omnibus spending bill on renewables and oil and coal

The new bill likely to be passed has extended solar subsidies and wind subsidies. The solar tax credit stays at 30% until 2020, then fall to 26%, then 22% in 2021, and 10% in 2022. Commerical projects get extended even more, if they have spent even 5% in 2022 commercial constructions can get extensions for in development projects through to 2024. (paraphrased from inside ev). Wind is at $0.023/kwh which is much lower than solar but doesn't seem to need as much help. These are extended 2 years with a 3 year phase out with the same weird commercial projects in process extension.

Oil companies now can export as much american oil as they want, removing a 70s era regulation that ... has helped the US by not running the wells dry while prices were low.

Some say free market on the last one, but oil is not a free market. It is a scarce resource that is controled by opec, Exporting the light sweet stuff from eagle ford and bakkan then importing the oil sands on trucks and trains should help increase global consumption for oil. That doesn't seem like a good environmental goal.

Wind is a mature industry. I doubt the subsidies here will drive technology. The subsidy probably won't grow wind as much as regulatory measures like texas has that allow people to pay more for green energy and actually get it. Solar is looking pretty mature too, but needs some regulatory oomph and maybe a feed in tarrif like Germany instead of a federal budget item. Clean power plan may give these regulatory changes so that the subsidies aren't needed. A coal tax might help more than the subsidies.

Finally an extension of a coal mining subsidy $2/ton if you mine indian reservations and destroy indian lands. Whoopee.

What is your opinion? Is the balance good or bad for the environment.

 

I'm not against the solar or wind subsidies, but they are wasteful spending, along with a lot of other wasteful spending in the bill. I was mainly bringing up the change or continuation that seemed to be horse traded by "environmental democrats" in exchange for the changing the law to encourage oil export of higher grades of oil coming from the shale finds.

Definitely most Big Utilities and Big Integrated Oil like the program. I am not so sure the environmentalist some politicians claim to represent feel equally as good. As you say building more CCGT natural gas power plants and wind for West Virginia, Virginia, and Pennsylvania will close coal and the utilities there don't like that. They would rather have coal and nuclear. I don't know if they really like solar, but solar has tiny potential in the region versus wind, and they won't change the bottom line much. In California utilities do make money from solar but want it utility scale not net metered. This helps the utilities out compete the individual home or building owner.

Net effect though is probably more solar and wind will be built in the next 5 years without the incentives. Solar is the bigger subsidy, but is only about 1% of power today in the US, its those later years that the bill gets larger. Wind subsidy really isn't needed as wind is mature, but grid upgrades to encourage more wind would help. Maybe that will be in a later bill, but coal interests don't like that either, and big environmental seems more focusted on solar and making sure oil is trucked and on trains instead of being on pipelines.

Yep, I would say big utilities not states. Most people in the states might like the wind. West Virginia that needs jobs more than Virginia does has great wind potential, but those can be built as small projects and don't need the big utilities coal and nuclear do to be built. Don't get me wrong the Clean Power Plan was good for environmentalist, but it couldn't pass big utility interests in congress.

 

Agree that its good those congress criters are finally doing their jobs and have the first budget spending bills out in 6 years. That's a pretty low bar. I can't remember one place I worked where you wouldn't be fired for the behavior.

I don't think coal or nuclear got what they wanted, but then again the coal and nuclear PACs are small compared to big utilities that normally push that agenda, and big utiltities got what they wanted. Big integrated oil got what they wanted, as did solar, wind, natural gas.

If you ask most people, I doubt most of them would willing to pay for most of the pork in the loophole extensions. How many folks think electric motorcycles should get $2500, or that people with horses worth over $1M should get some extra tax breaks, or that super rich should be taxed at a lower rate on interest than a guy making $40K/year, or that big coal miners should get $2/ton of our money if they mine on Indian lands. I don't blame the people for these things. Candidate A and Candidate B both seem to vote for large loopholes for the PACs as that is who is paying for them to get elected and they pay both sides.