Every energy industry gets support, not just renewables - Opinion - ReviewJournal.com

With the recent closing of Amonix's solar manufacturing plant in North Las Vegas, in addition to the bankruptcy of Solyndra and several other government-aided solar companies, tough questions are being asked about renewable energy subsidies - and they should be. These questions concern every taxpayer.

But any debate on energy subsidies had better include oil, natural gas, coal and nuclear - each has received far more subsidies than solar, wind and geothermal combined.

And let us be clear: Neither Solyndra nor Amonix is a "scam." Each produced quality solar panels - but their competitors were able to sell theirs at a lower price. While Solyndra received a $535 million loan guarantee from the Obama administration, Amonix was awarded $15.6 million in grants approved by the Bush administration.

Governments generally subsidize industries - and invest in them - when the industries are developing new and promising technology that is not yet profitable for the private sector. Governments use subsidies as incentives - in the form of tax breaks, regulations and grants - for research and development. Jet aircraft, telecommunications, computers, the Internet and many major medical breakthroughs were all subsidized in their early stages. It can be risky. But despite Solyndra, the default rates on clean energy loan guarantees have so far been far less than the Department of Energy originally forecast.

Oil and gas: Over 13 times more subsidies than renewables

By Zachary Shahan on 6 August 2012

CleanTechnica

You know the line — “Renewable energy shouldn’t receive government support. If it can’t stand on its own in the free market, it doesn’t deserve to grow.” The answer — total freakin’ hogwash, horsefeathers, balderdash!

First of all, as you might have gathered from the title, fossil fuel’s historical subsidies are like skyscrapers next to single-family-renewable-energy-subsidy homes. This is, notably, without including the massive indirect subsidies the oil and gas industry receive in unchecked externalities that wreak havoc on our health, our quality of life, and the potential viability of the human species after climate change is done with us.

You can see in this chart below that historical oil and gas subsidies are over 13 times larger than renewable energy (not including biofuels) subsidies:

Over the first 15 years of these energy sources’ subsidies, oil and gas got 5 times what renewables got (in 2010 dollars) and nuclear energy got 10 times as much.

“Nuclear spent an average of about $3.3 billion a year, oil and gas about $1.8 billion, and renewable energy just under half a billion,” DBL Investors Managing Partner Nancy Pfund and Ben Healey recently wrote in “What would Jefferson do?”