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Obama Wants To Fund Clean Energy Research With Oil & Gas Funds
An anonymous reader writes "The Obama Administration has put forth a proposal to collect $2 billion over the next 10 years from revenues generated by oil and gas development to fund scientific research into clean energy technologies. The administration hopes the research would help 'protect American families from spikes in gas prices and allow us to run our cars and trucks on electricity or homegrown fuels.' In a speech at Argonne National Laboratory, Obama said the private sector couldn't afford such research, which puts the onus on government to keep it going. Of course, it'll still be difficult to get everyone on board: 'The notion of funding alternative energy research with fossil fuel revenues has been endorsed in different forms by Republican politicians, including Alaskan senator Lisa Murkowsi. But the president still faces an uphill battle passing any major energy law, given how politicized programs to promote clean energy have become in the wake of high-profile failures of government-backed companies.'"
It is unfortunate that government is apt to pursue political solutions rather than viable practical solutions. That's the world we live in.
The premise here is that gas and oil companies should be punished, and their gains should be confiscated and given to other companies with better intentions. The real world truth is that there are no oil or gas companies anymore, and there hasn't been for the last fifteen years, at least.
No, what used to be oil companies have all become energy companies. They all invest heavily in alternative energy technologies, because they have the most to lose if anything does become viable and threatens their current revenue generators. I've spoken with several former CEO's of these former oil companies, and they were, to a person, fixated on the end of oil and the emergence of alternative energy sources. I left these conversations wondering why these CEO's were more pro-alternative than any environmentalist I had ever met.
The government confiscation of funds from these companies, and the eventual redistribution to campaign donors fronting "new" energy companies will only slow down the discovery of practical and sustainable alternative energy sources.
-- Len
His fisrt term he put $80 Billion towards this. You will remember great hits like Solendra, A123, and Fisker. The list of companies getting the money from that original program read like a whos-who of campaign donors. Many of the companies went bankrupt quickly after getting the federal money and none of them produced anything usable.
So, to anser your question "How is this not a good idea?" The track record is this will be a slush fund to reward his friends and accomplish nothing useful. Corrupt politics and corporate cronyism at its finest. Nothing to do with "socialism", just plain theft.
No problem agreeing with you on the fact that theft is a two party activity. The point is that this is just more money being pissed away while we go into a hole at a rate of around 100 billion dollars a month. Enough already!
Let's also fix the market failures of air pollution and carbon emissions by internalizing their costs into the price of fossil fuels. If you agree that correcting market failures makes the free market more efficient, then you must be in favor of a carbon tax.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
Many of the companies went bankrupt quickly after getting the federal money and none of them produced anything usable.
Err, no. The DOE loan program is actually performing better than congress expected when they created it in 2005. I'm willing to bet that you don't even know the name of one other company that received a DOE loan besides the three you've mentioned. As usual, reality is more complicated than sound-bites.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Can't argue that government subsidies of industry have a long history of being more about cronyism than anything else, so how about we "subsidize" green energy development in a completely even-handed manner governed by the free market? By phasing out the massive subsidies and environmental protection exemptions we're handing out to fossil fuel suppliers on an ongoing basis.
As fuel prices begin to rise *every* green energy project will start to look more attractive to investors, and we can stimulate dramatic investment in the field while simultaneously reducing government expenditure. If we're worried about the chilling effect that would have on the poor and the broader economy we can repurpose those funds in terms of, say, a refundable tax credit so that most people and businesses will see no net change, but will have greater incentive to pursue energy efficiency which would provide a net increase in available funds versus the status quo.
If we're worried about undermining domestic oil production versus foreign then fuel tariffs are the obvious answer. There may be some political fallout from that, but so long as they're tied to offset the reduction in subsidies I suspect most other governments actually wouldn't have a real problem with them, though they'd no doubt make some noise to gain political capital. Heck, earmark the tariff revenue for the tax refund coffers and everyone will see an immediate benefit except the oil companies. If we're willing to spend a bit of political capital and risk setting off a trade war we could even set the tariffs high enough to offset the loss in subsidies so that the domestic oil companies benefit as well.
Seems like it could be a big win all around. Am I missing something?
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Actually the number of companies folding under this program was even lower than congress thought... about 11% Maybe we have different interpretations of "maths" but a little more than 1/10 companies receiving clean energy loans and tax breaks isn't "many" to me. Fact Check talked about this several times during the campaign last year.
You will remember great hits like Solendra, A123, and Fisker.
Last year, the US Department of Commerce slapped tariffs on Chinese solar panels after the WTO agreed that the Chinese were dumping (too late for Solyndra).
And Solyndra is suing 3 Chinese solar companies under the Sherman anti-trust act for driving the company out of business
The Chinese bought A123, with the US Government's approval.
Fisker is the last man standing, but they're at the whim of their now-chinese-owned battery supplier, who has been trying to invalidate their previous contract.
All your examples had negative narratives pushed by conservative media.
Unfortunately, those narratives never actually had much relation to reality.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
How many? You named three. And how many "green energy" companies got federal funding?
There were 27,226 federal awards listed in the stimulus bill for energy/environment. You've named three that failed. The three companies you mentioned were part of a specific group of those awards under the control of the Department of Energy that were meant just for new technologies. There were 28 such funding deals. Of those, four went under. Others in the successful group include a very successful battery company that's not far from where I live, which now supplies batteries automakers, including Japanese and Korean companies that build cars in the US. Batteries that are also exported. Other successes include companies that are building the smart grid and even a company whose technology is being used in the natural gas industry (you know, the fracking folks you love so much).
Though the stimulus bill authorized $90 billion for green projects, about $80 billion was spent, and most of that on infrastructure. The group of 28 Dept of Energy awards totaled $34billion. It might be worth noting here that a study published this week estimates the cost of the Iraq War at $6trillion.
You gotta look beyond just the right-wing talking points.
[Source for the stimulus energy figures: http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/04/politics/fact-check-green-energy
Source for the cost of the Iraq War: "Costs of War" project at Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies. http://www.scienceworldreport.com/articles/5584/20130315/cost-iraq-war-6-trillion-dollar-costofwar.htm ]
You are welcome on my lawn.
We have been giving welfare checks to oil companies since Rockefeller owned the government. Having that money shifted to clean energy might actually decrease the deficit. U.S. Oil companies still spend more money over seas than they do in North and South America combined. Ironically BP spends more in the Americas then U.S. based ones do; but, we take their money instead of the other way round.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
These are electric cars run by a computer. Knowing how to make the battery explode by software just might come in handy for someone who would like to leave a car thief with a very unpleasant experience.
Kidding around aside, please don't diss the batteries too much. I've blown up a few lithium batteries myself. Tow were intentional. I wanted to get an idea of just what it would take to make them lose their temper. Two were unintentional. But I did learn a lot from that. I was just happy I had the foresight to have used an old toaster oven for my battery pack test chamber. Lithium battery fires are nasty. Nothing I could do more than take the toaster oven out to the parking lot and let it exhaust itself.
One learns from their mistakes. There are several things I am not going to do again. Ever.
My neighbor's car caught fire a couple of years ago. He was lucky enough to catch it in the act and pushed it out to the middle of the street. The problem turned out to be the fuel injection system, which somehow did not shut down with the rest of the car. But being fuel injection is old technology, it did not make the news.
Fisker's exploding battery did.
I hate to diss technologies because of a misunderstanding of how to use them. There was a helluva lot of airplane accidents before we got that one pretty well nailed down.
Lithium batteries are dangerous. Very dangerous. So is gasoline.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]