Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Wind and solar still need subsidies. The non-pricing of negative externalities associated with fossil fuel extraction, production, and combustion artificially lowers their prices to a level at which renewables can't compete. Subsidies are needed to allow the industry to expand, innovate, and develop economies of scale so that as fossil fuel supplies finally run dry we will have a viable alternative energy source
Wind and solar still need subsidies. The non-pricing of negative externalities associated with fossil fuel extraction, production, and combustion artificially lowers their prices to a level at which renewables can't compete. Subsidies are needed to allow the industry to expand, innovate, and develop economies of scale so that as fossil fuel supplies finally run dry we will have a viable alternative energy source
Oil gets subsidies. At least that is what I would call no taxes paid on income and "royalty relief". Oil Subsidies - Oil companies have a rich history of U.S. subsidies - Los Angeles Times Therefore they are able to pay huge salaries to the folks who hob-knob with legislators and suggest how they should vote on things like subsidies for green energy.
Wind and solar still need subsidies. The non-pricing of negative externalities associated with fossil fuel extraction, production, and combustion artificially lowers their prices to a level at which renewables can't compete. Subsidies are needed to allow the industry to expand, innovate, and develop economies of scale so that as fossil fuel supplies finally run dry we will have a viable alternative energy source
Apparently, big oil, NG, and coal still need subsidies, too. At least, they sure take them. The 'free market' is a joke when it comes to powering our lives. Whether it's heating and cooling our homes or fueling our dually 4X4s........or little cars.
Lets end ALL energy subsidies and let the market price spark innovation in efficiency and alternatives. Can you name one product you need that started out as a subsidized government program....????
Lets end ALL energy subsidies and let the market price spark innovation in efficiency and alternatives. Can you name one product you need that started out as a subsidized government program....????
Your computer, the Internet you're on now, your GPS, the Interstate Highway System, etc.
Your computer, the Internet you're on now, your GPS, the Interstate Highway System, etc.
That's just a start.
All very debatable; the first computers precede government subsidization - check your history. The internet while computer driven, is in reality an outgrowth of all human communication that originated with smoke signals. The idea of one person communicating with many and networking is not a governmentally derived or originated concept. I doubt the internet would be any less robust today had strictly private sector innovators nurtured its origins. GPS has its origins in WWII, so the argument that war is good for innovation by governments is historically proven that the most technically advanced societies tend to win out over time. So GPS was an accidental outgrowth of a war-time technology race, not a subidized technology seeking a potential consumer marketplace. The interstate highway system is certainly a product that I use but roads themselves are not innovative in the least.
I am hardly convinced that governments are capable of picking the best energy technologies for us when most sustainability is derived locally and not on a mass scale like the technologies you mentioned.
You make a very weak, historically inaccurate retort. Try again please.
What kind of proof do you need when you can't observe the obvious? It's interesting that man has been using wind power since the first century AD and it's only in the last twenty years or so that some of us seem to deny the obvious. Haven't some of you people ever seen a working windmill in your lives? True, they are not as common now as when I was a kid, but you do know what a book is, right? Look up some books about windmills and their history and then tell me that wind cannot be used to drive machinery for whatever purpose.
Just in case you don't know what a windmill is, here's a picture:
And it actually provides power to drive machinery! This mill may have helped put bread on your great, great granddad's table.
Some of you folks will do anything to sell dependence on the greater collective. Of course wind power works. It's been working for over twenty centuries. You can debate whether it will save you a couple of bucks for a cup of Starbucks all you want. But two thousand years have proven wind power works. Personally, I'd trust a good-sized windmill in my backyard any day over the Rube Goldberg "save a buck" power grid we've all become totally dependent on.
How many eagles and other birds of prey are killed each year by those spinning blades?
What is the projected number when they line every mountain top and are in every backyard?
DDT was baned world wide for simply threatening these birds. Costing millions of 3rd world lives each year I might add.
Hard to believe it's being seriously discussed by these envi types.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
This mill may have helped put bread on your great, great granddad's table. 
