The state of Maryland is trying to help. They passed a law that directly forces the electric company, with conditions, to pay homeowners for the electric that the homeowners send into the grid from a wind powered generator or other source.

That can be over $10,000 per year.

See: http://www.reasonablepower.com/1/MD_Net_Energy_Metering_2011.htm

What is your state doing to help the environment?

Otherwise, was all party-line.

I fear that what we would see if the “oil subsidies” were eliminated it would be a short term problem but a long term benefit for consumers. A mixed blessing to be sure.

I suspect that prices at the pump would rise dramatically in short order (reflecting the true cost of oil). There would be screaming and finger pointing. These oil giants would simply refuse to “loose profits”. They would simply pass the cost to consumers while finding some scapegoat to blame.

In the longer run it would show the cost of renewables to be the bargain that they are thus giving impetus to investing in them (renewables). I think that this is the reason why the Senate won’t do the right thing and listen to their constituents. They will protect both the long and short term interests of the people who buy their votes. Of course, at the expense of all of us. What’s really maddening is that they just might delay the day that fossil oil dies as our “go to” liquid fuel long enough for the damage to the ecosystem to be unrepairable. Civilization hangs in the balance and these frauds have their hand on the tiller. Scares me to death.

Take a look at the computer industry and the number of start-ups which did not survive. You have no faith in computers?

Like Zach suggests, improve your information sources. There are people who really don’t want renewable energy to replace their fossil fuel interests and they’ll say just about anything to muddy the water….

The sky isn’t falling, but we are fast-approaching a level of climate change that will put things out of our hands, if we haven’t already, and we are already seeing record disasters that cause billions of dollars in destruction and who knows how many deaths. We need to get on it and off the fossil fuel crackpipe.

Infrastructure building/RnD for the nation is different. But I think a lot of this money is not being spent wisely. Typical idiotic government.

If a company cannot survive without ongoing subsidies then it is not viable. If you’re talking about individual companies, a fair few are going bankrupt and taking a crap load of tax dollars with them and I think it is a mix of they are not viable yet – and crooks trying to get at that taxpayer funded cheque book. Just because somebody gets involved in green tech does not make them an angel.

I still do think when cleaner energy becomes more efficient, the market will naturally shift in that direction because it will be forced – and the sky is not falling down so we have the time. There are some fear mongers out there like – Prince Charles who say ridiculous things like we have 6 months – It is just as bad as Republicans who want to teach intelligent design.

Some advances in battery tech may go a long way too. When I said 500,000 I wasn’t talking about green energy bills in particular and it was an exaggeration, but there are many bills that are so huge no congressmen could read them. Which is ridiculous.

Solar and wind are very viable in many places. But they still deserve more subsidies and the market still needs to be balanced out/corrected.

If you are concerned about individual company failures, you are just not looking at or aware of the bigger picture. But that’s how the corporate media and fossil fuel trolls across the internet would like you to be.

Additionally, dirty energy has received its subsidies. There is no equal footing or balanced free market until that is corrected. In this case, two ‘negatives’ make a ‘positive’ — simple math.

I’m not discussing Boeing here, I’m discussing clean energy.

Health costs of dirty energy range are in the hundreds of billions of http://cleantechnica.com/2012/04/02/costs-of-clean-energy-fossil-fuels/dollars(). This is only health costs/externalities. There are also grid costs and national security costs not addressed in those studies.

There are just a few important clean energy subsidies. They do not total 500,000 pages. As for other regulations and subsidies, I think they should be looked at carefully, and I’m not an expert in every arena, so I won’t weigh in.

I agree, there is way too much corporate influence of politics and policies. This is why oil subsidies in place for generations continue and clean energy subsidies to balance out the market are killed or constantly
threatened. The whole system needs fixed, but until that happens, I will
fight for proper policies (while also fighting for a systemic fix).

Believe me, I think many Democrat politicians are also corrupt and do not
serve the country. But on this important matter of clean energy, they
follow a party line more or less, and that is all I’m addressing here.

Our system is almost completely bought, and that needs addressed as much as
anything — completely agree.

What about religious tolerance? What about the future or your Country? The war is over NRA, big business won because. the pen is more powerful than that AK-47 you own. Go figure.