Solar is now "the cheapest electricity in history", confirms the IEA

[brenthutch 383]

4 hours ago, billvon said:

If SpaceX is so cheap, why did we need the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs?  Or the Space Shuttle? 
If trucking and driving are the best ways to move people and things, why did we need the US Interstate program?
If the Internet is so great, and so much commerce moves over it, why did we need the government to develop it?

?? They needed billions in subsidies.  The first tax break for oil drilling companies came in 1916.  If kerosene was so great, why did oil companies needed subsidies?

 

Kerosene overtook whale oil in 1870. No government program or subsidies needed.  The subsidies began when politicians realized they could tap into the cash cow of the petroleum industry.  
It’s worth noting the oil and gas industry contributes more than $35 BILLION to federal coffers via gas tax alone, making five billion seem a paltry sum.

[SkyDekker 1,119]

38 minutes ago, brenthutch said:

Kerosene overtook whale oil in 1870. No government program or subsidies needed.

And why did kerosene take over and not camphine?

Edited April 6, 2021 by SkyDekker

[billvon 2,379]

1 hour ago, brenthutch said:

What massive infrastructure is required to connect rooftop solar panels to a battery in the garage?

What massive infrastructure is required to drive your car from your barn to your fields?

Again, if we only had you to tell Eisenhower that interstates were a huge socialist waste of money, since no one needs them to be able to drive their car from their barn to their field.  (Other than useless entitled takers, of course.)

[brenthutch 383]

26 minutes ago, SkyDekker said:

And why did kerosene take over and not camphine?

Kerosene is less dangerous 

[brenthutch 383]

3 minutes ago, billvon said:

What massive infrastructure is required to drive your car from your barn to your fields?

Answer my question.  What massive infrastructure is required to connect rooftop solar to a battery in one’s garage?

[olofscience 420]

I think there's some thread drift here, the original article isn't talking about residential rooftop solar, but rather larger solar installations where you can get economies of scale.

[billvon 2,379]

45 minutes ago, brenthutch said:

Answer my question.  What massive infrastructure is required to connect rooftop solar to a battery in one’s garage?

As soon as you answer mine.  You have given justification for not spending any money if the homeowner can do it himself.  A homeowner can install his own battery and solar system; a homeowner can build his own road from his barn to his field. 

If this is causing you cognitive dissonance because you want road spending but not renewable infrastructure spending, then perhaps think on why you are feeling that dissonance.

If you are not feeling any dissonance it should be easy to answer my question.  But I suspect you're unable to.

[SkyDekker 1,119]

1 hour ago, brenthutch said:

Kerosene is less dangerous 

And the difference in taxation between kerosene and camphine has nothing to do with it? Both cost roughly $0.50 per gallon. Then the government levied taxes: $0.10 per gallon on kerosene and $2.00 per gallon on camphine.

You want us to believe that had no impact? Up until that taxation came into play, camphine was actually more widely used than kerosene.

Edited April 6, 2021 by SkyDekker

[brenthutch 383]

28 minutes ago, billvon said:

As soon as you answer mine.  You have given justification for not spending any money if the homeowner can do it himself.  A homeowner can install his own battery and solar system; a homeowner can build his own road from his barn to his field. 

If this is causing you cognitive dissonance because you want road spending but not renewable infrastructure spending, then perhaps think on why you are feeling that dissonance.

If you are not feeling any dissonance it should be easy to answer my question.  But I suspect you're unable to.

I just want to make sure of the point you are making.  Are you really comparing a few feet of wiring to the interstate highway system?

[brenthutch 383]

49 minutes ago, SkyDekker said:

And the difference in taxation between kerosene and camphine has nothing to do with it? Both cost roughly $0.50 per gallon. Then the government levied taxes: $0.10 per gallon on kerosene and $2.00 per gallon on camphine.

You want us to believe that had no impact? Up until that taxation came into play, camphine was actually more widely used than kerosene.

“The flammability of burning fluid posed a hazard. Spillage could start a fire. In 1853, Scientific American reported thirty-three deaths from burning fluid lamps the previous year. The most significant incident was the St. Louis Theater fire on June 12, 1846, in Quebec City, Canada. The fire began when someone knocked over a burning fluid lamp; 45 people died.”

And nobody taxed camphine the government taxed liquor.

Edited April 7, 2021 by brenthutch

[SkyDekker 1,119]

5 minutes ago, brenthutch said:

And nobody taxed camphine the government taxed liquor.

The government taxed alcohol, one of the main ingredients of camphine.

What really happened in history is, unlike what you think you have learned from right wing meme education, is that camphine took over from whale oil, since whale oil was getting too short in supply and too expensive.

Then kerosene came onto the market and the government decided to tax camphine ingredients much higher than kerosene ingredients, thus deciding the winner between the two and starting the longstanding tradition of "subsidizing" the fossil fuel industry.

Didn't you wonder why your right wing memes compare kersone to whale oil and never mentioned camphine? Never wondered why the twitter memes never mentioned camphine was much more widely used as a whale oil replacement until the difference in taxation happened?

[brenthutch 383]

19 minutes ago, SkyDekker said:

The government taxed alcohol, one of the main ingredients of camphine.

What really happened in history is, unlike what you think you have learned from right wing meme education, is that camphine took over from whale oil, since whale oil was getting too short in supply and too expensive.

Then kerosene came onto the market and the government decided to tax camphine ingredients much higher than kerosene ingredients, thus deciding the winner between the two and starting the longstanding tradition of "subsidizing" the fossil fuel industry.

Didn't you wonder why your right wing memes compare kersone to whale oil and never mentioned camphine? Never wondered why the twitter memes never mentioned camphine was much more widely used as a whale oil replacement until the difference in taxation happened?

Camphine faced the same constraints as whale oil as it required the destruction of a living entity for its production.  Besides kerosene overtook camphine long before the booze tax. Not to mention camphine lacked the economies of scale that kerosene offered. Simple economics.

Edited April 7, 2021 by brenthutch

[SkyDekker 1,119]

12 minutes ago, brenthutch said:

 Besides kerosene overtook camphine long before the booze tax.

In 1850 the US produced 200 million gallons of camphine annually. Kerosene didn't hit the 200 million gallon annual production mark until 1870. Taxation started in 1864.

As usual you are just making shit up. Maybe you can ask Zoe to come and help you out again?

Edited April 7, 2021 by SkyDekker

[brenthutch 383]

11 minutes ago, SkyDekker said:

In 1850 the US produced 200 million gallons of camphine annually. Kerosene didn't hit the 200 million gallon annual production mark until 1870. Taxation started in 1864.

As usual you are just making shit up. Maybe you can ask Zoe to come and help you out again?

Why was ethanol taxed? Why do politicians favor fossil fuels? Why didn’t the government tax kerosene instead of ethanol?  If they are a net drag on the economy why do they still get subsidies?  
 

 

“Coal oil was discovered in 1846; kerosene became available from petroleum after 1858. Kerosene was the fuel of choice until gas lighting or electric lights became available. As measured by flashpoint, kerosene is much less flammable (fp 150-185 deg F, vs 95 for turpentine, and 55 for grain alcohol).”

Edited April 7, 2021 by brenthutch

[JoeWeber 2,294]

9 minutes ago, brenthutch said:

Camphine faced the same constraints as whale oil as it required the destruction of a living entity for its production.

You can be a real howl sometimes. You slam Bill for "comparing a few feet of wiring to the interstate highway system" and then with your next key stroke equate the slaughter of intelligent mammals with tree oil. 

[brenthutch 383]

18 minutes ago, JoeWeber said:

You can be a real howl sometimes. You slam Bill for "comparing a few feet of wiring to the interstate highway system" and then with your next key stroke equate the slaughter of intelligent mammals with tree oil. 

Come on Joe, I never said anything about intelligent mammals.  The question stands, why tax ethanol and not kerosene?  Especially if camphine was the dominant fuel for illumination.

[JoeWeber 2,294]

2 minutes ago, brenthutch said:

Come on Joe, I never said anything about intelligent mammals.  The question stands, why tax ethanol and not kerosene?  Especially if camphine was the dominant fuel for illumination.

You can work out where whale oil comes from, right?

[brenthutch 383]

1 minute ago, JoeWeber said:

You can work out where whale oil comes from, right?

It was a discussion about the comparison between camphine and Kerosene as whale oil was already being replaced by the two.

[billvon 2,379]

2 hours ago, brenthutch said:

I just want to make sure of the point you are making.  Are you really comparing a few feet of wiring to the interstate highway system?

I knew you wouldn't be able to answer it.

This is causing you a lot of dissonance.  You can deal with that one of two ways:

1) Denial.  Start in with the one liners, do your usual trolling, hope the topic goes away.  That way you don't have to think, which can be painful for someone who has their opinions delivered to them through the media.

2) Consideration.  Think about why you slam one form of infrastructure subsidy but support the other kind 100%.  (Hint - one benefits you, one doesn't - right now.)

Right now you are going with option 1).  I have no illusions that you are better than that, but there's always hope.

[brenthutch 383]

10 hours ago, billvon said:

I knew you wouldn't be able to answer it.

This is causing you a lot of dissonance.  You can deal with that one of two ways:

1) Denial.  Start in with the one liners, do your usual trolling, hope the topic goes away.  That way you don't have to think, which can be painful for someone who has their opinions delivered to them through the media.

2) Consideration.  Think about why you slam one form of infrastructure subsidy but support the other kind 100%.  (Hint - one benefits you, one doesn't - right now.)

Right now you are going with option 1).  I have no illusions that you are better than that, but there's always hope.

Answer what?  If solar is viable it won’t need subsidies anymore than the petroleum industry did at its inception.  The IEA says solar is the cheapest, if that is true the market will take care of the rest.  

[Phil1111 901]

11 minutes ago, brenthutch said:

Answer what?  If solar is viable it won’t need subsidies anymore than the petroleum industry did at its inception.  The IEA says solar is the cheapest, if that is true the market will take care of the rest.  

How about the current budget of $16 BILLION to clean up abandoned oil wells: " When more than a quarter trillion is actually needed.

Biden said last week he wants to put pipefitters and miners to work capping the wells “at the same price that they would charge to dig those wells.″

Many of the old wells and mines are located in rural communities that have been hard-hit by the pandemic. Biden’s plan would not only create jobs, but help reduce methane and brine leaks that pollute the air and groundwater. Methane is a powerful contributor to global warming."

Which of course is a drop in the barrel so to speak: A potential $280bn taxpayer bill for plugging abandoned US oil wells 

The huge cost of plugging abandoned onshore oil and gas wells across the US could be passed on to taxpayers, due to insufficient financial mechanisms in place to cover operator defaults.

At a time when bankruptcies across the US shale patch are multiplying – with firms under pressure from a pandemic-induced price crunch and an accelerating clean-energy transition – UK-based think tank Carbon Tracker estimates this payment risk to be as high as $280bn.

In a report, the organisation finds the “surety bonds” oil and gas companies are required to obtain to cover end-of-life obligations for their wells currently account for only 1% of overall closure costs – meaning that if an operator were to go bust, a massive excess on the bill would need to be paid."

That $280 billion would buy 7.4 million Tesla cars for Americans.Instead it needs to bail out a filthy industry.

[wolfriverjoe 1,339]

12 minutes ago, Phil1111 said:

...That $280 billion would buy 7.4 million Tesla cars for Americans. Instead it needs to bail out a filthy industry.

It's not really a 'bailout'.

It's cleaning up the mess they left behind...

After making all the money.

This is true of LOTS of mining/drilling companies.
There are toxic sites all over the west.

Mining companies used viciously toxic methods to extract minerals. 
Then just walked away from the mess.

 

A quick search found this:

https://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2019/0220/Toxic-water-US-abandoned-mines-leak-millions-of-gallons-daily

 

It mentions the Colorado Gold King mine spill from 2015. 
I seem to remember there were folks who wanted to blame the EPA for the mess. Of course, they were trying to clean up a huge toxic waste dump and ended up spilling a bunch of it. 
Those who wanted to blame the EPA conveniently ignored the mine owners, who had created the mess, and then just left it there.

[billvon 2,379]

2 hours ago, brenthutch said:

Answer what?  

"What massive infrastructure is required to drive your car from your barn to your fields?"

[JoeWeber 2,294]

13 hours ago, brenthutch said:

It was a discussion about the comparison between camphine and Kerosene as whale oil was already being replaced by the two.

Camphine requires Camphor oil. As such by stating "Camphine faced the same constraints as whale oil as it required the destruction of a living entity for its production" you directly equated the destruction of whales with the collection of tree sap. To my sappy liberal mind they are very different things. No matter, I actually think your argument is somewhat right. I'm not sure it's a very clever thing to require, or even allow, power companies to buy excess solar from retail consumers. Let individuals put together whatever stand alone solar systems they desire. If the cost of all of the batteries, inverters etc. necessary to not need grid access makes economic or any other sense on an individual level that's fantastic. For everyone else there are public utilities and interstate highways.

[SkyDekker 1,119]

15 hours ago, brenthutch said:

Why was ethanol taxed?

To pay for the civil war. But the why isn't the important part here. You are arguing that kerosene won out on pure market economics without government influence. Camphine and the taxation on ethanol shows that is simply not the case. Government influence certainly effected the outcome. Whether that was the desired outcome, or a side-effect is not important to refute your "market forces" only argument.