We're all about the oil...

[Chizzang]

Next week I'll post a thread about how Oil is a really great investment strategy...
and Solar is a shitty investment strategy - I'll make sure the supporting graphic is large and colorful too


stay tuned

[Grizalltheway]

Actually, the German solar industry has collapsed to the point where many are calling for the industry to be nationalized before it totally disappears.

let's see some sources.


Ha. Good one.

If the industry is 'failing', it's because of cheaper competition from China (gee, doesn't that sound familiar?), not due to lack of demand.

[grizzaholic]

let's see some sources.


Ha. Good one.

If the industry is 'failing', it's because of cheaper competition from China (gee, doesn't that sound familiar?), not due to lack of demand.

Does Popeyes Chicken benefit from this?

[houndawg]

Nobody has the mentioned the subsidy the feds pay the oil companies each and every day that they keep our oil abroad safe. Every veteran that served in the oil wars should have free gasoline for life provided to him by the same folks whose investment he was over there protecting.

[HI54UNI]

Bump

Saw Chizz was in the forum and didn't want him to forget about this one.

Why are you and others ignoring the article Ibanez posted? Yes, Germany is cutting solar subsidies, but it's not because the industry is failing, like you're trying to portray.

No they are cutting it because it is too expensive.

The government argues that subsidies have driven up electricity prices for German consumers while propping up solar-panel prices for domestic manufacturers.

“A few people are lining their pockets while others have to foot the bill,” Michael Kauch, a lawmaker for Merkel’s Free Democratic coalition ally, said during today’s debate. “That’s something we will not support.”

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-0 ... tallations

--------------------------------------

Solar subsidies cost German consumers billions of dollars a year and are widely regarded as inefficient. Even environmentalists are concerned that Berlin's focus on solar comes at the detriment of other renewables. But the solar industry has a powerful lobby, and politicians have proven powerless to resist.

The results of those closed-door negotiations will soon be passed on to the general public via their electricity bills, which are once again about to go up -- even though Germans already pay the second highest energy prices in Europe. Next year, a three-person family will likely have to pay up to an additional €175 ($220) to finance the construction of renewable energy infrastructure.

The biggest culprit behind this increase is the German government's misguided subsidy policy. To the delight of the solar industry, Altmaier has decided to divert the largest share of renewable energy subsidies to photovoltaics, the most expensive renewable energy technology. As a result the solar industry is expecting continued record growth, despite the fact that photovoltaics are also the renewable energy least suited to the German climate.

Photovoltaics are threatening to become the costliest mistake in the history of German energy policy. Photovoltaic power plant operators and homeowners with solar panels on their rooftops are expected to pocket around €9 billion ($11.3 billion) this year, yet they contribute barely 4 percent of the country's power supply, and only erratically at that.


http://www.spiegel.de/international/ger ... 42595.html

[HI54UNI]

More from the Spiegel article

To keep the lights on, Germany ends up importing nuclear power from France and the Czech Republic. Grid operator Tennet even resorted to tapping an aging fossil fuel-fired power plant in Austria to compensate for shortages in solar power.

To save one ton of CO2, Weimann explains, we could either spend €5 on insulating an old building, €20 as investment in a new gas-fired power plant, or around €500 on photovoltaic arrays. The benefit to the climate is the same in all those scenarios. "From a climate standpoint, every solar plant is a bad investment," Weimann concludes.

[Trapped in CA]

Avg residential rate in the US - 11.8 cents/kwh
Avg rate in Germany - 36.48 cents/kwh

Avg residential use in the USA is about 12,000 kwh/year

12,000 x 0.118 = $1,416
12,000 x 0.3648 = $4,377.60
Difference $2,961.60

Looks like I'm a lot better off paying the supposed fossil fuel subsidy.

Wondering how much the US price goes down if you removed CA's PG&E rates? Most people are easily paying 30 cents/kw for juice.

sent from my Samsung Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk for one percenters

[houndawg]

Why are you and others ignoring the article Ibanez posted? Yes, Germany is cutting solar subsidies, but it's not because the industry is failing, like you're trying to portray.

No they are cutting it because it is too expensive.

The government argues that subsidies have driven up electricity prices for German consumers while propping up solar-panel prices for domestic manufacturers.

“A few people are lining their pockets while others have to foot the bill,” Michael Kauch, a lawmaker for Merkel’s Free Democratic coalition ally, said during today’s debate. “That’s something we will not support.”

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-0 ... tallations

-------------------------------------


http://www.spiegel.de/international/ger ... 42595.html

Effing Krauts just don't understand that this is what makes America great.

[Gil Dobie]

Nobody has the mentioned the subsidy the feds pay the oil companies each and every day that they keep our oil abroad safe. Every veteran that served in the oil wars should have free gasoline for life provided to him by the same folks whose investment he was over there protecting.

Name your president from FDR to BHO

[BDKJMU]

Nobody has the mentioned the subsidy the feds pay the oil companies each and every day that they keep our oil abroad safe. Every veteran that served in the oil wars should have free gasoline for life provided to him by the same folks whose investment he was over there protecting.

Name your president from FDR to BHO

[kalm]

[Ivytalk]

That's either Mossadegh or a suntanned John Glenn.

[kalm]

That's either Mossadegh or a suntanned John Glenn.

And those chickens have been coming home to roost for decades. We're all about the liberty and democracy until a country's George Washington wants to do something crazy like nationalize the oil and "steal" profits from western companies.

[houndawg]

That's either Mossadegh or a suntanned John Glenn.

And those chickens have been coming home to roost for decades. We're all about the liberty and democracy until a country's George Washington wants to do something crazy like nationalize the oil and "steal" profits from western companies.

Yeah, we'll tell you how you should be like us while we teach your secret police how to torture at the School of the Americas.

[HI54UNI]

[JohnStOnge]

I think part of what they're talking about is what one considers to be "subsidy." Most of the time, people are including "tax breaks" when they talk about oil industry subsidies. The oil companies, on balance, still put WAY more into the tax coffers over the years than they take out of it.

I suspect that when you talk about subsidies to solar companies you're pretty much talking about actually giving them money rather than opting not to take as much of THEIR money as you might have otherwise.

[JohnStOnge]

Here are a couple of questions to ask yourself:

Could the fossil fuel industry make it in the United States today without subsidy?

Could the solar electricity industry make it in the United States today without subsidy?

I think the answer to the first question is yes and the answer to the second is no. I suspect most of you are inclined to think the same.

I don't know what's going on with the statements in the post at the top. Don't know how they're counting "subsidy." But the fossil fuel industry is putting WAY more into the system in terms of taxes than it's taking out of it in terms of subsidy. I doubt if the solar energy industry is doing that and I doubt that it WOULD do it if it were subsidized to a greater extent.

[JohnStOnge]

BTW, though I couldn't confirm it with a quick Google search I think one difference between the US and Germany is that the US has extensive fossil fuel resources while Germany does not. My impression is that Germany's lack of its own natural resources even played a role in World War II. Hitler coveted the Ukraine's resources.

I really really doubt that solar energy can compete with coal or natural gas fueled energy in the United States in pure economic terms for quite some time. Some day we will probably grow short of coal and natural gas and then solar energy may become more economically tenable. But I doubt that's the case right now.

[Chizzang]

A fossil fuel subsidy is any government action that lowers the cost of fossil fuels energy production, raises the price received by energy producers or lowers the price paid by energy consumers...

There are a lot of activities to consider - tax breaks and giveaways - also loans at favorable rates, price controls, and obstacles positioned against other fuel sources and green renewable energies

[JohnStOnge]

Again, any time somebody says "subsidy" you need to ask if what they're talking about is taking money from other people and giving it to that company or if what they're talking about is "letting" that company keep its own money through a "tax break." To me "letting" a company keep its own money is not really a subsidy.

[Chizzang]

Again, any time somebody says "subsidy" you need to ask if what they're talking about is taking money from other people and giving it to that company or if what they're talking about is "letting" that company keep its own money through a "tax break." To me "letting" a company keep its own money is not really a subsidy.

If the standard rate is 35% and I'm taxed at 35% and you're taxed at 5%
You're being subsidized (period) It's actually pretty simple

[kalm]

Again, any time somebody says "subsidy" you need to ask if what they're talking about is taking money from other people and giving it to that company or if what they're talking about is "letting" that company keep its own money through a "tax break." To me "letting" a company keep its own money is not really a subsidy.

That's part of it but that isn't all. Add up the military costs over the last 60 years, both as a presence in the middle east and the interventions and that ends up being one really big subsidy. How about road and bridge construction? How about environmental damage? Healthcare costs?

I'm not blaming us for doing these things but if you want a realistic accounting of the costs of oil they are all pieces of the pie.

And Cid1990 likes pie.

[GannonFan]

Again, any time somebody says "subsidy" you need to ask if what they're talking about is taking money from other people and giving it to that company or if what they're talking about is "letting" that company keep its own money through a "tax break." To me "letting" a company keep its own money is not really a subsidy.

That's part of it but that isn't all. Add up the military costs over the last 60 years, both as a presence in the middle east and the interventions and that ends up being one really big subsidy. How about road and bridge construction? How about environmental damage? Healthcare costs?

I'm not blaming us for doing these things but if you want a realistic accounting of the costs of oil they are all pieces of the pie.

And Cid1990 likes pie.

You know, just saying it over and over again that our military efforts in the Middle East for the past 60 years, as well as a general roads and bridges, all amount to one big oil subsidy doesn't make it true, no matter how often you say it. Sure we've done things militarily for oil, there's no doubt about that, but we've also done a heckuva lot more militarily for other, geopolitical reasons. I don't recall Israel being a large oil exporter to the US but we seem to deal with the Middle East quite a lot because of Israel. When the Soviets attacked Afghanistan I don't recall them going in there for the oil. And we certainly didn't send Rambo in there to beat them in Afghanistan because of the oil.

And really, road and bridge construction being an oil subsidy? How are you proposing we break that out and parcel what is truly just for the oil industry versus the thousands of other purposes for the roads and bridges? Are these the same roads and bridges we plan on letting any industry use, including solar, when they drive back and forth from their homes to their job sites to install and maintain their solar installations?