Archived World Energy Hits a Turning Point: Solar That's Cheaper Than Wind - Half the Cost of Coal (bloomberg.com)
submitted ago by rwbj
Posted by: rwbj
Posting time: 4 years ago on
Last edit time: never edited.
Archived on: 3/18/2017 10:00:00 AM
Views: 59
SCP: 16
18 upvotes, 2 downvotes (90% upvoted it)
Archived World Energy Hits a Turning Point: Solar That's Cheaper Than Wind - Half the Cost of Coal (bloomberg.com)
submitted ago by rwbj
view the rest of the comments →
[–] DickHertz ago
Great. If that's true then the government need no longer subsidize any of it.
[–] rwbj [S] ago
The only remaining major federal solar subsidy would not apply here. It's a consumer end tax rebate. Even that is set to automatically expire in 2021.
But I do think we should absolutely start rolling back all energy subsidies. I don't think Trump will likely even consider this, but it's getting kind of silly. This is a nonexhaustive list of some subsidies we currently spend on oil. It's pretty insane. Dig an oil well and the company doing so gets a 100% tax break. They also get 15% of their oil income 100% tax free, and more. The only relevant federal solar subsidy is consumers getting a time-limited 30% tax rebate (again not even a refund) on solar installations - the company gets nothing directly though the lower price for consumers obviously works as a favorable incentive.
Anyhow, yeah - I do think if we rolled back all energy subsidies renewables would look even more appealing. However, I'd wager pretty heavily that Trump won't touch oil subsidies. Our economy is effectively backed on oil in large part due to the petro dollar. Oil would be in some trouble without all the subsidies it receives and that in turn could have a ripple effect on our economy. This is also just looking at the merit and ignoring things like Trump picking Exxon's CEO for secretary of state indicating he might have some sort of a personal bias towards oil for whatever reason.