I disagree. If energy is cheap enough, wasting it is not a problem. Conserving energy costs human work and effort, if the cost of acquiring more energy is cheaper than the cost of conservation (including all the externalities), then it's better to waste the energy.
So does making energy, nomatter the cost. The question is, do you want something else than putting your dollars on fire in an outdated energy sector? My electrcity bill with high energy prices and every single modern comfort is around 20$ a month. I could also pay 100$ or 200$. but I rather use the difference on something else than paying the utility company.
Of R&D. I see nothing wrong in the government spending a lot of money to develop long-term energy solutions, whether we are talking about gas, solar or fusion.
Putting taxdollars into developing outdated technology is bad. Also its an already established sector unlike solar for example. Plus its also susidize of the gas price. Meanign what you think is cheap aint so cheap as you think. Plus the R&D is wasted in obsolete technology. You didnt create hightech jobs, you created more poor mans jobs.
Giving temporary tax credits for fledgling industries to drive participation is also pretty much standard practice in most of the world. In fact, tax breaks for fracking are going to hit Europe pretty damn soon -- they have already been proposed in the UK and will be a major talking point on the mainland by the summer. Nat gas is a very cheap and easy way to hit the CO2 reduction standards that EU has agreed to, much cheaper than conservation or renevables. Once the shale gas reservers in the EU are properly surveyed, states are going to be falling over themselves to attract fracking operators, simply because of just how freaking awesome cheap energy is for the economy.
70 years or how long the tax credits have lasted aint temporary.
I doubt europe will touch fracking. I cant imagine it at all, its against what the europe wants.
There have been no direct price subsidies of nat gas. There is no need, the prices are lower than ever without any.
No, and its already proven otherwise. The energy sector in the US is anything but a free market.
But no, their cheaper price is not paid by the tax. They way you talk about subsidies, it sounds like you think that Americans pay the difference between their energy costs and ours in their taxes, that is, to make nat gas 80% cheaper, they have to pay all that 80% in their taxes. This is simply not true in any way, shape or form.
By your link, the total DoE expenditure on fracking is something like 11B over 20 years. That includes all the research and the tax credits. The value of the created additional production is now something like $50B a year, when measured at the very low present prices. Fracking is estimated to be able to provide this level of production for at least 20 years. No matter how you dice that, that's a pretty damn good investment.
The 11B$ is from 1980 to 2002. And it only covers direct subsidizing. The entire energy sector in the US is estimated to avoid costs in one way or the other for around 1.69T$ a year.
Also it doesnt add any value at all, more the opposite. You simply burn your dollars on energy instead of on something else that actually creates value.
Cheap got expensive.
Fracking subsidies include tax breaks, government funding into research, lost government revenue such as discounted drilling fees, and federally-subsidized
external costs, such as health care expenses and environmental clean-up due to negative and harmful effects.
Its the taxpayer who sits with the bill in the last end. Nomatter how you try and turn it. Its anything but that dream of cheap energy you claim it is. Fracking belongs to the past. Outdated and obsolete.
Its no different than the trashfood americans fill themselves with. (I dont hope anyone feel bad about the wording.). But the corn subsidizing is the exact same problem. Soda and burgers are cheaper than real food. Meat is being washed in amonia to clear bacteria, simply because its cheaper to feed cows corn instead of grass. And who pays to make americans fat and suffer from a wide variarity of food related diseases? Taxpayers. The same people who cant afford proper food becaue they taxdollars is rerouted. And they end up paying even more for the medical needed on top. The same applies for the energy sector. I wouldnt br surprised if the real cost of electricity in the US was around 40-50c per Kw/h.