[Treehugger] Solar Industry Says End Fossil Fuel Subsidies And Expect A Solar Boom
A report by the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) found that power from the sun could generate 15 percent of America's power in the next decade, but only if Washington levels the playing field on subsidies. The fossil fuel industry, led by oil and coal, received $72 billion in total federal subsidies from 2002 to 2008, but earlier this year President Obama called for those subsidies to end. [...] But during that same 7-year period, the solar industry got less than $1 billion, says SEIA. Putting the subsidies even with those for fossil fuels would create jobs and dramatically cut the country's global warming causing emissions.
This from the solar industry lobby SEIA, shameless shills who among other things are promoting an disgustingly-named "Solar Bill of Rights", demanding such "rights" to the solar industry as free access to public lands (#5), and free electric transmission (#3) (that is, the right of solar owners to force utilities to buy their electricity at retail rates, rather than much lower utility rates paid to ordinary power plants -- forcing them to transmit electricity at loss), and the "right" of the solar industry to "require" utilities to sell solar power (#7), and of course the "right" to massive government subsidies (#4), hypocritically named "right to a fair competitive environment".
It's that last perversion of rights which is what this latest PR release is about. The solar industry PR wizards are trying to sell an absurdity - that fossil fuels only exists because they are heavily subsidized, the playing field is tilted in their favor, and solar power would actually flourish and thrive if only those subsidies were removed. It's about fairness! Naturally this 'worldview', no matter how blatantly it challenges reality, is something many people will simply accept, because it is a convenient and comforting narrative. Fossil companies are evil; solar companies are plucky underdogs. Fossil subsidies are a perfect scapegoat for solar's failure: it's a simple explanation which simultaneously vindicates solar (they'd win, if only the playing field was fair), demonizes oil companies (thieves!), and the policymakers, err, oil-military-industrial complex (polluters!). The cynical solar shills know very well how to manipulate public opinion.
First, they try to paint $72 billion in fossil subsidies 2002-2008 as a large sum, with their intented implication that the fossil industry is dependent on these incentives for survival, or at least significant competitive advantage. Simply removing these subsidies would cause a "solar boom", so they must be very important subsidies. Obviously what they've willfully omitted is the scale of the fossil industry for comparison. At typically 20 million barrels oil/day and maybe $60/barrel averaged over the time period (7 years), US revenue for oil alone would be on the order of $3 trillion. Fossil subsidies, in proportion, were less than 2% of the fossil revenues. It is, I suggest, obvious nonsense that fossil fuels only hang on by a razor-thin 2% competitive margin.
And this isn't even the full picture - to begin to talk about "level playing fields", we must look at special incentives in both directions, subsidies and taxes. Oil may get 2% in special subsidies but they pay 20% in special taxes - 45.6 c/kWh average gas tax in the US. Order of $350 billion over the same time period for gasoline alone. The net incentives are tilted against fossil fuels! And in Europe, the oil taxes are far higher - over 100% even - and despite this oil dominates transport fuel.
But if they only stopped the 2% fossil fuel subsidies, everything would change!
Now for the hypocrisy -- the single grubbiest subsidy-sucker in the world is solar power, by enormous margins. Start with their whiny sob-story...
But during that same 7-year period, the solar industry got less than $1 billion, says SEIA.
Boo-hoo! During that 7-year period the solar industry only generated 4.2 TWhe, worth barely $350 million at the average retail rate of 8.32 c/kWh. Their subsidies were bigger than their honest revenue!
And this is just scratching the surface - the USA measures very low in solar support levels (hence solar adoption rates, naturally). Let's look around:
Spain's direct subsidies to solar power are 575%, legally guaranteed for 25 years. Attempts to reduce the subsidies caused the market to instantly collapse, which shows what the solar market really runs on.
Germany's subsidies are 47 c€/kWh (about 68 c/kWh currently). At current utility prices (what power plants get, not what homeowners pay) of 47 €/MWh (4.7 c€/kWh), this is a 1,000% subsidy. (Retail prices are far higher - almost 20 c€/kWh - but this is not the selling price for power plants; much of it goes towards grid distribution or taxes.)
In case it wasn't obvious, these two countries and their astronomical subsidies represent the vast majority of worldwide solar "demand".
But the crown goes to, of all places, Ontario. Partly because of the even-higher cost of solar power in Canada, and partly because of their exceptionally cheap electricity (52% nuclear, of course, as well as 22% hydropower and 18% coal, also very cheap). With such extraordinarily cheap and clean electricity, and so little sunlight, why, and how far would they support solar panels? Quite far. Their solar subsidies are (Canadian cents) 44.3 c/kWh and 80.2 c/kWh respectively, for commercial and residential installations (about the same in US cents). The market price of electricity there is 4.06 c/kWh - that's what ordinary (non-sanctified) power plants get. So the solar feed-in subsidies, for commercial and rooftop respectively, are a slightly-generous 1,091% and 1,975%.
And the shills dare talk about level playing fields.
By the way, these kinds of numbers never seem to end up in mainstream news. Take the top-ranked NYT article on the subject, which euphemizes the subsidies as "Europe’s Way of Encouraging Solar Power". Absolutely no mention of the actual costs involved, or how they compare. It is a whitewash. Here's how they dishonestly spin the costs:
But requiring utilities to pay extra for green power has a direct impact on ratepayers. Homeowners’ electricity bills will rise 74 cents a month in Gainesville, or about half a percentage point of the average homeowner’s monthly bill.
“Seventy cents — what’s that? A Coke?” said Mr. Regan, of the Gainesville utility.
That is the cost increase to every ratepayer to subsidize the extremely tiny minority with solar panels. See how dishonest it is? Here are the suppressed numbers: the Gainesville subsidy is 32 c/kWh, which is 280% of the average retail rate in Florida.
Argh!
That last quote nicely illustrates the problem with concentrated benefits and diffuse costs.
ReplyDeleteThe loot is divided among just a few solar parasites; the incentive to make sure the theft is maintained is very strong.
The loot is stolen from every single electricity consumer. The incentive to do anything about it is very weak; they're just stealing a measily bottle of coke every month and if you aren't paying attention you won't even know about it.
This is exactly the same phenomenon that has allowed the US to maintain outrageous sugar subsidies and sugar import tariffs ever since the war of 1812.
For decades, there have been delirious proclamations that the world would soon run on solar energy. Those statements have always sounded too good to be true and, sure enough, they have always been false.
ReplyDeleteSolar is not be the smartest move for Ontario because its large hydro and nuclear capacity is not compatible with solar generation. Solar at these latitudes requires natural gas-fired generation for support and natural gas will be a most precarious fuel for Ontario.
The future of grid-solar in Ontario is tied to natural gas-fired electricity generation and that, is frankly unsustainable. The Ontario power grid needs flexible support to keep supply and demand in balance, and providing this support will be made more difficult when when the vagaries of solar are added.
Howard Hayden has gone over these numbers on comparative subsidies in great detail in his book, "The Solar Fraud".
ReplyDeleteDV8 2XL:
ReplyDelete"Sun power is now a fact and no longer in the 'beautiful possibility' stage... It will have a history like aerial navigation. Up to twelve years ago it was a mere possibility and no one took it seriously." - Frank Shuman 1910.
This document includes a picture and some news-paper clippings from an Egyptian paper:
http://www.egy.com/maadi/solar-energy.pdf
He had built a fairly large solar through array in Maadi, Egypt. Ostensibly similar to the ones built by the DoE in the 1970's and 1980's.
He wanted to build 20 250 square miles of parabolic troughs in the Sahara.
Of course, he would have succeeded if it weren't for world war I... of course... *wink wink*.
Hmm, my second post has not appeared(perhaps because I included a link and the spam filter ate it?).
ReplyDeleteDV8 2XL, shortly before the first world war Frank Shuman built a fairly large through array in Maadi, Egypt, ostensibly very similar to the ones resurrected by the DoE.
There are pictures easily found on google images so I'm not going to bother linking it in case my post gets eaten again.
In 1914 he had this to say to Scientific American: "Sun power is now a fact and no longer in the "beautiful possibility stage" ... [it will have] a history something like aerial navigation. Up to twelve years ago it was a mere possibility and no practical man took it seriously. The Wrights made and "actual record" flight and thereafter developments were more rapid. We have made an "actual record" in sun power, and we also hope now for quick developments".
Shuman had hoped to build 20 250 square miles of reflectors in the Sahara to equal the power supplied by coal in 1909.
Some of the less gifted environmentalists have suggested to me, with a straight face as far as I can tell, that if it weren't for the first world war we would now have been dependent on solar energy rather than coal. The reason solar hasn't taken over from coal since being resurrected by the DoE in a big way, is of course explained away by coal having enjoyed 60 years of improvements while solar has been kept back but now finally solar is beginning to approach that moving target.
The only form of solar energy that ever has been scaled to provide continuous, reliable, baseload electricity is hydro.
ReplyDeleteHydro of course depends on solar energy to drive the evaporation that lifts water to higher elevations , and delivers it as rain.
Consider then the size of the solar collector here, which is the area of water required to provide for evaporation, and then consider the size of the catchments of the river systems that feed the hydro reservoirs, and this will give you an idea of the amount of real estate needed for practical solar.
Soylent - It's my fault, the spam filter queues comments on posts older than 3 days, and I've become lazy at rescuing them. Sorry!
ReplyDeleteDV82XL - To be fair, the area density of direct solar power is 4-5 orders of magnitude greater than that of hydro potential...
uvdiv - Yes, but it is not continuous and reliable, and that's the point I was making. Power density alone is not in and of itself the only criteria for a practical source of power.
ReplyDeleteUVDIV: I have been trying to find the actual study that makes this (to me, exaggerated) claim that eliminating fossil-fuel subsidies (a good idea) would single-handedly make solar power so relatively inexpensive that it could then expand to generate 15% of America's power in the next decade. But I have not been able to locate it. I would like to see how they actually arrived these numbers. Can you post a link?
ReplyDeleteHow can you make the assumption of the bill requiring free use of public land? Nowhere in the bill does it state this.
ReplyDeleteWhat the bill seems to indicate is that permits issued for projects such as solar farms, etc. have not been approved although there have been many concessions for the oil industry.
It is quite obvious you are biased and are against clean energy, I recommend watching a few documentaries about global warming, a nice one to start with would be "The Age Of Stupid".
Anyway, what the bill specifically states is:
America has some of the best solar resources in the world, which are often on public lands overseen by the federal government. But even though oil and gas industries are producing on 13 million acres of public lands, no solar permits have been approved. Solar is a clean, renewable American resource and solar development on public lands is a critical component of any national strategy to expand our use of renewable energy.