<story><title>Solar Now Produces a Better Energy Return on Investment Than Oil</title><url>https://robertscribbler.com/2016/12/19/solar-now-produces-a-better-energy-return-on-investment-than-oil/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>CountSessine</author><text>I always hear these vague allusions to oil and gas subsidies, but never concrete examples. In fact, we actually tax the hell out of oil and gas at retail, so it seems a bit strange that we would actually be subsidizing it at the same time.&lt;p&gt;What kind of&amp;#x2F;magnitude of subsidies does oil and gas enjoy?</text></item><item><author>ghouse</author><text>Oil, gas, and coal enjoy their own subsidies.  Both direct and indirect. Increasing these subsidies for fossil fuels will slow the transition.</text></item><item><author>ryao</author><text>&amp;quot;efforts made to slow this transition by Trump and others in his administration should be seen as a protectionist, nonsensical, and amoral top-down defense of the harmful fossil fuel industry.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;As a solar panel owner, I want to know, is this a response to the tax credit going away or is there something else of which I am not aware? If solar is able to stand on its own, the tax credit would seem to have served its purpose. The discontinuity in the level of feasibility when it goes away will not be fun, but I thought that people expected that to happen when it eventually does go away.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>twinge</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m just a simple investor and have no ties to the oil industry. I was surprised to learn about the tax incentives for investing in oil: &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.investopedia.com&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;07&amp;#x2F;oil-tax-break.asp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.investopedia.com&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;07&amp;#x2F;oil-tax-break.asp&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Solar Now Produces a Better Energy Return on Investment Than Oil</title><url>https://robertscribbler.com/2016/12/19/solar-now-produces-a-better-energy-return-on-investment-than-oil/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>CountSessine</author><text>I always hear these vague allusions to oil and gas subsidies, but never concrete examples. In fact, we actually tax the hell out of oil and gas at retail, so it seems a bit strange that we would actually be subsidizing it at the same time.&lt;p&gt;What kind of&amp;#x2F;magnitude of subsidies does oil and gas enjoy?</text></item><item><author>ghouse</author><text>Oil, gas, and coal enjoy their own subsidies.  Both direct and indirect. Increasing these subsidies for fossil fuels will slow the transition.</text></item><item><author>ryao</author><text>&amp;quot;efforts made to slow this transition by Trump and others in his administration should be seen as a protectionist, nonsensical, and amoral top-down defense of the harmful fossil fuel industry.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;As a solar panel owner, I want to know, is this a response to the tax credit going away or is there something else of which I am not aware? If solar is able to stand on its own, the tax credit would seem to have served its purpose. The discontinuity in the level of feasibility when it goes away will not be fun, but I thought that people expected that to happen when it eventually does go away.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>xorxornop</author><text>Well, how about the fact there&amp;#x27;s an absolutely enormous, untaxed negative externality? It&amp;#x27;s implicit - normally you tax something to reduce use of something harmful. Renewable energy would be far more competitive if this was factored in.&lt;p&gt;Fossil fuels are causing incredible economic damage - but in a way that isn&amp;#x27;t captured by traditional economic models. It&amp;#x27;s going to have huge costs to future generations - if we taxed it, not only would we get off fossil fuels faster, we might then have extra cash around to soften the blow when it inevitably comes.</text></comment>