Renewable Energy Mandates and Subsidies

From ClimateWiki

Global warming advocates often argue for the use of energy mandates claiming that they, "promote sensible energy policies which protect against price increases, meet future energy needs reliably, protect the environment, and diversify the supply of energy resources."

However in reality, it is argued that energy mandates and subsidies are anything but positive policies for the average American consumer.

According to Bill Peacock of the Texas Public Policy Foundation,

"Mandates disrupt the market, distort prices and allocation of resources and make production less efficient and more costly. Renewable energy advocates claim that mandates offer 'protection against rising fuel prices,' yet even today, with high energy prices, consumers pay more for choosing renewable energy. When is the protection going to benefit consumers?"

Additionally, Peacock relayed that at the federal and state level, renewable energy is subsidized:

There has been "$2.7 billion in federal production tax credits and $4,700 in federal research expenditures per thousand kWh of wind energy produced vs. 5 cents for nuclear and coal" as far as federal subsidies are concerned, and, at the state level, "for an increase to 12,280 megawatts, it's $480 million annually for transmission lines, $150 million annually for backup generation, and $370 million annually for renewable energy."

Therefore, Peacock asks vital questions average Americans ask as well:

If renewable energy is less expensive...

Why does it cost more?

Why does it need to be subsidized?

Why don’t more consumers choose it?

Why don’t more companies invest in it without demanding mandates and subsidies?

And the answer, according to Peacock, is that renewable energy simply lacks the reliability, it is dependent upon geographic location where some sources of renewable energy are minimal to inexistent, and it can be environmentally challenged.

Rather, investment should be directed toward generating drilling techniques that allow for extraction of new supplies of oil and natural gas, as well as maintaining focus on nuclear power.

References

http://www.texaspolicy.com/pdf/Peacock%20Renewable%20Presentation.pdf