Obama Initiates Coal-Killing Policies During Great Recession

 
rberq
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Post by rberq » Sat. Oct. 16, 2010 12:56 pm

samhill wrote:Doesn`t surprise me since a large part of the DOE is financed thru OPEC.
Explain, please???

 
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Post by samhill » Sat. Oct. 16, 2010 1:03 pm

OPEC has one of the most powerful lobbies in D.C., one arm of that lobby is The National Petroleum Concil which is part of the D.O.E.

 
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Post by Yanche » Sat. Oct. 16, 2010 7:09 pm

rberq wrote:
samhill wrote:Doesn`t surprise me since a large part of the DOE is financed thru OPEC.
Explain, please???
The National Petroleum Council's charter precludes funding the government. Quoting from the NPC's web site ...

Begin quote ...

The Council’s operations are privately funded through the voluntary contributions of its members, based on a budget approved annually by the membership. These funds are used exclusively to cover the expenses of NPC meetings and the NPC office, including employees salaries and expenses, rent, printing, etc. None of these funds are paid to government personnel, and the NPC receives no government funds.

End quote.


 
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Post by samhill » Sat. Oct. 16, 2010 7:28 pm

The NPC advises the DOE & the NPC is largely funded thru OPEC. Its the influence on the DOEs policies that are being paid for, not salaries or rents, it always sends up a flag to me when a non gov. funded outside group advises a gov. on its policies. I just don`t believe that a group of oil, coal & other businesses related to energy & some not are looking out for the countries best interests.
Simply go to the search engine of choice & look up NPC/% funding thru lobbyist, makes for some very interesting reading.

 
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Post by Yanche » Sun. Oct. 17, 2010 9:30 am

I agree. It's the age old problem how does the government make decisions on a topic when the experts are outside the government. You need someway to get the advise of the experts. Perhaps US citizenship, US corporation, etc. should required for membership. Even that wouldn't work when the experts are all outside the USA.

 
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Post by Richard S. » Sun. Oct. 17, 2010 6:28 pm

samhill wrote:If you want to talk about taxpayer subsities, who do you think gets more, the oil, coal or green type energies?
As of 2007 as a total it was about even, since then I would imagine green energy subsidies have far surpassed the fossil fuel/nuclear industry especially considering the stimulus package. You can get a 30% tax credit on solar panels from feds alone.... Where the difference lies is cost per unit of production. For example the petroleum industry gets fractions of a penny per gallon while the ethanol industry enjoys something thast exceeds 50 cents.

Here's the section on subsidies from my post " Fossil Fuel Survialist Guide for the Sane " :
Subsidies
This is often thrown about that fossil fuel sector receives massive subsidies, it does as do all other forms of energy we use. Personally I think they should drop all subsidization but that's for another topic. The one document that I'm aware of that gives a very good overview of subsidies is a 2007 report produced by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) which is an arm of the Department of Energy. This report is compilation of different subsidies given to different energy sectors for the year 2007.

So let's delve into this document shall we? :) In 2007 energy subsidies to all sectors totaled an estimated $16.6 Billion dollars. This document breaks this down into an overall category and then has two other breakdowns for electricity and another for liquid fuels (gas, ethanol for vehicles). Firstly I'll list the totals for all that can be applied to these specific fuels. Keep in mind the net generation from renewable resources is a relatively small percentage of the overall total.
  1. Table ES1
  2. Coal, Natural Gas, Petroleum & Nuclear
    • $6.718 Billion
  3. Renewables
    • $4.875 Billion
Source: Federal Financial Interventions and Subsidies in Energy Markets 2007
I'm not going to list every sector, see the document for the full breakdown. Here's the subsidation specifi to sectors for electricity generation.
  • Table ES5
  • Coal
    • Net generation in billion kilowatthours: 1,946
      Subsidization : $854 million
      Cost per megawatthour of generation $0.44
  • Refined Coal
    • Net generation in billion kilowatthours: 72
      Subsidization : $2,156 million
      Cost per megawatthour of generation: $29.81
  • Nuclear
    • Net generation in billion kilowatthours: 794
      Subsidization : $1,267 million
      Cost per meggwatthour of generation: $1.59
  • Solar
    • Net generation in billion kilowatthours: 1
      Subsidization : $14 million
      Cost per meggwatthour of generation: $24.34
  • Wind 31 724
    • Net generation in billion kilowatthours: 31
      Subsidization : $724 million
      Cost per megawatthour of generation: $23.37
Source: Federal Financial Interventions and Subsidies in Energy Markets 2007
First we'll tackle the "Refined Coal" category as that has the largest subsidy. They don't exactly define what refined coal is but as best I can gather it's coal that has been processed like K-Fuel which has much lower emissions when burned in existing power plants. They mix it with coal and it lowers them significantly. As I understand it this transformed coal is quite similar to anthracite. None the less if this subsidy dropped off the face of the planet since it generates such a little amount of energy it's really insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

The largest producer of energy is of course is coal, as you can see it receives a little more than wind generation. What is significant is because electricity produced by wind generation is so small the cost per megawatt is staggering. The average home consumes roughly 1 megawatt per month so if all their electric came from wind you would have to add $24 to your bill compared to the 44 cents coal gets.

Even if we combine both the coal and refined coal subsidies together it's still doesn't amount to much per megawatt. About $1.50

I'll throw the subsidies in here for liquid fuels simply because the subsidy for ethanol is so out outrageous. I'm not sure if the subsidy the farmers receive for growing the corn itself is also included, the document doesn't specify.
  • Table ES6.
  • Natural Gas and Petroleum Liquids
    • FuelConsumption(quadrillion Btu): 55.78
      Subsidization : $1,921 Million
      Subsidy per million Btu: $0.03
  • Ethanol/Biofuels
    • FuelConsumption(quadrillion Btu): 0.57
      Subsidization : $3,249 Million
      Subsidy per million Btu: $5.72
Source: Federal Financial Interventions and Subsidies in Energy Markets 2007
As you can see ethanol received the most subsidization of any sector. This of course would be because of the huge farming lobby. 19000% more than the oil.

Source: 2007_Energy_Subsidies.pdf
2007_Energy_Subsidies.pdf


 
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Post by Richard S. » Sun. Oct. 17, 2010 6:34 pm

Coalfire wrote:With all the technology that is out there I am suprised that we can't find an even cleaner way to burn coal for our power generation,
It's a matter of applying practical and economic solutions. They have significantly reduced emissions since the 80's at a significant cost to the consumer. Every time you make the restrictions lower it cost more.

 
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Post by rberq » Sun. Oct. 17, 2010 6:51 pm

Richard S. wrote:ethanol received the most subsidization of any sector. This of course would be because of the huge farming lobby. 19000% more than the oil.
Since ethanol use is relatively new, and oil is a "mature" product, the 19000% would not bother me if it were (1)necessary, (2)temporary, and (3)part of a long-term plan to migrate production to plants less vital than food grains. Sadly, none of these conditions appears to be true, and the boondoggle simply continues due to the lobby. The country has so many infrastructure needs, yet we continue to throw away billions on ill-conceived and failed programs.

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