Energy Subsidies Debate

Huge energy subsidies... and this has always been the case in the US and all capitalist states.https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2015/09/28/04/53/sonew0...

Aren't renewables heavily subsidised?

Retail energy prices are subsidised. It isn't policy to encourage lower usage, the government is paying billions to sustain retail consumption (and yes, this is whilst another part of the government is driving prices higher).The issue in the UK is that we moved to renewables that can't produce energy at the margin, marginal prices are still driven by gas, and we simultaneously decided to shut down large amounts of non-renewable sources of energy to satisfy the ambitions of politicia

I am an EU citizen. While this decision seems controversial to ones and downright stupid to others, I do think its the only possibility to provide cheap energy to industry and the citizens without further increasing inflation due to rising energy costs.We need to go green and further utilize solar and wind energy and what not, its kind of hard in times of increased demand (e-cars) and rising overall energy costs.We would have done so much better to invest in times when inflation was low fo

Yes, the money matters when it's private industry putting it up.If the government could do the smart thing and enact a carbon tax so the true cost of carbon based fuels could be accounted for, this problem would naturally go away with no need to convince anybody of anything else. Nuclear would maybe be viable, but at the very least building new solar and wind would become cheaper than just operating existing coal plants.Maybe it's not politically popular? I don't know. Taxes

Because the government regulates, subsidizes, and mandates these forms of energy. It does all these things because renewable energy is more expensive and so they have not been sustainable, financially, on their own in the free market. Therefore the government, and by extension those who lobby the government for this, are compelling people to spend more for energy. Whether or not this is justified is a different question - but regardless of justification, this is why it's political.

zerocalories asks, 'Why bother? This is like paying off a debt with low interest early. A poor financial decision.'this presupposes that the energy mix is changing because of costly government subsidies, and if that presupposition were correct, it would be a very reasonable commentbut that's not what's happening. countries aren't hitting their targets because the local government subsidies are more successful than expected; they're doing it because renewable

The major error isn't a tactical one but a strategic one. Until recently, interest rates have been at historical lows for over a decade. Governments should have taken advantage of that to embark on massive scale investments in producing energy self sufficiency. We could have had a government funded scheme to put free solar panels on every single roof and a wall battery in every home. Then we would not be having the issues we are having right now. The majority of domestic energy use would be

Not necessarily. Most governments of wealthy nations are determined to prop up fossil fuel use regardless of so-called 'economic' or environmental fundamentals. This is very well-established in research but for a recent newsy report see https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jun/25/

The plants are being run because they are cheap and have plentiful supply, not because they are the most desirable form of production.Merely adding a new tax would be the most regressive solution available, as it disproportionately hurts the poorest- the consequences would take longer but could end up just as severe. Maybe they dont have access to plentiful natural gas, or grid storage for renewables. Maybe they simply dont have an economy healthy or government free enough of corruption to in