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Clinton Promises 500 Million New Solar Panels
An anonymous reader writes: Hillary Clinton, widely regarded as most likely to win the Democrat nomination for the 2016 U.S. presidential election, has unveiled her campaign climate plan. Speaking at Iowa State University, Clinton said she would set up tax incentives for renewable energy to drive further adoption. She also set a goal of installing half a billion new solar panels within her first term, if elected. Her plan would cost roughly $60 billion over 10 years, and she intends to pay for it by cutting tax breaks to the oil and gas industry. According to The Guardian, "Clinton has promised to make the issue of climate change a key pillar of her campaign platform."
And on top of it, you get a level of transparency the resembles what a blackhole does to sunlight her supporters will be just shocked--SHOCKED--that voting for a candidate with her horrendous record on honesty backfired on them.
I mean FFS, I'm generally a conservative and I'd vote for Bernie Sanders in a heartbeat over her even though he's an avowed Socialist because at least the man seems to have some real integrity and respect for the middle class.
Cutting tax breaks sounds like a viable funding scheme on its face, but in the modern accounting regime that'll simply drive fossil fuel profits to offshore subsidiaries, with no substantial funding increase.
Cutting existing subsidies, conversely, offers real money to finance programs like this.
Its not a funding scheme. Its a get elected scheme. Net cost and cost benefit considerations are not even a part of it. The formula is "punish big evil companies, give away stuff to the masses". It works.
The only way it becomes enviro friendly is if it is distributed.
The big problem with the green power plant concept is that they are building power plants. These are distributed energy sources. Put them on houses.
Instead of giving the subsidies to corporations, give them to TAX PAYERS to buy panels to off set their energy usage.
Especially in places that are hot... because they have sun and their air conditioners will sync up with their solar power generation.
Don't even worry about other parts of the country. Hit the suburbs first. Possibly some rural communities.
here someone will say "what about the cities"... nuclear power.
For hundreds of years to come probably that will be the best answer for cities. People will say "but they're dangerous"... power is always dangerous. The first person to discover fire said "Ouch"... You make peace with the danger and you respect it. But shunning it because it is dangerous means you sleep in the cold.
Respect it. The Japanese plant that everyone is exercised about had shitty maintenance. They were doctoring their reports to make it look like they were doing their jobs but they weren't. Result? Problems. You don't follow procedure in a powder mill and don't be surprised when it explodes.
That's how this works. Nuclear power is wonderful. We could completely remove fossil fuels from our power grid with nuclear alone. economically.
No other technology will let us do that.
"green" power makes up about 4 percent of US generation minus the hydro. If you want to add the hydro that's still only 10 percent. Nuclear even though we haven't built a plant since the 1970s and many plants have closed... nuclear is comfortably around 22~25 percent of our power. Coal alone is about 45 percent of US electrical generation. And the balance is other fossil fuels.
Nothing short of nuclear is making a dent in that.
So choose. Nuclear or coal. Because unless your country has lots of Hydro like Canada... that's what you're doing. Anyone else that tells you differently is blowing green smoke up your ass.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
So, you're a Bernie Sanders supporter?
Which of the GOP hopefuls hasn't been caught lying yet?
You are welcome on my lawn.
The current trend is 500 million new solar panels without any special action by any legislator/executive. Simple market forces and trend lines. Residential solar is becoming competitive with subsidies and net metering. Utility scale solar is on track to become competitive with natural gas in a few years. It is already competitive with coal for fresh installations. No new coal plant has come on line this year and last. The pipeline is dry too. Number of coal plants have fallen from 633 to 518 in the last decade. Coal has lost 20 GW of capacity in that time, and is on track to lose another 40 GW. Natural gas providing base load and solar meeting the peak load is going to become the norm in the next 10 years. No new breakthrough in energy storage, no battery wall made by Elon Musk, no widespread investment by home owners needed. Simple existing technologies, free market forces, interest rates and world flush with 2 trillion in capital not knowing where to invest for good returns.
So half billion new solar panels might happen no matter who wins, Hilary or Jeb! or Walker or Trump or Bernie. We might even look back and see Hilary's half a billion solar panels the same way we look at Romney's 2$ gasoline.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I don't disagree with you about the external costs, but I've never been able to work out why the approximate external costs of an industry isn't directly charged to that industry as a licensing fee or additional tax charge.
Effectively, you are picking a possible winner (in this case Solar) instead of making the industry with lots of external costs pay their way fully and letting the market find the best alternative to that (whether it be Solar, or Geothermal, or even tiny little fusion reactors in every electric toothbrush)
These comments are my personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the other voices in my head.
I'm not even for charging to the industry... I'm for charging the individual entities that are responsible.
An industry charge might look at two power companies and decide, because they both have $5 billion revenue per year and both use coal plants, both should pay $100 million in additional taxes.
An entity charge would look at those, and recognize that the second one is focused on clean energy and produces only 5% of the emissions that the first one does, and adjust the tax bill so that the first pays 20 times as much additional tax as the second.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
It has everything to do with the general well-being of the populace. "Life" is referenced a few times in the constitution. If coal byproducts will shorten my "Life" then I'm all for the government to at least pick out the losers. Now, since we cannot be left without electricity after taking down coal, I'm also fine with folks proposing an alternative. Classic "don't complain without a solution". Clinton is proposing a solution. That's all it is, a proposal if elected.