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Americans Happy To Pay More For Clean Energy, But Only a Little More
Fluffeh writes "A recent study of over 1,000 folks for a paper published in Nature Climate Change has found that the average U.S. citizen is inclined to pay a premium to ensure that by 2035, 80% of U.S. power comes from clean energy. At random, respondents received one of three "technological treatments" or definitions of clean energy that included renewable energy sources alone, renewable sources plus natural gas, and renewable sources plus nuclear power. Delving into the socioeconomics, researchers found that Republicans, Independents, and respondents with no party allegiance were less likely by 25, 13 and 25 percentage points respectively to support a NCES than respondents that identified themselves as Democrats."
There is a reason they're absent: the numbers don't work.
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/03/space-based-solar-power/
People are skeptical about paying more for power precisely because of boondoggles like that. How are we to know if the money is going to scientifically sound solutions or to someone's infeasible pet project, or worse, to their brother in law.
NCES = national clean energy standard. Not that you'd want to clarify that in the summary or anything.
My webcomic
You could also say: Americans willing to donate money to the poor, but only a little bit of money.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Nice Try Cobra Commander... I saw that episode back when I was a kid. You just want a number of WMDs up there to use as weapons against GI Joe.
Higher capital costs, and the equipment isn't entirely maintainance-free. Photovoltaics only have a thirty-year designed lifetime, wind turbines need monitoring and occasional repair. Renewables are generally cheaper to run, as there are no fuel costs, but not enough to offset the much higher capital costs. Remember, if renewables were cheap, we wouldn't be using coal anyway.
If you ask McDonalds customers if they'd like to see more salads and healthy choices they'll say, "Yes, of course!"
But ... when McDonalds put them on the menu they keep right on buying burgers and fries.
Moral: People answering surveys tend to idealize.
No sig today...
I gladly pay MORE for clean energy. I went out and bought and installed solar connected to a grid tie inverter. But in reality I end up paying less because it significantly reduces my electrical bill as it runs the meter backwards during the day. In the middle of the summer with the AC cranking it makes up for 1/2 the electricity I use for the AC. so it will pay it's self back in about 3 more years. after that it's free money.
unfortunately most of my fellow countrymen are not smart enough to handle their money and do this. I have had friends look at me and not understand the whole payback thing. they get stuck on the "You paid $5000 to put solar on your house and you will pay an electric bill?" They cant understand that monthly bill reduction = money saved.
Which makes me sad, I though I had smarter friends.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Photovoltaics have a 30 year 75-80% of new power production lifetime. They last a lot longer than that if you are ok with only getting 50% of rated power.
We use coal for lots of reasons, on of them is that it is artificially cheap since they don't have to pay for waste disposal like everyone else. Nuclear would also be super cheap if you let them dump their waste straight into the air.
A few years back I spent some time in Romania. My first impression of the country was "Miami without emissions controls". Everyone smoked in Romania at the time, and outside there was the constant smell of diesel exhaust. By the end of a week there my lungs actually hurt. After that, I appreciate the achievement that someplace like Downtown New York City has made in having breathable air. I wonder if you asked citizens of Beijing if they'd be willing to pay more for energy in exchange for significantly improved air quality, how many of them would say yes.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
You might be interested in this infographic.
http://www.landartgenerator.org/blagi/archives/127
As it turns out, the world is remarkably large.
Why would someone go to MacD to get salads?
Because their friends who like burgers are also going there for lunch. The ability to placate the healthy eater or vegeterian in a lunch group has become vital to the lunch menu, particularly in urban business areas. If you don't have these items, you get Veto'd by one person out of six, and you lose the whole group to some place the one can settle for.
Going to McDonalds for a salad is like going to a hooker for a hug.
I pay extra income tax to send my country's military forces halfway around the world, to provide security for privately-owned oil tankers full of privately-owned oil to pass through the Persian Gulf. I pay extra income tax in order to provide non-humanitarian "foreign aid" to several other governments in the oil-rich area, just to keep them (somewhat) friendly.
Even if I opt out of using subsidized oil, I don't get to opt out of paying for the subsidy. Why would I pay even more to subsidize Yet Another competing energy source? (Well, ok, let's not get fanatical about that .. I understand that we've all come to an agreement to subsidize coal by allowing the plants that burn it to dump their CO2 into the public atmosphere as an externality (there's the subsidy) instead of making them plant forests to soak it up, but coal isn't really a direct competitor to oil; it's used differently so by subsidizing both, I'm not really paying to back two sides against each other, which would be silly.)
Can we just get the Central Committee's existing government-planned subsidy payments transferred? Why does the politburo always go with oil and coal in their five year plans? I'd be willing to do a subsidy re-assignment, at least short-term. (Long-term.. well, actually I'm unsure about the wisdom of even having a Central Committee and all this economic planning, but that's another topic.)
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
For starters, not all of our interests in the Middle East are oil based. For example, Bahrain has no oil. Bahrain exports things like aluminum. The US Navy's 5th Fleet is also based there. That fleet costs the US taxpayer 10s of billions of dollars. The US Navy 5th Fleet is that massive naval force you allude to that protects our interests in the Middle East. Note the cost; 10's of billions of dollars.
The US uses roughly 386,000,000 gallons of gasoline a day. At a tax of $0.31/gallon, that is $119,660,000 in tax revenue. Multiply that by 365 days a year and the US receives $43,675,900,000 per year from gasoline taxes. The US also uses about 60 billion gallons of diesel each year which calculate to roughly $18 billion in tax revenue per year ($0.30/gallon). So the US receives about $62 billion per year from gasoline taxes alone, which is plenty to fund the 5th Fleet, especially when you consider the taxes paid when cars are sold, various taxes paid by the companies that make cars and components. And, of course, all those "leases" you hear about where "big oil" wants to drill on government land are not free. The government gets a percentage per barrel. Now, granted, the domestic oil production is not in the Middle East, but like you said, "The middle east has to be controlled to keep world market prices stable".
So, yeah! The cost of patrolling the waters of the Mid East is more than covered by our gasoline and diesel taxes alone. Also note that oil is not the only interest we have in the region. It's a big one, sure, but not the only one.
Don't like my numbers? THIS site says the following:
The cost of securing our access to Middle East oil - deploying U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf, patrolling its water and supplying military assistance to Middle East countries - is estimated at $50 billion per year, which adds additional dimes to each gallon of gasoline we purchase.
But you say:
That $0.31 does not cover it. It is cute that you think it should, but it does not. Your taxes do not cover it either, note the deficit.
Um... Given the numbers above, it appears that it really DOES cover it and then some. It's cute that you are so quick to call me ignorant.
Moose are not found in those areas as pipe lines are not normally built over the swamps and in the forests they prefer.
It appears they "prefer" the pipelines.
Again we see your ignorance. Those refuges only hold enough oil for months of US use. They should be kept until we actually need them.
Well, for starters, we won't extract and refine it all at once. And to be fair, I'm fully aware of the impact drilling will have on prices. If I had it my way, we'd tax it as a condition of permission to drill there and use the money to invest in renewables. For example, a $10/barrel tax times the billions of barrels in ANWR alone would be more than enough to not just fund, but INCREASE the amount of money funding our fusion research.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Don't act as if purchasing decisions by the average consumer are based on calm deliberation and rational thought, because most often they are not. Most purchasing decisions are based in large part on subconscious impulses and emotions. Basing public policy on how consumers make purchasing decisions will result in irrational policy.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
This cannot be reinforced enough, humans only have so much mental bandwidth. We have habits and routines that don't require significant mental effort, freeing up "cycles" to deal with more demanding tasks, and when your life is stable it is very hard for people to continue to override those subconscious programs.
I was recently at a pediatric subspecialty conference (Yes, I'm an MD, thus my anony-mouse posting) and in a section on childhood obesity, a recent paper was briefly discussed. They looked at the ability of people to make "healthy" choices with and without distractions. I can't find the paper now (Not at my desk) but, IIRC, when people only had to choose a healthy meal, without any other distractions or tasks, most people could make "healthy" choices. But with a task as simple as remembering a sequence of random numbers, a significant number of subjects wouldn't make the "healthy" choice. They just couldn't free up the bandwidth to do so. Which puts a spin on the obesity epidemic, doesn't it?
I know *I've* had countless situations where I've made the "easy" choices, or the "quick" choice because I was stressed or distracted or busy, rationalizing that "it's just this once, it's not worth the effort," and I'm (damn me but this will sound arrogant) far better positioned to make smart choices than the average consumer. Discarding modesty (which is hard, because I have a hard time *believing* this about myself) I'm rather clever, financially comfortable (Doing the math, I'm damn near the accursed "1%"), with little debt, a stable job, a beloved spouse in a stable relationship, I'm frankly one of the BEST people in the world to make smart, well thought out, well planned decisions.
And I still screw it up, more often than not. My wife and I are a good team, and we can catch a lot of bad decisions between the two of us, but we are, frankly, a rare pairing.
When you look at the "average" citizen and the amount of money and effort that is spent to bypass or just plain wear down their psychological defenses and routines, we don't have a damn chance. SOMETHING else has got to change, because people are people. Wonderful, irritating, brilliant, stupid people.
Look up the book "Who Really Cares?"
Conservatives are more generous than liberals in all sorts of categories. Donating time to charities to donating blood.
The cause seems to be that when you think it is the government's responsibility to help people, you are less willing to help people. Personally, I think focusing on the government being the main source of help turns people into greedy narcissists only concerned about how much they are getting. You don't have to worry about helping others because it isn't your responsibility.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
As far as I know, it IS economic when compared to newly-built coal. The problem is that we have a bunch of 40 year old coal plants that have paid their capital costs off, so the power coming from them is currently quite cheap. Of course, these plants won't last forever, and we're going to have this whole wave of needing new plants at some point, which will be very expensive. Fuel will also get more expensive in the future. So while renewables might be slightly more expensive than the antique power we get now, that's not going to be the case for long. The problem is, short-sighted people only see the $0.02/kWh price increase on their bill now and scream bloody murder without understanding that the $0.02/kWh increase now is insulating them from a (pulling this number out of my ass) $0.10/kWh increase a few years from now.
Have a look at these two photos:
Springfield, Il in 1930
Springfield, Il today
Personally, I like my air clean.
Free Martian Whores!
The exact same argument could be made for electricity, could it not?
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
I've been using CFLs fof fiteen years, and the newer ones light up quickly. But even fifteen years ago, it was no more than two seconds, maybe five in sub-zero f weather.
I swear, you kids are even more impatient than we were when we were young and impatient. I can see the next generation: "This computer is too slow, it took three seconds to boot and a full five minutes to figure pi to a million decimal places! I don't have all damned year!
Free Martian Whores!