Obama Wants To Fund Clean Energy Research With Oil & Gas Funds 409
An anonymous reader writes "The Obama Administration has put forth a proposal to collect $2 billion over the next 10 years from revenues generated by oil and gas development to fund scientific research into clean energy technologies. The administration hopes the research would help 'protect American families from spikes in gas prices and allow us to run our cars and trucks on electricity or homegrown fuels.' In a speech at Argonne National Laboratory, Obama said the private sector couldn't afford such research, which puts the onus on government to keep it going. Of course, it'll still be difficult to get everyone on board: 'The notion of funding alternative energy research with fossil fuel revenues has been endorsed in different forms by Republican politicians, including Alaskan senator Lisa Murkowsi. But the president still faces an uphill battle passing any major energy law, given how politicized programs to promote clean energy have become in the wake of high-profile failures of government-backed companies.'"
Great, but lets COMPROMISE (Score:3, Interesting)
2) put some of the federal DOT money into pushing CNG/LNG/electrical charging stations along the federal highways.
3) allow keystone to go through.
4) increase oil/NG drilling offshore and in various federal lands, but with an eye towards keeping the environment clean.
5) put together a COTs type fund for thorium nuclear power along with some money for the possible fusion reactor that livermore has.
6) put together a tax incentive to get coal=>methane going. That is relatively clean energy and interestingly, produces a number of elements that we need esp. U and Th.
The word is COMPROMISE.
Re:How is this not a good idea? (Score:5, Interesting)
Many of the companies went bankrupt quickly after getting the federal money and none of them produced anything usable.
Err, no. The DOE loan program is actually performing better than congress expected when they created it in 2005. [whitehouse.gov] I'm willing to bet that you don't even know the name of one other company that received a DOE loan besides the three you've mentioned. As usual, reality is more complicated than sound-bites.
How about a plan where everyone wins? (Score:5, Interesting)
Can't argue that government subsidies of industry have a long history of being more about cronyism than anything else, so how about we "subsidize" green energy development in a completely even-handed manner governed by the free market? By phasing out the massive subsidies and environmental protection exemptions we're handing out to fossil fuel suppliers on an ongoing basis.
As fuel prices begin to rise *every* green energy project will start to look more attractive to investors, and we can stimulate dramatic investment in the field while simultaneously reducing government expenditure. If we're worried about the chilling effect that would have on the poor and the broader economy we can repurpose those funds in terms of, say, a refundable tax credit so that most people and businesses will see no net change, but will have greater incentive to pursue energy efficiency which would provide a net increase in available funds versus the status quo.
If we're worried about undermining domestic oil production versus foreign then fuel tariffs are the obvious answer. There may be some political fallout from that, but so long as they're tied to offset the reduction in subsidies I suspect most other governments actually wouldn't have a real problem with them, though they'd no doubt make some noise to gain political capital. Heck, earmark the tariff revenue for the tax refund coffers and everyone will see an immediate benefit except the oil companies. If we're willing to spend a bit of political capital and risk setting off a trade war we could even set the tariffs high enough to offset the loss in subsidies so that the domestic oil companies benefit as well.
Seems like it could be a big win all around. Am I missing something?
Re:How is this not a good idea? (Score:5, Interesting)
You will remember great hits like Solendra, A123, and Fisker.
Last year, the US Department of Commerce slapped tariffs on Chinese solar panels [nytimes.com] after the WTO agreed that the Chinese were dumping (too late for Solyndra).
And Solyndra is suing 3 Chinese solar companies under the Sherman anti-trust act [greentechmedia.com] for driving the company out of business
The Chinese bought A123 [foxnews.com], with the US Government's approval.
Fisker is the last man standing, but they're at the whim of their now-chinese-owned battery supplier, who has been trying to invalidate their previous contract.
All your examples had negative narratives pushed by conservative media.
Unfortunately, those narratives never actually had much relation to reality.
Re:Hopelessly off-target (Score:2, Interesting)
I don't post all of my conversations with windmill technicians on the internet, or I would cite it for you. Not knowing where you are, I'll post a link to picture of the windmills.
Here's [hobbyspace.com] is a picture of the farm. I couldn't find a close-up of the turbines, but each one has dark grease streaks down the support pylons. Each turbine has a complex gearbox and transmission that varies the blade angles, to keep the turbines turning at a constant speed. This is tough to seal, and in practice, there is no seal replacement. The turbines are operated to destruction, and replaced only if economically viable. The only thing staving off the destruction is constant refilling of the gearbox lubricant. These fields are just about as polluted as the the grounds of any oil refinery in the U.S.
-- Len
Re:How is this not a good idea? (Score:4, Interesting)
Where do you get this crap, Comedy Central????? (Score:1, Interesting)
Argonaut Ventures (the tax shelter of billionaire George Kaiser (an Obama "bundler")) was one of the biggest investors in Solyndra. Kaiser and his people are frequent visitors to Obama and none of us knows what they say to each other in private, but in addition to landing hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars directly for Solyndra, in 2010 Obama cut a slick little deal with them that lets them xfer losses from Solyndra to Argonaut. Why? Well since Solyndra was not making money, losses could not offset anything there to further reduce taxes there... but allowing a rich family's fund to record the losses lets it depress its tax status... Abra Cadabra! Shazam! Another rich Democrat family keeps and passes-on its inherited wealth from one generation to the next (like the Kennedys and the Rockefellers etc) This is just one dirty little tale of the folks behind the scam called Solyndra... it was not a Republican company nor were its investors aligned with the Republicans (you seem to have just extracted that from your posterior). On the off-chance that you are just a mindless Obamabot and are citing things you think you remember hearing somewhere, the Republicans did have ONE involvement with Solyndra: The company came-up for consideration for a DOE loan under the Bush administration, and after the Bush people looked into it they said, in effect, "Are you KIDDING???? this thing is a house of cards with no future and the taxpayers would take a hit!". As a result, Bush rejected the idea of funneling taxpayer money to a "business" run by people who had no viable plan for success in a free market.
The GAO (non-partisan) reports that $16.4 billion of the $20.5 billion in loans granted under just one of the "green energy" programs went to companies that were run or owned by Obama financial backers (the trend was similar in the other related programs). They further reported that in the initial wave of loans "none were properly documented" and officials “did not always record the results of analysis” the loan programs lacked performance measures and "No notes were kept during the review process" (of the loans) so there is not even a record of why each company got a loan, how the size of the loan was determined and under what conditions the load would be cancelled. In many cases the loans went to companies that then went bust (without re-paying the taxpayer) and in the case of Solyndra the Obama DOE blatantly and illegally placed the shareholders (Obama supporters) ahead of the taxpayers in the bankruptcy proceedings.
Steve Westly (another Obama fundraising "bundler") was given a position as an "advisor" for the Secretary of Energy Steven Chu... VERY convenient when you want DOE to hand out hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to "green companies". The Obama admin is awash in venture capitalists who bundled money to get him elected and who then got loans that will never be repaid (Obama had to get his BILLION dollar campaign war-chest from SOMEWERE... and that somewhere was never going to be the unwashed hippie park campers of the "occupy movement").
The current tally does not support you claims of success... Solyndra was not the only one that went down... heard of " VantagePoint Venture Partners" or "Ener1" or "Amyris"??? You ought to read-up because you will be paying higher taxes for the rest of you life to pay "you fair share" of the the extra debts incurred fgunding all this stuff