<Gasoline Shortages: Our Inventory Problem The Oil Drum From ASPO-USA to MinExpo - a Study in Contrasts>
<DrumBeat: September 29, 2008 DrumBeat DrumBeat: October 1, 2008>

228 comments on DrumBeat: September 30, 2008

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

Show without comments | PDF version

Black_Dog on September 30, 2008 - 9:19am Permalink | Subthread | Comments top

In case anyone is really interested in alternative energy, the House and Senate apparently can't agree on extending the credit for Renewable Energy systems.

Lawmakers at Impasse on Incentives for Renewable Energy

E. Swanson

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
joule on September 30, 2008 - 9:45am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Black_Dog -

Some people want everything. How are we going to help pay for the Big Bailout if we extend the renewable energy credits?

Of course, not extending the credits will immediately kill many proposed wind farm projects, such as the one to be built off the Delaware coast, a project that only got the go-ahead after an incredibly drawn out and convoluted political fight.

Credits? We don't got no stinkin credits!!

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
Soylent on September 30, 2008 - 5:39pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Of course, not extending the credits will immediately kill many proposed wind farm projects, such as the one to be built off the Delaware coast, a project that only got the go-ahead after an incredibly drawn out and convoluted political fight.

Sounds like great news to me. As long as wind energy is just a means to greenwash natural gas and coal it deserves no credits.

Instead of pissing that money away on subsidizing production of intermittent electrical energy(much of which is eaten away by the inefficiency of single cycle gas turbines, the cost of keeping coal plants spinning and the production of power when no one needs it) it should go towards grid energy storage research. Cheap, large scale storage is absolutely essential if wind energy is ever to become useful.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
PolR on September 30, 2008 - 7:20pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I don't understand this kind of logic. It gives me a feeling the priorities are set wrong.

We have a long emergency to address. It will take decades to build adequate infrastructures. The greatest problem is to unlock the resources to do it. If someone can unlock money to build a power generation facility that won't kill us with global warming, please don't argue the technology limitations. Just let him build it. There won't be time to do it later if we wait for all the issues to be fixed.

Once the oil dries out, there will be such a thirst for energy that the electricity will not be let go to waste. Someone will find out how to use it regardless of the time of day it is generated. Besides if you put wind mills and solar panels in the field, you create the market for small residential power storage devices. It is harder to cost effectively solve the storage issue without having a market.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
Soylent on October 1, 2008 - 10:24am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

We have a long emergency to address. It will take decades to build adequate infrastructures.

As it stands wind power is at most a way to save a small quantity of natural gas and coal.

The price you pay for this is greenwashing the use of fossil fuels, deepening the dependence on fossil fuels, it makes it seem like something is being done and allows people to shut off their brains and think the problem has been solved. Unless you've got vast quantities of hydro peaking capacity(e.g. Scandinavia) it won't solve anything, it's a trap.

Without a miraculous power storage medium that's cheap, easy to scale up and uses abundant materials this can't change.

Once the oil dries out, there will be such a thirst for energy that the electricity will not be let go to waste. Someone will find out how to use it regardless of the time of day it is generated.

That's suicide; you don't have time to invent a seat belt seconds before a head on collision.

The scope of this problem is enormous and can't be glossed over. There's always been an enormous profit incentive for producing a cheap, reliable storage medium for electrical power and countless people have tried, but the best we've managed to come up with is the lead-acid battery(dating from 1859) and pumped hydro(circa 1890's).

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
mdsolar on September 30, 2008 - 10:33am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I think my representitive, Steny Hoyer, is really pushing to have everything in tax policy balance because he is very worried about all the defict spending we are doing. The popularity of the tax credit extentions makes them a place where his push to at least stabilize the deficit spending can get some attention. It is worth noting that originally the savings were taken in energy by reducing oil company subsidies but have now been shifted to closing some loop holes in corporate taxes that the corporations say need closing.

The republicans claim that the need to pay for tax policy shouldn't be applied to something that continues a tax credit that has been on going. This is a little silly because the whole point of putting a time limit on such credits is to evaluate periodically if they are still needed. When the sector in booming, it is going to pay for all its early credits is abundance. So, the credits are an investment which should pay off big time. We know that the credits will end and at that time they will be used as an offset in the opposite direction. In fact, renewable energy generation will undoubtably be taxed in the future because it is going to be so cheap that it won't hurt the economy to milk it a little. We want to get to that point sooner which is why we have credits now.

Perhaps the solution is to take a page from the republican playbook and recast all of this as an insurance program. All energy companies would pay a premium to ensure future energy supplies and renewables would get payments based on the fact that they will be there in the future. Once the whole system is renewable, the premiums and the payments all fall on renewables so there is not a lot of reason to retain the system. None of it is done on the tax books, just like the insurance idea for the financial bailout. This would pretty much automatically reduce the "subsidy" for renewables at the point when it is no longer needed. This is pretty much the way we fund the future availability of bank deposits through FDIC insurance so it might have some appeal. Perhaps renewables are too important to be left to tax policy?

Chris

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
woodychuck on September 30, 2008 - 11:48am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

While I like your idea, Chris, and in fact support taxing all domestic oil/gas production to support the extending of renewables, if, as and when the "bailout" happens, it is going to suck all of the cash out of all of the systems which the government can reach. I am more concerned right now about being able to operate in two months than how much I, or anyone else can get in the way of credits. I am truly concerned about a potential overall collapse - everywhere - than I am about anything else. When the Chinese, the Saudis and the Europeans all realize that not only do we just have a paper currency, it is being printed in our house of cards (I think that the Canadians and Mexicans already know how weak our economy is), they will also panic. Although stocks and oil are both up today, tomorrow and Thursday will extend the domestic panic.

(Maybe we can use the proceeds from the liquidation of the toxic assets to fund the renewables program ?)

I will also say that I think that most domestic oil and gas producers already know that we need to make other arrangements (like renewables), we also know that we cannot drill ourselves out of this mess, and we don't like being treated like we should be outcasts. Collaboration between the renewables industries and oil and gas producers could be had, IMHO, and we could all do a better job of seeking out that cooperation and collaboration.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
mdsolar on September 30, 2008 - 3:15pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

A business climate where you can't make payroll until your latest accounts are received is going to be a problem for everyone.

The thing that I am thinking when I say renewables are too important to leave to tax policy is akin to saying the FDIC program should not be renewed each year.

Chris

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

228 comments on DrumBeat: September 30, 2008

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

Show without comments | PDF version