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0 pointsRetric10y ago0 comments

Fossil fuels get on the order of 100+ billion per year in direct and indirect subsidies in the US as a conservative estimate. By far the largest subsides for 'Green Energy' go to corn ethanol which is mostly political football. After that there really more rounding errors than anything else.

PS: Nuclear seems to be popular on a lot of tech sites, but it needs massive subsides to come close to break even.

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Qwertious10y ago

I'm not saying you're wrong (and I think you're right), but do you have a source for the "fossil fuels get $100billion+ in subsidies" and "Nuclear needs massive subsidies to come close to break even"?

ju-st10y ago

For nuclear:

> A new 3,260 MW Hinkley Point C nuclear power station was given planning consent on 19 March 2013.[10] A guaranteed "strike price" of £92.50 per megawatt-hour (to be indexed for inflation over 45 years) was announced on 21 October 2013. The new power station would see Hinkley's contribution to the country's power supply rise to 7%.[9] At the time of the planning consent, the price for electric energy on the wholesale market was around £45 per megawatt-hour while the new power plant was expected to need earnings of £90 per megawatt-hour in order to break even.[11]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_B_Nuclear_Power_...

fulafel10y ago

Up north the latest nuclear plant guarantees price for its owners at 50 EUR/MWh (37 GBP) or less: http://www.energypost.eu/rosatom-signs-contract-build-nuclea...

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lyschoening10y ago

A couple of sources in here, below the first few paragraphs:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_subsidies#Allocation_of...

This article on 'de-facto' subsidies computed by the IMF that includes externalities such as pollution and global warming is also worth reading:

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/may/18/fossil-fu...

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