What are Energy Subsidies?

Question

What are Energy Subsidies?

Answer 1

That is what Pres. Bush gives to the Oil Companies as tax credits to keep thier profits high and our wallets empty!!!!!

Answer 2

Whoever said something about subsidies for solar panels on roofs is not well informed.  The amount of money currently spent on solar tax credits is a minute fraction of the tax credits and subsidies that oil companies get.  

Even a proposal to convert the U.S. electric grid to 65 % solar by 2050 and nearly 100% by 2100, requires spending of public money that would only be 1/4 of the subsidies that oil companies get.  And this technology is here now;  producing electricity at rates competitive with gas and coal power plants.  

See article in Scientific American

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=a-so...

  Then electric cars would be charged on clean energy too.

It has already begun in California which could have over 2 gigawatts of new solar from power plants, in just a few years. We already have 355 megawatts now.

I gigawatt = 1000 megawatts

I gigawatt would power San Francisco, or the equivalant of 775,000 homes. A medium size nuke plant, or Hoover Dam would be about 2 gigawatts. Two of the proposed solar plants for the Mojave Desert are up to 800 and 900 megawatts each.

http://blogs.business2.com/greenwombat/

Green Wombat has several stories on the companies working on solar thermal power plants in California.

"Solar thermal power plants such as Ausra's generate electricity by driving steam turbines with sunshine. Ausra's solar concentrators boil water with focused sunlight, and produce electricity at prices directly competitive with gas- and coal-fired electric power."

"Solar thermal power plants can store energy during daylight hours and generate power when it's needed. Ausra's power plants collect the sun's energy as heat; Ausra is developing thermal energy storage systems which can store enough heat to run the power plant for up to 20 hours during dark or cloudy periods."

"Solar is one the most land-efficient sources of clean power we have, using a fraction of the area needed by hydro or wind projects of comparable output. All of America's needs for electric power – the entire US grid, night and day – can be generated with Ausra's current technology using a square parcel of land 92 miles on a side. For comparison, this is less than 1% of America's deserts, less land than currently in use in the U.S. for coal mines."

from http://www.ausra.com

Concentrating photovoltaic power plants are viable for this also. They both use parabolic mirrors to focus sunlight. One converts light to electricity, the other uses the heat of the sun.

Answer 3

they are grants for multi billion dollar corporations get when they put a solar panel on there roof and justify p!ssing away millions of tons of our resources

Answer 4

thats when energy is subsidized