energy subsidies
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The energy tax credits in the bailout bill, part 1
The bailout legislation passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bush on Friday has a $17 billion energy tax package. This post will focus on the clean energy credits. Part 2 will focus on the dirty ones. The biggest winner is certainly solar. As Scott Sklar, former head of the Solar Energy Industries […]
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Business association lays out recommendations for energy policy
The Institute for 21st Century Energy is a project of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which bills itself as a bipartisan trade association. In fact, it has effectively become part of the Republican machine, dominated by — and lobbying fiercely for the interests of — Big Oil, Big Auto, Big Pharma, and other such Bigs. […]
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Senate settles on a grab bag of political favors in place of an energy policy
Next week, the Senate plans to consider the Energy Improvement and Extension Act of 2008, a hodgepodge of subsidies and tax credits that reflects the vacuum of long-term strategic thinking in U.S. energy policy. The bill is a classic Senate Christmas Tree, bedecked with tax breaks and loopholes for just about every energy-related industry under […]
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Passing the buck or paying the piper
We have just gone through a period in the U.S. when very little new public infrastructure was built (with the exception of wired and wireless telecommunications infrastructure). Led by a generation and a half of politicians and economic theorists — as well as our own inclinations — Americans have become used to believing that a […]
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Renewable energy promotion policies: transparent
The previously discussed finance mechanisms tend to hide the costs of building renewable generators by concealing the actual cost per unit of electricity and costs for the ratepayers or taxpayers as a whole. In an era when so much is hanging on energy policy, it makes more sense to consider policies that do not pull […]
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Renewable energy promotion policies: non-transparent or hidden
Tax credit policies One of the ways the gap between market price and feasible price of renewable energy plants has been bridged is through tax benefits to investors. Just as the oil and gas industries have enjoyed various tax benefits to encourage investment in drilling, exploration, and production facilities, in the last couple decades investors […]
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McCain’s nuclear plan would cost $315 billion, with taxpayers risking over $100 billion
Finally, a serious publication did the math: John McCain’s plan to revive the U.S. nuclear power industry with 45 new reactors may cost $315 billion, with taxpayers bearing much of the financial risk. Who else should bear the financial risk? After all, taxpayers bear the meltdown risk thanks to the Price-Anderson Act. Why should a […]
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Biofuels: not cost-effective or lucrative for climate change or business
According to this article in Mongabay, a study from a British think tank is calling for an end to subsidies for biofuels based on — not biodiversity loss and high food prices — cost effectiveness. The economics is startling — if developed countries spent the same amount of money on preventing deforestation and the destruction […]
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Media focuses on high costs of clean energy, but gives nuclear a free pass
When the media talks about clean energy, it usually deals with the cost issue with a rational, balanced analysis. Something along the lines of, say, “It’s so expensive!“ Yet somehow, in Keith Johnson’s Environmental Capital blog post today slamming greens for not supporting nukes, the cost issue is little more than an afterthought. The nuclear […]