now, I wonder about those who shout about "Big Oil doesn't pay tax!" I wonder if they realize ExxonMobil paid over $31 BILLION in taxes last year [usatoday.com], the most by any US company. Followed by Chevron? With Apple a distant 3rd?
Re: (Score:2)
Re:No such thing as 'catastrophic man-made... (Score:5, Informative)
... global warming'...
But I'm amazed these retards actually used the phrase 'global warming', since the new accepted LIE is to use the deliberately misleading phrase 'climate change', which is MEANT to mean "catastropic man-made global warming', and is IMPLIED every time they use it...
Just go to www.climatedepot.com and start reading the truth about this ridiculous 'global warming' scam. These 'scientists' are just shysters in it for the money, and my, doesn't it show.
ClimateDepot is a shell website created by the "Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow," a think tank funded by crackpot Richard Mellon Scaife (you might remember him from every fake Clinton scandal ever) and Exxon Mobil.
It's ran by Marc Morano, an ex-producer of Rush Limbaugh's show, which should tell you about as much as you need to know about it's journalistic ethics.
In short, ClimateDepot is a fake website designed to sucker idiots like you into believing there's some sort of "other side" to the climate change "debate" -- when in reality there isn't. But then again, 90% of the Climate Deniers I have met are in it just to piss off liberals in some sort of psychotic ignorant tribalism, so... perhaps I waste my breath.