# Anti-Fossil Fuel, Anti-Nuke People: What's the Solution to Our Energy Problem **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 1, 2011, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-fossil-fuel-anti-nuke-people-whats-the-solution-to-our-energy-problem/576882 "2011-04-01T23:31:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 18
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2011, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-fossil-fuel-anti-nuke-people-whats-the-solution-to-our-energy-problem/576882/341 "2011-04-27T21:07:27Z")
> [@Una\_Persson](#): > > [FYI, most of the Annual Energy Outlook for 2011 has been posted, and they show renewables only increasing to 14% of the total electrical generation sourcing by 2035.](http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/chapter_executive_summary.cfm#environ.cfm) Yeah, I linked to this earlier and my question at the time is why isn’t nuclear power mentioned? Does it assume there will be no nuclear power at all by 2035? With 20-year extentions, there ought to be a number or nuclear power plants still operating in 2035. Or not? I see the report as a report sent back from an alternate future when we simply kept doing what we are now doing. We can look at this “future” report and say, “okay, we need to build more renewables.” That’s not really news. We already know we have to build more renewables. The report doesn’t say we can’t easily change everything it predicts, right? ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2011, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-fossil-fuel-anti-nuke-people-whats-the-solution-to-our-energy-problem/576882/342 "2011-04-27T22:07:32Z")
[QUOTE=levdrakon] I linked to the post so people could read it themselves, if they want to. I doubt anyone really cares at this point. In the post, you quoted me asking where is the other 80% going to come from and your answer to that was nuclear could scale up. Now you’re backpedaling and saying “to a significant percentage.” [/QUOTE] :rolleyes: I didn’t backpedal at all as anyone clicking on the link can clearly see. I didn’t bother with YOUR 80% strawman…why should I have since it was so ridiculously over the top?? I’m not NOW saying ‘to a significant percentage’…I SAID IT IN THE POST YOU LINKED TOO! 😛 > [@](#): > > That’s fine; I don’t care. This is a tangent we don’t need. You didn’t answer the question though. In my opinion nuclear could not scale up to meet 80% of our energy. France I think gets 80% or so of their electricity from nuke, but they sure as heck don’t get 80% of their energy from nuke. They’re still dependent on fossil fuel; their cars run on gas. They export cheap baseload nuke power and import expensive fossil-fuel based peak load power from other countries. France is the world model for what nuke can do, and it’s clearly not eliminated their emissions or freed them from fossil fuel dependence. You are right…I didn’t answer your strawman about 80% coming from nuclear. Instead, I answered the sane question you SHOULD have asked, but chose not to. What can I say? No one…NO ONE…thinks that the US could or would get 80% of our energy from nuclear. France get’s something close to that because France’s energy needs are hugely less than ours. If we really, REALLY pushed we MIGHT be able to up what we get from nuclear to 30 or even 40%. It would cost a lot, even if the plants were allowed to be built, and even if newer, more modern and less costly designs were allowed (all of which is pure fantasy in the current environment). Instead we aren’t building new nuclear plants, and the old ones are getting old…which means we are losing power generation via a technology that doesn’t produce CO2, not gaining it. > [@](#): > > The US is huge in comparison. You’re talking about a herculean effort on the part of society to equal the ancient Egyptians building pyramids or the Chinese building the Great Wall. You aren’t going to get that sort of commitment and effort from society and that’s not NIMBYism or politics, as you say. Yeah, no shit. Which is why you aren’t going to get wind or solar up to the percentages you are talking about either. Instead, they might be able to keep up with our fading nuclear power…which means that our CO2 emissions are going to stay pretty much where they are, perhaps going down a bit over time. But no where near enough to offset the increase from countries like China and India over time. Which means there will be more CO2 (and other pollutants and GhGs in the atmosphere). Hope you are right about that GW stuff being bullshit or nothing to worry about, 'cause I suspect we’ll be finding out in the next 50 years what the deal is. > [@](#): > > If we could muster that sort of effort and commitment from society, I’d say let’s just bite the bullet and go for space-based solar power. There’s nothing stopping us but money and commitment. It’d cost trillions, but it’s not like the US gov can’t come up with a couple trillion here and there for things it wants. That’s always your answer…throw money at it and it will solve all the problems. Except don’t throw money at a technology you don’t like, 'cause that’s a waste. 😛 There is nothing stopping space based power generation except that it’s not ever been tested and is purely theoretical. Going from something that’s theoretical to something that’s in production is not simply a matter of tossing money at the problem until it goes away and you start to get some profit out of it. It’s like starting with a sketch of the Wright Flyer and then putting a few …'s in, then saying ‘we could have flying cars if we just committed the money to it’. There are all those steps in-between the actually making the Wright Flyer FLY, and then getting flying cars, which we still don’t have today. > [@](#): > > As it is now, wind has already poisoned your nuclear well not by politics but by demonstrating it can provide clean power now, and it can come in on-time and on-budget. Who in his right mind would risk billions on nuclear? Horseshit. Except that the well has definitely been poisoned, and it’s unlikely that anyone would risk billions to put in a nuclear plant today in the US when it’s unlikely to ever be allowed to be finished. But it’s not because wind has demonstrated it can compete…that’s ridiculous, since it HASN’T been so demonstrated. Wind is a niche power source, accounting for something like 1% of the US’s generated power. With massive effort we MIGHT be able to get it to 10% or if we want to fantasize, 20% by 2030…which is where nuclear is TODAY. And that’s after we pretty much abandoned building new nuclear power plants in the 80’s and 90’s. Had we kept building the things nuclear might be 5 or 10% more than it is today…or, at a minimum, the plants we had would be newer, more modern plants, instead of aging power plants that are going to be reaching the ends of their lifetimes in the next 20 or 30 years. > [@](#): > > Wind can’t do it all either of course, and we’re going to run into manufacturing shortages and rising wind power prices. That’s probably inevitable. The same would happen even faster building nuclear power stations. Building a nuclear power plant is a colossal undertaking. Even if you could muster up the labor to build some, who would operate them? It takes years of education, training and experience to become a nuclear operator but the industry’s been a complete non-mover for 30 years. You’d have to wipe away all our regulations regarding training and education and experience and import a bunch of low-paid PhD’d Indians to run them and then you’d be draining India’s nuclear-qualified work force. Where do you get this stuff from. Wind can’t do it…period. Nuclear IS ALREADY DOING IT DESPITE THE FACT THAT WE’VE NEGLECTED IT FOR OVER A DECADE NOW! We ALREADY get 20 percent of our electrical energy from nuclear. We barely get 1-2% of that same overall electrical energy from wind…and that’s not likely to change. By 2030 we could easily double the number of nuclear power plants we have in the US…if you could get the freaking hippies and anti-nuke crowd out of the fucking way. How? The same way we built all the ones we have TODAY in that same time period! This isn’t pie int he sky…WE HAVE ALREADY DONE IT! It’s not theoretical…it’s a solid fact. The fucking plants are out there right now, producing energy! Good grief. -XT ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2011, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-fossil-fuel-anti-nuke-people-whats-the-solution-to-our-energy-problem/576882/343 "2011-04-27T22:10:00Z")
Nuclear power isn’t mentioned? Of course it is: [EIA Energy Outlook 2011 - Nuclear](http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/source_nuclear.cfm). Were you looking for it under ‘renewables’? Nuclear power is not a renewable resource. The EIA does ‘business as usual’ projections, but they also run scenarios where oil prices go way up, renewable prices come way down, political incentives are put in place, etc. But they operate within the boundaries of past experience and real economic projections. In comparison, the Dept of Energy’s document is more of a ‘grand plan’ - “This is what we could do if all the stars aligned perfectly and we made major commitments and all these assumptions work out and all of the significant barriers are removed.” The DoE’s document is not a realistic projection of what is likely to happen. It’s akin to the document Canada’s atomic energy agency put out for using 180 CANDU reactors in Nevada to produce hydrogen to eliminate the need for fuel oil in the states, or the original plans by the DoE for ending dependence on foreign oil by 2000 - written in the 1980’s. They’re feasibility studies, and nothing more. The reality is that the U.S. is now in an economic environment where there is little tolerance for huge spending increases or large tax increases. Its major challenge now is the management of an out-of-control deficit and out-of-control entitlements. Maintaining a 20 year program of constant investment spanning multiple Presidential administrations is not very likely. And the assumptions that environmental challenges can be eliminated completely and that capacity factors can be increased substantially while lowering costs and increasing demand for resources like copper are just wishful thinking. ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2011, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-fossil-fuel-anti-nuke-people-whats-the-solution-to-our-energy-problem/576882/344 "2011-04-28T02:04:47Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Nuclear power isn’t mentioned? Of course it is: > > [EIA Energy Outlook 2011 - Nuclear](http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/source_nuclear.cfm). Cool, thanks. I saw that before, but for some reason didn’t see those as sections of the same report. Oops. Xtisme: > [@](#): > > Yeah, no shit. Which is why you aren’t going to get wind or solar up to the percentages you are talking about either. Not exactly. Wind turbines are a lot easier and quicker to build, even when you need hundreds of them. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2011, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-fossil-fuel-anti-nuke-people-whats-the-solution-to-our-energy-problem/576882/345 "2011-04-28T02:07:09Z")
You’d have a point…if we only needed hundreds of them. Sadly, to do what you are suggesting we’d need hundreds of thousands or millions of them. -XT ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2011, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-fossil-fuel-anti-nuke-people-whats-the-solution-to-our-energy-problem/576882/346 "2011-04-28T02:20:51Z")
It must be noted that the projection document is one that operates under “the assumption that current laws and regulations remain unchanged throughout the projections” It is a projection of what happens if policies are static. As far as nuclear goes it predicts: > [@](#): > > Four new nuclear power plants are completed in the Reference case, all of which are brought on line by 2020 to take advantage of Federal financial incentives. High construction costs for nuclear plants, especially relative to natural-gas-fired plants, make other options for new nuclear capacity uneconomical even in the alternative electricity demand and fuel price cases It seems that they assume _no_ nuclear plants to retire by then. Not sure I get why they assume that. They also [project renewables to 16%](http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/IF_all.cfm#power) in the case of the renewable energy tax credits being extended. > [@](#): > > In the Reference case, growth in renewable generation accounts for 26 percent of total generation growth from 2009 to 2035. In the No Sunset and Extended Policies cases, growth in renewable generation accounts for 36 to 38 percent of total generation growth. In 2035, the share of total electricity generation accounted for by renewables is 14 percent in the Reference case, as compared with 16 percent in the No Sunset case and the Extended Policies case. The document apparently does not make detailed what-ifs for various other policy changes, such as a high price on carbon or a strong cap and trade. These numbers can be considered a floor, if we do nothing different than now. They are a projection of that, not a forecast of what will be. ---
**Author:** ![Le\_Jacquelope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Le\_Jacquelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Le_Jacquelope)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2011, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-fossil-fuel-anti-nuke-people-whats-the-solution-to-our-energy-problem/576882/347 "2011-04-28T03:22:42Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > And just to make sure people understand what that means, it means that ALL renewables will account for 14% of electrical generation by 2035. It’s already at 11%, and that includes hydro, geothermal, biomass, wind, solar, etc. > > Wind itself is expected to roughly triple in total generating capacity, from 55.6 gigawatts to 163.4 gigawatts. That’s an annual growth rate of 3.2%. > > The EIA also has a number of scenarios you can run on their interactive spreadsheet. The best case I could find for wind was the ‘low renewables cost’ scenario, in which the cost of wind power declines by 40% by 2035. In that case, they predict total wind generation of 259.49 GW by 2035, or a growth rate of 5.1% per year. The EIA’s absolute best case scenario would get you to about 10% wind, if energy consumption was frozen at today’s levels. Since it won’t be, wind will be somewhat less than that in its percentage of contribution. Under the normal scenario, wind will have a hard time surpassing 5% of total energy generation. > None of that is close to the exponential growth rates you’d need to get to 20% wind power by 2030. But this is not because wind, geothermal, solar, etc. cannot grow faster. These figures only reflect America’s _willpower_ with regards to shifting from pollution-generating fossil and nuclear power to clean renewable energy. A dictatorship could say do change right now _and the technology is here right now to make it happen._ (Easy there, guys. :D) Obviously it doesn’t take a dictatorship to make it happen - it takes the collective will of a country that is tired of dealing with the pollution and resource shortages that come with burning up the Earth for energy. (And that, essentially, is what we’re doing with coal, oil and nuclear power.) ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2011, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-fossil-fuel-anti-nuke-people-whats-the-solution-to-our-energy-problem/576882/348 "2011-04-28T03:35:31Z")
China has a dictatorship…how’s it working out for them wrt getting their power from wind and solar? Last I checked they were getting over 80% from coal… -XT ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2011, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-fossil-fuel-anti-nuke-people-whats-the-solution-to-our-energy-problem/576882/349 "2011-04-28T03:49:19Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > It must be noted that the projection document is one that operates under “the assumption that current laws and regulations remain unchanged throughout the projections” It is a projection of what happens if policies are static. But other projections they have assume changes in the law. > [@](#): > > As far as nuclear goes it predicts: > It seems that they assume _no_ nuclear plants to retire by then. Not sure I get why they assume that. Because these plants keep getting extensions on their lifespan, and based on current inspections and new knowledge gained from operating them, it’s expected that their lifespans will be extended through that period. > [@](#): > > They also [project renewables to 16%](http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/IF_all.cfm#power) in the case of the renewable energy tax credits being extended. Yes - from 11% now. That’s only a 5% gain in overall share. And that’s for all renewables - not just wind. I do believe wind would make up the majority of that growth, though - solar is projected to grow at a faster rate, but it’s starting from a much smaller share. So they’re talking about wind making it to maybe 4-5% of total electricity production in the optimistic case. That sounds about right to me. I do think it’s possible to do a little better than that - maybe even as much as 10% from wind if you push really hard. After that, wind power starts to get really difficult. > [@](#): > > The document apparently does not make detailed what-ifs for various other policy changes, such as a high price on carbon or a strong cap and trade. These numbers can be considered a floor, if we do nothing different than now. They are a projection of that, not a forecast of what will be. Yes, it does. I already linked to the interactive table where you can plug in all the other scenarios and how they affect the outcome, and I quoted the best-case for wind. The [side cases](http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/data_side_cases.cfm) can be read if you click the link. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2011, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-fossil-fuel-anti-nuke-people-whats-the-solution-to-our-energy-problem/576882/350 "2011-04-28T06:21:00Z")
Their alternative scenarios include high low and traditional oil price, high and low economic growth, extending the renewable tax credit and sunset laws, and a scenario that creates “the somewhat extreme assumptions that all plants must have scrubbers to remove sulfur dioxide and selective catalytic reduction to remove nitrogen oxides, that natural gas wellhead prices remain at or below about $5 through 2035”. (Not shocking to find that natural gas comes out as the lion’s share of replacing some coal under that one.) I certainly cannot find anyplace where they explicitly model the effect of cap and trade or a carbon tax. Under their scenarios we _fail_ to reduce CO2 emissions: “total energy-related CO2 emissions increase from 5,996 million metric tons in 2005 to 6,311 million metric tons in 2035 in the Reference case” There is no “optimistic case” presented. This is simply a projection. A projection of failure. The [goals](http://www.pewclimate.org/what_s_being_done/targets) that are often proposed are _reduction_ goals which range from reducing CO2 by 17 to 20% by 2020, up to 30% by 2025, and 42% by 2030. Generally they are aiming for 1-2% reduction per year. What these EIA projections show us is that low oil price or high oil price, good economy or bad, regulations on coal for sulfer dioxide and nitrogen oxides or not, expired renewable tax credits or extensions of them, the current policy environment will lead us to actually increase CO2 over that time rather than hit those goals. These projection do not say that we are doomed to fail to meet those goals; they say that we are doomed to fail if all we do is what we are doing because the incentives to do anything else are not lined up. Not because they cannot be done or are too difficult to do. The proper response is not to accept that we will increase rather than meaningfully decrease our CO2 emissions as a fait accompli but to take these projections as a wake up call that we need to change our policies rapidly to avoid such an outcome. The [average age](http://money.cnn.com/2011/03/15/news/economy/nuclear_plants_us/index.htm) of our 104 nuclear power plants is over 30 years old. Yes, the odds are that they will all get extensions for another 20 years beyond their original planned 40 years, after all we don’t have much choice but to. But that still means that the average nuclear power plant will be past even those extensions in 2041. Even with extensions for every plant that applies, whether it deserves one or not, we will be retiring roughly 50% of our nuclear capacity by about 5 years after the EIA’s projection period. Unless you want to assume that these oldest designed plants will just be allowed to run forever. The issue in face of that EIA projection and that knowledge of that many nuclear plants being retired even if they all get extensions is what changes to make and how to actually accomplish those goals in a cost effective manner. To meet those goals we need to do something different. We need to act. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2011, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-fossil-fuel-anti-nuke-people-whats-the-solution-to-our-energy-problem/576882/351 "2011-04-28T08:17:09Z")
Carbon taxes == 'high cost scenario for fossil fuel". It doesn’t matter if the high cost is the result of supply shortages or carbon taxes as far as the market is concerned. Unfortunately for carbon tax advocates, it appears that the demand for fossil fuel has become increasingly inelastic: [Inelasticity of oil demand](http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/04/raw-data-everyone-loves-oil#disqus_thread). > [@](#): > > the IMF figures that short-term price elasticity in poor countries is -0.007, which means that a 1% increase in price leads to only a 0.007% decrease in consumption. Put another way, even a 50% increase in price leads to only a negligible 0.35% decrease in consumption1. Long-term elasticity is higher, but even here a 50% price hike would lead to only a 1.8% decrease in consumption. > > The rich world is modestly more sensitive. In the short term, a 50% price increase produces a 1.2% decrease in consumption. In the long term, it produces a 4.7% decrease. It would seem that the power of carbon taxes to change consumption behavior is actually pretty small. And in any event, if the purpose of carbon taxes is to push people off of oil and onto alternatives, it still begs the question: what if we don’t have alternatives? Finally, in a global sense, even if carbon taxes could significantly reduce oil consumption in the U.S., explain how that wouldn’t just lower the price of oil for every other country, stimulating demand until a new equilibrium is reached? It might be a slightly smaller equilibrium, but the overall reduction would be less than the reduction in the U.S. due to supply increase for everyone else. All in all, it doesn’t look to me like you can carbon tax your way to a greenhouse gas reduction in any significant way. In my opinion, the only way we’re going to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions is to come up with an energy source that is cheaper than oil on a global level. That means either reducing the cost of alternative energy, or waiting until the supply of oil drops to the point where the cost eclipses renewable alternatives. When that happens, we’ll see huge investments in other energy sources and a fairly rapid transition away from oil. Coal is another matter - I don’t see that getting more expensive for a long time. We need to get renewables down in cost to eliminate coal. It is counter-productive to begin spending huge money to subsidize current alternative energy sources if they are not cost-effective on their own, or to try to unilaterally tax fossil fuels absent a global agreement that is unbreakable (whcih I think is nearly impossible). Trying to force a transition before the technology is ready will simply hurt the economy and make it harder to get off of fossil fuels in the long run. I’m a fan of wind because it’s already at the point where it’s cost-competitive in the right environment. That’s why you’re seeing so much private investment and development in wind. But outside of those ideal environments, wind gets more expensive, and it’s so capital intensive and requires so much space that it doesn’t scale very well. I’m all for more investment in R&D for renewables. The good news is that there are a number of potential technologies that could get us there. Thin-film solar, new nuclear technologies, geothermal, etc. We’re not going to use just one of them - the energy future will be a mix, with on and off grid renewable power sources gradually taking over more and more market share. But it’s important to let the market sort that out. One of the biggest mistakes we could make would be to force the issue by picking a power source like wind and throwing all our resources into it, heavily subsidizing it and therefore suppressing other private investments in other energy sources. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2011, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-fossil-fuel-anti-nuke-people-whats-the-solution-to-our-energy-problem/576882/352 "2011-04-28T12:32:38Z")
**Sam** , 1. Before we digress into the pros and cons of cap and trade or carbon tax, how to harness market forces to accomplish pro-social goals, the relative inelasticity of oil demand in particular, and the rest of those very interesting subjects, let me point out that such a digression implicitly accepts the point I was making: that the EIA projection shows that doing what we are currently doing will result in an epic fail in meeting proposed carbon reduction golas, under a variety of circumstances, and even with extension of renewable tax credits and sulfer dioxide and nitrogen oxide pollution controls on coal (in the presence of cheap natural gas). You have moved on to debating whether my preferred set of solutions, monetizing the external costs by pricing the carbon and then letting each market figure it out in their particular circumstances, would be effective or not. 2. I will save discussing the relative inelasticity of oil for a moment and stick with the electricity generation market alone. Over the time course of the next 25 years there is every reason to believe that the American electricity generation market would respond to market forces. If coal had to pay for the cost of its waste product then its “low cost” would be exposed for the fiction it is. Natural gas would be less effected but still have their somewhat higher true cost made explicit. Renewables obviously would be placed on a fairer playing field. And so would nuclear. Keeping such an intervention net revenue neutral and putting the money back as credits to consumers would off-set any potential adverse economic effects. Couple with some basic research support and changes will occur. 3. International oil inelasticity. Oil demand is going up and supply will not be able to keep up. Indeed your link points out that since demand is going up with incomes going up the market, internationally, will absorb the price increases to a very significant degree without decreasing demand dramatically. Prices will rise and may rise quite high quite fast, to the point that our current $4/gallon will seem like a steal. But demand is not completely inelastic. Most experts look at how Americans changed behaviors with the last gas spike, shifting away from SUV for example, and predict that sustained $5/gallon or perhaps less will be a tipping point for dramatic changes in American consumption. Please check out the electric vehicle thread for some discussion about some changes that begin to occur at current price points and above and recognize that investments in other options, like “car train” technologies, and “drop-in” biofuels, become cost competitive at those points. China is heavily investing and mandating approaches to become EV heavy over the next decade in anticipation of such shortages. Oil demand is not linearly elastic but neither is it linearly inelastic. There are tipping points for behaviors, lines once crossed that lead to lasting changes. The tricky part will be getting there without having economies react negatively. ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2011, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-fossil-fuel-anti-nuke-people-whats-the-solution-to-our-energy-problem/576882/353 "2011-04-28T12:43:19Z")
We haven’t discussed feed-in tariffs. I’m not sure why the mere mention of it causes God-fearing capitalists to immediately stroke out. Actually, I think I know why. It’s worked well in Germany. We’ve had at least one German Doper come in and talk about how it hasn’t affected the average German much at all in terms of taxes and energy costs. It has stimulated a great deal of clever entrepreneurship at the regular citizen level, and results in a redistribution of wealth from multi-billion dollar energy producers and utilities to small towns and cooperatives and even individuals who suddenly find themselves able to get loans for their sometimes rather ingenious energy producing ideas and well as efficiency improvements. It may not be a forever solution, but it boosted Germany’s renewable share of power production by many percentage points in time frames significant and beneficial in terms of ghg emission reduction. That’s what we want, right? Or are we really so wedded to big power co profits? Subsidize new transmission lines, enact a decent feed-in tariff to encourage small and medium-sized community and individual green power production. I don’t see much of a down-side. ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2011, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-fossil-fuel-anti-nuke-people-whats-the-solution-to-our-energy-problem/576882/354 "2011-04-28T13:32:38Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > It would seem that the power of carbon taxes to change consumption behavior is actually pretty small. I imagine at least part of the reason for this (aside from the combined energy density and safety of petroleum in general) is that it’s nearly impossible, even from a standpoint where one is convinced of the truth of AGW, to accurately work out how much such a carbon tax should be to accurately account for the negative externalities caused by its production–which would be, in my opinion, the only moral justification for such a tax. Without accurate, broadly-agreed-upon (in the political realm) models for the ecological harm caused by any given unit of carbon, there’s no way to justify any particular tax figure. If we had more solid models\* pinning down the amount of harm expected from Global Warming to a fairly narrow range, it’d be pretty easy to justify even a frighteningly high tax (and I use that term to mean "enough to affect the demand curve noticably). Not to mention the problem you indirectly discuss with later, which is that carbon dioxide is a global problem, but agreement on the potential environmental impact of increasing amounts has not been reached in the political sphere worldwide, making a coherent carbon tax policy unworkable. - Obligatory: I am not a “climate skeptic”, I understand AGW is happening. My understanding is that the range of predictions concerning the harm thereof is incredibly broad. ---
**Author:** ![brocks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7feea3/32.png) [@brocks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brocks)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2011, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-fossil-fuel-anti-nuke-people-whats-the-solution-to-our-energy-problem/576882/355 "2011-04-28T21:37:38Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > From a subsidies perspective, do you have a cite that more is spent in absolute terms on nuclear than is being spent on wind and solar today? LOL. TODAY??? Congratulation on adapting the argument against affirmative action to green power. “Let’s forget about history. Let’s forget about the Manhattan Project, and all the incentives given oil companies for the last century.” ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2011, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-fossil-fuel-anti-nuke-people-whats-the-solution-to-our-energy-problem/576882/356 "2011-04-28T21:50:25Z")
> [@brocks](#): > > LOL. TODAY??? Congratulation on adapting the argument against affirmative action to green power. “Let’s forget about history. Let’s forget about the Manhattan Project, and all the incentives given oil companies for the last century.” Er, the Manhattan Project had nothing to do with anything but weaponry–nuclear power was a side effect, not something the project spent money to develop. And we’re not talking about oil, so what does that have to do with anything at all? ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2011, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-fossil-fuel-anti-nuke-people-whats-the-solution-to-our-energy-problem/576882/357 "2011-04-28T21:50:32Z")
[Actually](http://www.window.state.tx.us/specialrpt/energy/subsidies/), at least as of 2006 nuclear got more. Fed level. Of $13.6 billion in subsidies. 34.6% ethanol. 25.7% oil and gas. 20.2% coal. 8.7% nuclear. 3.4% wind. 2.8% solar. And down to 0.2% geothermal. As a share of total spending on the resource nuclear is 20.9% and wind is 11.6%. Ethanol btw is 26.5%. And of course historically nuclear got lots in its start up phase. That’s how new energy technologies emerge. But even today. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2011, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-fossil-fuel-anti-nuke-people-whats-the-solution-to-our-energy-problem/576882/358 "2011-04-28T22:00:37Z")
[QUOTE=brocks] LOL. TODAY??? [/QUOTE] Feel free to take any time period you like. It won’t be meaningful if you point out that nuclear and fossil fuel based power production got more subsidies 60 years ago when wind and solar weren’t deploy-able in large scales, while fossil fuels and nuclear were, but do what you like. Thus far I’d have to say your answer is ‘No…I don’t have a cite. But let me throw out some other bullshit to try and obscure the argument and see how that works out’. > [@](#): > > Congratulation on adapting the argument against affirmative action to green power. There is one of those logical fallacies associated with trying to do this…it’s right on the tip of my tongue… > [@](#): > > Let’s forget about the Manhattan Project, and all the incentives given oil companies for the last century." The Manhattan Project was a weapons development project, so I’m unsure why you think that’s important. The ‘subsidies’ for that were to develop a bomb, not power. What does oil have to do with anything in this discussion? We don’t use oil very much for power generation in the US…less than 1% IIRC. -XT ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2011, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-fossil-fuel-anti-nuke-people-whats-the-solution-to-our-energy-problem/576882/359 "2011-04-28T22:12:40Z")
[QUOTE=DSeid] Fed level. Of $13.6 billion in subsidies. 34.6% ethanol. 25.7% oil and gas. 20.2% coal. 8.7% nuclear. 3.4% wind. 2.8% solar. And down to 0.2% geothermal. As a share of total spending on the resource nuclear is 20.9% and wind is 11.6%. Ethanol btw is 26.5%. [/QUOTE] It’s interesting to see what all is involved in the ‘nuclear’ subsidies. Stuff like fusion research (over $280 million into that alone) and environmental cleanup ($349 million…and this seems to include a lot of clean up of weapons related sites)…that’s close half of the total right there (the total subsidy in your cite for 2006 is a touch over $1.1 billion for nuclear). If you add in the stuff from the TVA ($186 billion) it’s actually over half. Still, I’m surprised it was so much, though in retrospect seeing all the things that are subsidized, it makes sense. Thanks for the cite…too bad brocks didn’t post it. -XT ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2011, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-fossil-fuel-anti-nuke-people-whats-the-solution-to-our-energy-problem/576882/360 "2011-04-28T22:27:16Z")
DSeid…any idea of what they are today for nuclear, wind and solar? For some reason my GoogleFu seems to be weak today and I keep getting the same cite you provided, or an old GQ thread where you posted the same link. -XT [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-fossil-fuel-anti-nuke-people-whats-the-solution-to-our-energy-problem/576882.md?page=17) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-fossil-fuel-anti-nuke-people-whats-the-solution-to-our-energy-problem/576882.md?page=19)