Posts Tagged by level playing field
Getting Smarter About Renewable Energy
| May 4, 2012 | Posted by Craig Shields under Renewables - Business |
A reader asked for my opinion on this article in RealClearScience, a well-written and innocuous primer on renewable energy.
The premise: “keep pushing, but push smarter” is hard to argue with. I’m reminded of people who caution “Be careful!” when someone trips or bumps his head. Read More
Energy Subsidies and a Level Playing Field
| August 3, 2010 | Posted by Craig Shields under Renewables - Politics |
When we talk about a “level playing field” for renewables, we mean that we simply hope for a day in which the incentives to generate energy from fossil fuels are removed and the energy industry and its customers must pay the full costs. We feel that more or less immediately, this will cause renewable energy to be perceived as a considerable bargain.
Here’s a short article on energy subsidies from Bloomberg, published just a few days ago, in which writer Alex Morales points out the fossil fuels receive 12 times the subsidies as clean energy. If we can somehow put a spear through this shameful and corrupt practice, we’ll be in good shape.
Don’t Look for a Level Playing Field for Renewables Before Radical Campaign Finance Reform
| May 1, 2010 | Posted by Craig Shields under Renewables - Politics |
I try to be judicious in my blogging about the politics associated with renewables, mindful that taking sides can alienate certain people. But guest blogger Cameron Atwood brings up something in response to my piece on Campaign Finance Reform that I think is so major and basic that it’s hard to understand how anyone could be offended.
He points out that there are 11,000 corporate and special interest lobbyists for our 535 congress members – a ratio of over 20 lobbyists per member. He further points out that the recent SCOTUS decision (“Citizens United” vs. Federal Elections Commission) granting the status of human beings to corporations, has fully unleashed this terrible power upon the well-being of the common American. As an example, the financial reform bills now inching their way forward face fierce opposition from no fewer that 1500 lobbyists (mostly representing the interested Wall Street, banking and insurance corporations). That’s a ratio of 3 to 1.
History buffs will remember that our forefathers contemplated the possibility of this very mess at the onset of the Union. In particular, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison knew enough about the potential effects of corporations that they both made very clear statements as to how these entities needed to be regulated with great care so as to avoid the trampling of the democratic process – such as we’re seeing today.
We all want to hope that a leader will spring up with the bravery and determinism to make all this corruption simply evaporate. But how likely is that, given the way our leaders raise funds for their election campaigns?
Level Playing Field for Renewable Energy
| December 8, 2009 | Posted by Craig Shields under Renewables - Politics |
I’m always delighted when I come across supporters of the idea that I’ve referred to as the “level playing field” for renewable energy. That is, I’m not asking for a subsidy for solar, wind, geothermal, etc. Rather, I’m asking that producers and consumers of fossil fuels simply pay the full cost of these forms of energy, including the costs of healthcare (caring for victims of the mercury, arsenic and other pollutants that cause lung damage and birth defects) as well as cleaning up the vast environmental damage. If we were somehow able to get such a system in place, we’d make the migration to renewable energy in the blink of an eye.
Here’s an op-ed piece in today’s New York Times that speaks to the very issue. Given the watered down discussions in Copenhagen, I think it’s more than a little relevant.
General Electric Invests in Renewable Energy
| October 1, 2009 | Posted by Craig Shields under Renewables - Business |
The 2GreenEnergy mantra “It’s business” is played out in this interview with General Electric’s Energy Infrastructure CEO John Krenicki on the company’s investment in renewables. As with most such interviews, the content here is extremely broad, general, and at times evasive; I find it funny when I see someone on camera answer a direct question in a way that has absolutely nothing to do with the query. But to be fair, I suppose that’s part of the skill-set of the CEO of any Fortune 25 company: staying on-message.
It’s important for us all to understand that a company with the global footprint of GE has (apparently profitably) invested billions of dollars of resources into solar and wind. The wind business that they bought from Enron for $300 million did $6 billion in high-margin revenue last year. That gets a lot of attention from Wall Street.
And let’s not forget that all this is being done in the context of renewable energy that comes with a price tag that is significantly above that of energy from fossil fuels. So exactly when will the price of renewable energy fall to the point that it’s competitive with fossil fuels — and coal, etc. can become a thing of the past? A friend of mine recommends this 83-pager on wind power that purports to answer that question. But I can see from its synopsis that it boils down to this: with natural gas demand factors falling and the supply factors skyrocketing, renewables will not be directly cost-competitive for some time.
Of course, here is the real problem that advocates for renewables face: customers of fossil fuel-based energy are not paying anywhere near the true costs. When we buy a tank of gasoline, the manufacturer simply passes the cost of cleaning up the mess on to future generations — and they’re so powerful that no one even thinks of taking them to task. What would happen if we were to close that loophole? What if the price of a gallon of gasoline rose to include the cost of the healthcare to deal with the lung disease that is caused by burning it, and to include the cost of pulling the CO2 and other garbage out of the atmosphere?
The answer is obvious: We’d have a level playing field on which electric vehicles and renewable energy would be rightly perceived as the bargain of the millennium. And that, in very short order, would be the end of internal combustion engines and the oil companies in very short order. But as long as the oil and coal companies retain the power to defecate on the health of future generations and nothing happens to change the way we deal with them, renewable energy will continue to fight an uphill battle.
