{"id":6649,"date":"2016-05-10T07:40:02","date_gmt":"2016-05-10T07:40:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=6649"},"modified":"2016-05-10T07:40:02","modified_gmt":"2016-05-10T07:40:02","slug":"does-renewable-energy-need-subsidies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2016\/05\/10\/does-renewable-energy-need-subsidies\/","title":{"rendered":"Does renewable energy need subsidies?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This is a controversial issue as the UK government unwinds the subsidies available for the installation of renewable energy, although subsidies for coal (etc) remain in place. \u00a0A\u00a0new <a href=\"http:\/\/circulatenews.org\/2016\/04\/renewable-energy-and-subsidies\/\">Circulate<\/a> report explores the issue. \u00a0It begins:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\"The short answer to this important question is actually yes. \u00a0But perhaps not for the reasons that most suspect. Renewable energy sources are not technically or economically infeasible without government subsidies. \u00a0They need subsidies to be competitive because they are so unsubsidised compared to fossil fuel and nuclear power sources.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Studies recently conducted by the International Energy Agency have\u00a0revealed that fossil fuels benefits from governmental subsidies ten-fold more than renewable energy, and that is without taking into account the environmental clean-up costs associated with non-renewable energy production.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>An oil depletion allowance has been in-place for the industry since 1926, insurance costs for nuclear plants are covered by taxpayers worldwide, taxpayer funded rail networks have been vital to coal and in the U.S., gas fracking and drilling is exempt from being compliant with the safe water drinking act, effectively a huge subsidy. There really is no such thing as a non-subsidised unit of energy, and perhaps there needn\u2019t be. It is\u00a0a point of encouragement for the transition to an economy powered by renewable energy.\"<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>You can read more about this (with\u00a0good graphics) in an article from <em>Clean Technia<\/em>:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/cleantechnica.com\/2016\/02\/25\/the-myth-about-renewable-energy-subsidies\/\">The Myth About Renewable Energy Subsidies.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>This area reminds me of the Brexodus debate \u2013 lacking in hard facts. \u00a0I think this reports helps a bit, even though it's rather US-centric, and it should be useful for anyone teaching about this difficult area.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is a controversial issue as the UK government unwinds the subsidies available for the installation of renewable energy, although subsidies for coal (etc) remain in place. \u00a0A\u00a0new Circulate report explores the issue. \u00a0It begins: \"The short answer to this...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-news-and-updates"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6649\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}