Americans Happy To Pay More For Clean Energy, But Only a Little More 325
Fluffeh writes "A recent study of over 1,000 folks for a paper published in Nature Climate Change has found that the average U.S. citizen is inclined to pay a premium to ensure that by 2035, 80% of U.S. power comes from clean energy. At random, respondents received one of three "technological treatments" or definitions of clean energy that included renewable energy sources alone, renewable sources plus natural gas, and renewable sources plus nuclear power. Delving into the socioeconomics, researchers found that Republicans, Independents, and respondents with no party allegiance were less likely by 25, 13 and 25 percentage points respectively to support a NCES than respondents that identified themselves as Democrats."
Solar power satellites (Score:3, Interesting)
Often absent from these discussions, and before the usual flamewars start, are solar power satellites [startramfans.com], such as the ones JAXA [nature.com] is developing. This technology, while it may seem a bit blue sky at the moment is coming very much economically within our grasp over the next decade. All of the energy we need is flying right at us free of charge from the biggest nuclear reactor in the solar system, we just need to take advantage of it.
Re:Solar power satellites (Score:5, Interesting)
There is a reason they're absent: the numbers don't work.
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/03/space-based-solar-power/ [ucsd.edu]
People are skeptical about paying more for power precisely because of boondoggles like that. How are we to know if the money is going to scientifically sound solutions or to someone's infeasible pet project, or worse, to their brother in law.
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While its possible that er, Tom Murphy knows more than JAXA and their household name industy associates who are willing to put tens of billions of dollars into SPSs, I doubt it. Fact is, JAXA has gone on record as saying that launch costs need to be one hundredth of their current amount for it to be competitive. That is quite doable. Read the links!
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You mean this one:
http://slashdot.org/~T+Murphy [slashdot.org]
think for yourself! (Score:2)
Instead of playing a game of "who do I believe", why don't you use your own head and figure it out for yourself? Figuring out the relative cost and benefits of space solar energy is elementary.
Furthermore, apart from the horrible cost/benefit tradeoffs for space solar, and the military risks, your web site points out yet another pro
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Instead of playing a game of "who do I believe", why don't you use your own head and figure it out for yourself? Figuring out the relative cost and benefits of space solar energy is elementary.
If you read the linked discussion there is quite a bit of figuring out already done.
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Instead of playing a game of "who do I believe", why don't you use your own head and figure it out for yourself? Figuring out the relative cost and benefits of space solar energy is elementary.
Yeah, it's not exactly rocket science. Wait...
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The only real objection is the cost to launch, the rest is cherry picking some data and ignoring others. Look, its pretty simple.
According to this
http://www.ieice.org/proceedings/EMC09/pdf/21Q1-2.pdf [ieice.org]
a 10km diameter rectenna will produce 6.75GW. So lets say 1.48 km to the GW, thats 1.72 square km.
The total power installed capacity of the USA is what, 1580 GW [wikipedia.org]. This means you'd need a square of rectennas ~52km on a side to power the entire country, on the ground.
This is why the Japanese Space Exploration Agenc
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We are talking about launch costs because they are still an issue. Build your star tram and get launch costs to $40 a pound and then you can be taken seriously.
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Yes I do.
1: We can build solar thermal capacity TODAY.
2: Even without launch costs, orbital solar is going to be more expensive than ground based solar because 10km ^ 2 of solar thermal plant in the desert will cost less than 1km of rectena plus a fleet of orbital platforms capable of delivering equivalent power from low earth orbit.
3: The TEA party exists. 98% of republican senators and representatives have signed the Norquist pledge to never ever raise taxes under any circumstances. 20 billion dollars is
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Star tram does not eliminate your launch costs if you are going beyond LEO. You still need rockets to hit a transfer orbit.
How are you going to build a star tram without taxpayers? Private industry? Right now, you can't get investments for ANYTHING without a likely profit within 1 year. Charity? good luck. How are you going to get right of way for the airspace around a structure 20k tall (or more) and 100s of k long?
I said solar thermal, not photovoltaic. Solar thermal can produce power steadily around the
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What I always find hilarious about these blog posts is how they assume that somehow their few hours with a pen, paper and Google has somehow uncovered a huge flaw in a plan that academics have been putting decades of research into.
No offence but if JAXA thinks it will work then I'll probably take their opinion as the most reliable.
Oh, and the blog only considers space based PV, but solar thermal has huge potential too.
Nice Try Cobra Commander (Score:5, Funny)
Nice Try Cobra Commander... I saw that episode back when I was a kid. You just want a number of WMDs up there to use as weapons against GI Joe.
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Or, we can invest in technology that already exists and that is already proven before trying to leapfrog two levels of technology. Solar on Earth would work in the US if we'd have technocrats instead of politicians running the country
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Surface area required for solar powering the world (Score:4, Informative)
You might be interested in this infographic.
http://www.landartgenerator.org/blagi/archives/127 [landartgenerator.org]
As it turns out, the world is remarkably large.
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I see your infographic and raise you a Randall:
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/plugged-in/2011/11/22/xkcd-the-cost-of-electricity/ [scientificamerican.com]
Solar power satellites are a dumb idea (Score:2)
Solar power satellites are obviously a bad idea: they may increase efficiency by a factor of up to maybe 2-4, but at a cost that is orders of magnitude higher. You're better off just covering more area on the ground.
And power satellites have serious security implications, allowing large amounts of power being focused anywhere in the world. In fact, the idea of space-based solar power is so obviously bad from an economic point of view that I suspect it really is just an attempt to get weapons into orbit.
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The only expensive thing about them, in fact the only thing stopping them from being feasible, is launch costs. And happily we have an answer to that one.
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Or you could put those panels on the ground instead of space getting the same energy for a fraction of the costs.
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Something ridiculous like 90-95% of the cost is just launching the stuff up there, which at $10,000 a kilo for 1500-1900 tons per GW, well of course that won't work. What I'm talking about is using new technological advances which reduce the cost to 0.004 of their previous amount to make it work, and it will work.
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Birds could fly through the rectenna area without harm, its 1GW across a 1km diameter receiver.
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1 kW/m2 of microwaves is safe for animals?
For people if you lose control of the beam? For electronics?
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Isn't that one of the disaster buttons? Right next to the Monster attacks?
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Yeah, that's about the amount of energy you get from normal sunlight.
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If one chose to set up camp in the beam for years on end I couldn't guarantee there'd be no ill effects... :D
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The you should keep them out of the sun.. really you should keep then at 0K.
Nice editing, editors. (Score:5, Informative)
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NCES = national clean energy standard. Not that you'd want to clarify that in the summary or anything.
Editors? You must be new around here!
Who cares (Score:3, Informative)
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If you reduce power consumption, the only thing that does is lower the cost of fuel (maybe). None of the rest of the costs of generating and delivering power (wires, substations, transformers, maintenance, employees, etc) change just because you are using a little less power. If you are being billed based on consumption then of course the rates will go up as consumption goes down, because the actual costs have not changed that much. This is not that hard to figure out.
Re:Who cares (Score:4, Informative)
Have a look at these two photos:
Springfield, Il in 1930 [illinoistimes.com]
Springfield, Il today [google.com]
Personally, I like my air clean.
true of almost anything altruistic, really (Score:4, Insightful)
You could also say: Americans willing to donate money to the poor, but only a little bit of money.
Re:true of almost anything altruistic, really (Score:5, Insightful)
Except if you are a democrat (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/opinion/21kristof.html)...
Liberals are only generous with other peoples' money...
Re:true of almost anything altruistic, really (Score:4, Interesting)
Statistics on charitable donation are pretty interesting, but that article doesn't provide a very good overview. In particular, religious donations are quite large in the United States, and I think a considerably different sort of thing than charitable donations (in many cases, imo, religious donations are closer to political contributions, intended to advance one's viewpoint). Republicans do donate considerably more to churches (especially Mormons, who are overwhelmingly Republican and often still tithe a full 10% of their income), so certainly Republicans donate more to charity, if you count organizations like the LDS church as charities.
Re:true of almost anything altruistic, really (Score:4, Insightful)
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Everything the churches do has strings att
Re:true of almost anything altruistic, really (Score:4, Informative)
The interesting question to me about this is always how much of a Church's revenue flows back out as social works.
It depends on the church. My church gives almost all of the tithes to the poor. Pat Robertson's, otoh, probably gives very little if any; those $4000 suits and $500 ties he wears and $70,000 cars he drives cuts into the kitty.
Personally, I feel that churches tend to be over-rated as charities.
Some are, some aren't.
I see a lot of charities that put my money to better use than our church committee can.
Maybe you should find a different church?
donating blood, etc. (Score:4, Insightful)
Look up the book "Who Really Cares?"
Conservatives are more generous than liberals in all sorts of categories. Donating time to charities to donating blood.
The cause seems to be that when you think it is the government's responsibility to help people, you are less willing to help people. Personally, I think focusing on the government being the main source of help turns people into greedy narcissists only concerned about how much they are getting. You don't have to worry about helping others because it isn't your responsibility.
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Why isn't renewable cheaper? (Score:3)
Re:Why isn't renewable cheaper? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Why isn't renewable cheaper? (Score:4, Insightful)
Photovoltaics have a 30 year 75-80% of new power production lifetime. They last a lot longer than that if you are ok with only getting 50% of rated power.
We use coal for lots of reasons, on of them is that it is artificially cheap since they don't have to pay for waste disposal like everyone else. Nuclear would also be super cheap if you let them dump their waste straight into the air.
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Next time someone tells you we don't need the EPA, have them google Beijing Smog or Wuhan Smog on google images.
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Like an oil rig on top of government owned land or sea? Anyway, it may be something about energy density.
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Not necessarily, it means that the fuel replenishes itself. that doesn't mean you don't have costs associated with that fuel.
say i discover an algae that i can use to create electricity...that algae may need fertilizer, or need to be harvested in some way to produce that electricity. all that costs money.
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Of course the energy company doesn't pay for the fuel either way. Mother nature makes fossil fuel as well as solar or wind, and they're all taken without payment. As a consumer of energy you're paying for the infrastructure, wages and dividends of investors.
But you're right, in the long run renewables should be cheaper.
But there is massive upfront capital costs. Of course there were massive up front capital costs for conventional power too. But they evolved over a couple of centuries. Renewables need to rep
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once you've built the gathering mechanism
There's the catch, getting any reasonable amount of power out of a renewable source requires a tremendous invest.
Re:Why isn't renewable cheaper? (Score:4, Insightful)
I think most people want to be "green" but... (Score:3)
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CFL's are horrible. when i flip the light switch on i want light now, not next week. it takes so long for them to warm up and provide useful light. if someone has a solution to this please let me know! if there are better CFL's than this then i haven't found them.
seeing as how it is starting to get more difficult to buy incandescents i have started trying out LED's. they are a LOT more expensive per bulb, but supposedly have a long life, and most importantly when i turn on the light switch they give me
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Buy good ones. Look for known brands and don't just get the cheapest one on the shelf.
LEDs will always be faster to be on, but we are talking about milliseconds here.
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Seeing that i am willing to buy LEDs should show i am not just buying the cheapest bulbs on the shelf. The CFLs still suck, what name brands should i be looking for? CFL's are even more atrocious in cold weather, such as in my garage in the winter.
I am not against fluorescent lighting, i had the big tubes in a few places for many years, and they worked fine, and last forever.
There are for other reasons i am beginning to prefer LEDs. For one they don't have mercury in them, which makes them a bit greener
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The mercury in CFLs is so little I just don't worry about it. I am not planning on eating them, and I still eat Tuna and other large fish.
LEDs are always going to beat CFLs the only question is how much. I would suggest you look into the higher end phillips CFLs if you want quality ones.
DO NOT THROW AWAY CFLs! Take them to your local hardware store, home depot, lowes etc, they will accept them for recycling. They also sell these bulbs so pretty easy to take the dead one back when you buy a replacement. I wo
Re:I think most people want to be "green" but... (Score:4, Insightful)
I've been using CFLs fof fiteen years, and the newer ones light up quickly. But even fifteen years ago, it was no more than two seconds, maybe five in sub-zero f weather.
I swear, you kids are even more impatient than we were when we were young and impatient. I can see the next generation: "This computer is too slow, it took three seconds to boot and a full five minutes to figure pi to a million decimal places! I don't have all damned year!
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Pardon me while I get off your lawn.
Fortunately, it is only a little bit more expensiv (Score:3)
Here in UK, our DoE-equivalent have computed on-shore wind as being close enough to coal - and we're running out of coal, so I'm guessing it will be marginally cheaper in few years.
I guess I am odd then... (Score:5, Interesting)
I gladly pay MORE for clean energy. I went out and bought and installed solar connected to a grid tie inverter. But in reality I end up paying less because it significantly reduces my electrical bill as it runs the meter backwards during the day. In the middle of the summer with the AC cranking it makes up for 1/2 the electricity I use for the AC. so it will pay it's self back in about 3 more years. after that it's free money.
unfortunately most of my fellow countrymen are not smart enough to handle their money and do this. I have had friends look at me and not understand the whole payback thing. they get stuck on the "You paid $5000 to put solar on your house and you will pay an electric bill?" They cant understand that monthly bill reduction = money saved.
Which makes me sad, I though I had smarter friends.
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Nope. I get no rate other than what I pay. I either remove power demand or reduce the number of WH I used. I can not get a credit if I send more power than I consume.
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Michigan USA.
No subsidies at all. In fact I had to fight the power company and threaten a lawsuit as they were trying to block me from installing it.
Everyone has their priorities ... (Score:3)
I choose to pay about 25% more for my electricity to have 100% renewable. The extra $20 a month isn't a big deal to me, and while I'm not a dirty enviro-hippy, I do think its a matter of being responsible. I can afford to pay extra for it, so I do.
People choosing to do things like that (buy clean electricity, the people who bought the early hybrid cars, people buying the pure electric and extended range electric cars etc) help to fund the growth of the technology where it can become ubiquitous. (Or, as another example, the people who pay $250k for a ride on Virgin Galactic -- its all the same.)
Easier If You Can See the Impact (Score:5, Interesting)
I pay extra for "dirty" energy (Score:5, Insightful)
I pay extra income tax to send my country's military forces halfway around the world, to provide security for privately-owned oil tankers full of privately-owned oil to pass through the Persian Gulf. I pay extra income tax in order to provide non-humanitarian "foreign aid" to several other governments in the oil-rich area, just to keep them (somewhat) friendly.
Even if I opt out of using subsidized oil, I don't get to opt out of paying for the subsidy. Why would I pay even more to subsidize Yet Another competing energy source? (Well, ok, let's not get fanatical about that .. I understand that we've all come to an agreement to subsidize coal by allowing the plants that burn it to dump their CO2 into the public atmosphere as an externality (there's the subsidy) instead of making them plant forests to soak it up, but coal isn't really a direct competitor to oil; it's used differently so by subsidizing both, I'm not really paying to back two sides against each other, which would be silly.)
Can we just get the Central Committee's existing government-planned subsidy payments transferred? Why does the politburo always go with oil and coal in their five year plans? I'd be willing to do a subsidy re-assignment, at least short-term. (Long-term.. well, actually I'm unsure about the wisdom of even having a Central Committee and all this economic planning, but that's another topic.)
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National Clean Energy Standard.
From the first sentence from TFA.
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You do realize malaria used to be pretty much anywhere out of the polar region right ? It was fought by destroying the natural habitat of the mosquito (ie. by destroying swamps), and that worked pretty fucking well. By contrast, fighting malaria with medicine without destroying the natural environment that supported it has had only limited success keeping malaria away from the rich only at best (and even in that, limited success). Meanwhile, medicine has caused resistant strains to pop up that could once ag
Re:And, of course (Score:5, Insightful)
If you ask McDonalds customers if they'd like to see more salads and healthy choices they'll say, "Yes, of course!"
But ... when McDonalds put them on the menu they keep right on buying burgers and fries.
Moral: People answering surveys tend to idealize.
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Err....I don't believe McD's salads come "pre-dressed"...it only gets full of oil and sugar if the person heaps on a dressing that is full of oil and sugar...?!?
I think they do offer lighter salad dressing choices?
They do offer light Italian and balsamic vinaigrette dressings that clock in at about 60 calories (too lazy to look it up right now). Add chicken, cheese and bacon (standard on their more 'generic' large salad), and it is around 450 calories. People like to bash McDonald's, but their healthy options aren't that bad.
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McDonalds isn't bad if you skip the fries and soda. Try ordering two Big Macs instead of a 'menu'.
(Though if you don't order fries+soda they might call security, it's unpatriotic...)
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I tend to buy salads and such if I stop at a McDonalds. Of course before they had those items I just did not stop there if I could avoid it.
Re:And, of course (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't act as if purchasing decisions by the average consumer are based on calm deliberation and rational thought, because most often they are not. Most purchasing decisions are based in large part on subconscious impulses and emotions. Basing public policy on how consumers make purchasing decisions will result in irrational policy.
Parent sounds condescending, but he's right! (Score:3, Interesting)
This cannot be reinforced enough, humans only have so much mental bandwidth. We have habits and routines that don't require significant mental effort, freeing up "cycles" to deal with more demanding tasks, and when your life is stable it is very hard for people to continue to override those subconscious programs.
I was recently at a pediatric subspecialty conference (Yes, I'm an MD, thus my anony-mouse posting) and in a section on childhood obesity, a recent paper was briefly discussed. They looked at the
Re:And, of course (Score:5, Informative)
Why would someone go to MacD to get salads?
Because their friends who like burgers are also going there for lunch. The ability to placate the healthy eater or vegeterian in a lunch group has become vital to the lunch menu, particularly in urban business areas. If you don't have these items, you get Veto'd by one person out of six, and you lose the whole group to some place the one can settle for.
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If you alienate all of these people, eventually they'll quit. A company like mine will hire the best of them, and eventually we'll put you out of business if you are a competitor of ours.
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Hmm..I dunno. In my experience, if you have one out of the 6 that is that fucking picky...then you rapidly become a group of '5' that can go anywhere to eat a nice lunch.
I don't mind someone being a vegan, but they certainly aren't welcome to severely limit choices of restaurants for a nice work lunch outing. They're the outlier....let them deal with it.
Your statement does not account for extenuating circumstances such as that person being (1) your boss or (2) extremely attractive.
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Far from it...I live in New Orleans, food central city.
I can't honestly tell you the last time I ate at a McD's. I virutally never go to eat fast food, and if you live in NOLA proper, you actually don't even see many fast food joints. Most place you go to eat here, are locally owned establishments. My 'junk' food, treat is an oyster poboy and some sweet potato fries.
It actually comes as a jolt to me, when I travel to other
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Going to McDonalds for a salad is like going to a hooker for a hug.
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Well, it isn't like most Americans have a choice in that...you pretty much 'have' to have a car to get around and function reasonably in this society. I don't even look at the price on the gas pump, it is just as much a basic need for my daily functioning as eating or drinking water is. No...I won't die immediately if I don't have gas to drive...but I will be in trouble eventually when I can't
Re:And, of course (Score:4, Insightful)
The exact same argument could be made for electricity, could it not?
--Jeremy
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as fossil fuel prices go up, as they must eventually. Of course, a rise in fossil fuel costs will cause a rise in manufacturing and transport costs for renewable energy generating equipment as well.
I can't work out whether that is a good argument for investing in renewables now, while the cost is low, or waiting until the cost differential justifies it.
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Yup, this is part of the externality cost I mention in the post below. I am very free market oriented and frustrated at how big business/gov't has perverted it. US citizens see these perversions and assume that free market doesn't work. Yes, even a free market has its weaknesses that must be corrected by government intervention, but so much could be cured by not subsidizing established energy sources and taxing according to externality costs.
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Because oil is the only resource the US wants and all military deployments are based solely on resource wants?
Sometimes our military is used for resources, this has been going on since we used the navy to hold islands that held bat guano for fertilizer and maybe before. Do you know why they call some of those nice warm countries banana republics?
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Of course. It's because all the men walk around in a suit jacket and a banana hammock.
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The oil industry is heavily subsidized by the US taxpayer via our massive military presence and operations in the Middle East. Exxon-Mobil and Chevron's shareholders don't pay that... taxpayers do.
Do conservatives ever even mention that? No, they don't.
I think the $0.31 per gallon that I pay should cover it. If not, consider that every single product I buy is transported to the store I bought is also using fuel, which is taxed, which I pay indirectly. Of course, all those products are made from parts, pieces and ingredients that had to be shipped to whoever made that product, which I also paid the tax for. Then, of course, there is my federal income taxes that are also used to fund our military presence in the Middle East and elsewhere, that ensure tha
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That $0.31 does not cover it. It is cute that you think it should, but it does not. Your taxes do not cover it either, note the deficit.
We actually get most of our oil from Canada, Mexico the USA and South America. The middle east has to be controlled to keep world market prices stable. The fact that you are ignorant of such a basic fact explains most of the rest of your nonsense. I have lived in Alaska, the current pipeline changed the environment dramatically. Caribou will stay around the warmed pipes in
Re:the irony is (Score:5, Insightful)
For starters, not all of our interests in the Middle East are oil based. For example, Bahrain has no oil. Bahrain exports things like aluminum. The US Navy's 5th Fleet is also based there. That fleet costs the US taxpayer 10s of billions of dollars. The US Navy 5th Fleet is that massive naval force you allude to that protects our interests in the Middle East. Note the cost; 10's of billions of dollars.
The US uses roughly 386,000,000 gallons of gasoline a day. At a tax of $0.31/gallon, that is $119,660,000 in tax revenue. Multiply that by 365 days a year and the US receives $43,675,900,000 per year from gasoline taxes. The US also uses about 60 billion gallons of diesel each year which calculate to roughly $18 billion in tax revenue per year ($0.30/gallon). So the US receives about $62 billion per year from gasoline taxes alone, which is plenty to fund the 5th Fleet, especially when you consider the taxes paid when cars are sold, various taxes paid by the companies that make cars and components. And, of course, all those "leases" you hear about where "big oil" wants to drill on government land are not free. The government gets a percentage per barrel. Now, granted, the domestic oil production is not in the Middle East, but like you said, "The middle east has to be controlled to keep world market prices stable".
So, yeah! The cost of patrolling the waters of the Mid East is more than covered by our gasoline and diesel taxes alone. Also note that oil is not the only interest we have in the region. It's a big one, sure, but not the only one.
Don't like my numbers? THIS [iags.org] site says the following:
The cost of securing our access to Middle East oil - deploying U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf, patrolling its water and supplying military assistance to Middle East countries - is estimated at $50 billion per year, which adds additional dimes to each gallon of gasoline we purchase.
But you say:
That $0.31 does not cover it. It is cute that you think it should, but it does not. Your taxes do not cover it either, note the deficit.
Um... Given the numbers above, it appears that it really DOES cover it and then some. It's cute that you are so quick to call me ignorant.
Moose are not found in those areas as pipe lines are not normally built over the swamps and in the forests they prefer.
It appears they "prefer" the pipelines.
Again we see your ignorance. Those refuges only hold enough oil for months of US use. They should be kept until we actually need them.
Well, for starters, we won't extract and refine it all at once. And to be fair, I'm fully aware of the impact drilling will have on prices. If I had it my way, we'd tax it as a condition of permission to drill there and use the money to invest in renewables. For example, a $10/barrel tax times the billions of barrels in ANWR alone would be more than enough to not just fund, but INCREASE the amount of money funding our fusion research.
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The tax you pay is for roads, numbnuts.
The $0.31 does not get sent to the DOD. If you want to double the tax and use that to pay for the Middle East adventures, I fully support that.
My roads are funded through my state. That means the additional state levied gasoline taxes are used to pay for roads along with my registration, property and sales taxes. The only roads the federal government are responsible for are interstates, and even then the states pay for part of that.
No taxes get sent straight to the DOD. Unfortunately, they all go into a giant pot that everyone raids. My point was that the gasoline taxes that are paid into the system are greater than what is taken out to patrol
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Then, of course, there is my federal income taxes that are also used to fund our military presence in the Middle East and elsewhere, that ensure that I can put gas in my tank which is required to get me to work, my kids to school, and allows my family to have the occasional family outing. You know, actually live free and enjoy that freedom.
Because your ability to carpool your kids to school is more important than the lives of innocent Iraqis, gotcha.
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Your gas tax has nothing to do with 'paying for the war'.
Add a buck then it might start to take care of it.
Ha, every time we go to war, maybe the price of gas should be taxed an additional dollar a gallon to pay for it. That will have people seriously thinking about going to war and staying at war. The need to go to war would need to out weigh the political disadvantages of raising gas a dollar a gallon.
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governments should tax at a rate equal to the externality costs
Two problems with that: 1) Nobody can accurately determine the externality cost, and 2) Nobody trusts the government to spend that money appropriately.
Basically this proposal is a suggestion to arbitrarily raise the cost of energy, and let whatever political party is in power choose which energy source is subsidized the most. We've already seen how well that works; no thanks.
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No need to let the government do it. Allow someone to come up with a way of removing this stuff from the air. Then the government only forces power produces to pay to have that done. If these producers can find a cheaper way to clean their waste up let them. Allow them some percentage of waste, ever moving towards 0%. I bet nuclear starts to look a lot better once the playing field is leveled.
Re: (Score:3)
My guess for this is two reasons:
1) The weren't given enough info prior to being asked to choose: e.g. exactly which green technology would be used or exactly why it would cost more.
2) People already have plenty of good reasons to have zero trust in large corps to do the right thing over making more profit (i.e. whats the guarantee they wouldn't just pocket most of the extra money collected and at most just fund a cheap smokescreen token effort).
Re: (Score:3)
2 cents a kilo is , what? 25% increase?
Re: (Score:3)
Whose data do we have to read to "know its fake?" Time Cube Guy's?