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The do-nothing congress is funded by coal oil and gas. They're not comming up with any incentives any time soon.
If solar really paid for itself as implied in the next quote from your post, why do you need incentives? Incentives = you, me and everyone else paying for someone else's choice to install solar heating. Hopefully, one of the results of the financial mess this country is in (although I'm not holding my breath) will be a lot less government incentives for everything. If something doesn't stand on its own cost-wise, we all shouldn't be subsidizing it.
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Originally Posted by Isfoffice
The average solar electric system cost less than the average new car, and pays off just as quickly.
This comparison makes no sense. A car doesn't pay off. It depreciates over time and eventually wears out to the point where further maintenance costs more than its worth. I don't see how that compares to a solar heating system.
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Originally Posted by Isfoffice
Solar is a no maintainence item and with a 25 warranty they are expected to out last the warranty by a factor of three.
No mechanical system is no maintenance.
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Originally Posted by Isfoffice
(read the above nay sayer quotes)
Rather than nay sayers I would call them rational, thoughtful folks who take the time to make reasoned decisions.
BTW, do you work for a company that installs solar systems?
Does anyone have current info on the cost of a typical solar installation in ABQ, for an average sized house? I would enthusiastically support incentives for solar power installations, after oil and gas have enjoyed sweet incentive programs for decades.
The Four Corners area has some of the worst air pollution in the nation coming from the Four Corners Power Plant in Fruitland and the San Juan Generating Station in Farmington. The second highest airborne mercury reading in the nation was recorded at Mesa Verde National Park, in the San Juan air shed. I applaud any incentives which could result in reducing demand on heavy polluting, non-renewable energy sources.
New Mexico is supposed to get 15% of its energy from renewable resources by 2015. Will we make it? I'm encouraged to see new solar and wind installations in the state coming online.
Does anyone have current info on the cost of a typical solar installation in ABQ, for an average sized house? I would enthusiastically support incentives for solar power installations, after oil and gas have enjoyed sweet incentive programs for decades.
THERE ARE NO SPECIFIC OIL INDUSTRY TAX SUBSIDIES.
I don't know if it ever did, but it hasn't had any for 30 years.
There is something that the c/s gov't and media like to call an oil industry subsidy, but that is a tax benefit for companies that produce their products in the US and all companies that do that get it, not just the oil industry.
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New Mexico is supposed to get 15% of its energy from renewable resources by 2015. Will we make it? I'm encouraged to see new solar and wind installations in the state coming online.
I don't believe so. To be able to meet that goal all the Electric Utilities (PNM, Excel, Tri-State and the co-ops) would all need to raise their rates to do so. And we all know how people feel about paying more for for Electricity even though NM pays some of the lowest electricity rates in the country.
Incentives = you, me and everyone else paying for someone else's choice to install solar heating.
Incentives can take the form of a credit or a tax break. I'm not paying for your house if you get a tax break for the interest on your mortgage.
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I don't see how that compares to a solar heating system.
No mechanical system is no maintenance.
Almost everybody on the thread is referring to solar electric systems, which have no moving parts, and are thus not mechanical.
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Originally Posted by aries63
Does anyone have current info on the cost of a typical solar installation in ABQ, for an average sized house?
There is no typical, and what's average? Between $3k and $30k, with 40% back in taxes and about 5-7 years to break even on the system, another 5-7 years to double your money, and so on and so forth.
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I would enthusiastically support incentives for solar power installations, after oil and gas have enjoyed sweet incentive programs for decades.
You speak of these like they are theoretical and haven't been around for going on 10 years.
Expensing of Exploration and Development Costs Credit
Percentage Depletion Allowance
Alternative Fuel Production Credit
Exemption from Passive Loss Limitation for Working Interest on Oil and Gas Property Credit
Temporary 50 Percent Expensing for Equipment Used in the Refining of Liquid Fuels
Amortization of All Geological and Geophysical Expenditures Over Two Years
These are to be considered distinct from federal business tax subsidies that are more generally available, and distinct from federal royalty subsidies.
I don't know if it ever did, but it hasn't had any for 30 years.
We apparently live on different planets.
From the Houston Chronicle (Feb. 2011):
Oil industry girds for clash over its tax breaks
WASHINGTON — For the third year in a row, President Barack Obama on Monday will implore Congress to repeal an array of tax incentives the oil and gas industry has enjoyed for decades.
Lawmakers have twice rejected the White House appeal to boost government coffers more than $30 billion over the next decade by axing the tax breaks, amid fierce opposition from industry leaders and their congressional allies, who say the plan would curb domestic oil and natural gas production."
You are saying these tax breaks are not specific to oil and gas?
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Originally Posted by NMHacker
I don't believe so. To be able to meet that goal all the Electric Utilities (PNM, Excel, Tri-State and the co-ops) would all need to raise their rates to do so. And we all know how people feel about paying more for for Electricity even though NM pays some of the lowest electricity rates in the country.
My electric bill averages $20 a month. Even if it doubled I wouldn't think about it too much. But this is why I haven't bothered to "go solar" at home, since electricity is cheap.
Incentives can take the form of a credit or a tax break. I'm not paying for your house if you get a tax break for the interest on your mortgage.
If you get a tax break or credit, that means someone else (all of us) pays more tax, unless that tax break/credit is totally offset by lower government expeditures, which it almost never is - at least to-date. It's a fallacy to say that tax breaks/credits don't cost the rest of us money.
If you get a tax break or credit, that means someone else (all of us) pays more tax
Tax collection and balancing the books are not simply related in this fashion. If you pay less in taxes, the government runs a bigger deficit (which becomes less important with time through the miracle of inflation). Has extremely little to do with the tax burdens of others; you're using a see-saw analog to describe the complexities of the ocean surface.
If a government creates an incentive that increases economic activity and resulting tax receipts (mortgage interest deduction/homebuilding/taxes paid by homebuilder who would otherwise not be working), then these incentives can be productive and create a net positive in tax revenue without impacting tax rates.
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It's a fallacy to say that tax breaks/credits don't cost the rest of us money.
No, a fallacy is an archetypal error in logic; reaching an incorrect conclusion from correct premises. I believe you consider my premises incorrect.
I agree we are getting off topic, so I'll do one more reply and then we can agree to disagree.
I agree with you on your less taxes = bigger deficit comment. Rather than a see-saw analog it's an equation: goverment revenues = expeditures + debt. IMO the problem is that debt especially in recent years has been treated as a non-significant term in this equation and allowed to grow largely unchecked. Which is okay until the debt gets so big that it and the interest accruing on that debt become the gorilla in the corner. Which is where we are today. Dismissing this by saying inflation will take care of it overlooks, again IMO, that we or our descendents will have to pay a price of some sort for that debt + interest. Inflation would need to get very high to make today's federal debt insignificant, at which point inflation itself will be the gorilla.
Government printing of more money to get out of its debt problems has not worked historically in countries where this has been tried. I think the US debt is a spector looming over us that could have very serious consequences over the next 10-20 years, although I'm not in the doomsayer camp that is out there about this issue. But I acknowledge I could be wrong and hope to be pleasantly surprised.
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