Ask yourself, why should the right wing be opposed to cleaner, cheaper electricity?

Why should the right wing be against electric cars when they will save us huge amounts of money and lower our national insecurities?

Shouldn’t fiscally conservative people who put national security high on their priority list be pushing for cheaper, locally made energy?

Seems to me it’s more about how the industries get jerked around with the uncertainty created by some members of Congress. It’s not the way one who cares about American business and American workers should do their job.
Fossil fuels clearly don’t need subsidies. They are massively profitable and mature industries.

Just set up a “ten” year plan. A the end of the term subsidies for all would be gone.

Leave room for subsidies for new emerging technologies such as tidal, wave, battery storage.

BUT, if you want clean energy to be on equal footing with fossil fuels and if you want climate change to be addressed, national-level GOPers are simply the last thing you should be supporting. They have demonstrated time and time again that they will keep or increase subsidies for over-mature energy industries and kill those for clean energy.

I have no political allegiance, but i do have an allegiance to doing everything i can to protect the human species (and over 50% of the species on this planet) from total collapse and extinction. And the fact of the matter is, current GOP leadership is wholeheartedly against this (due, without doubt, to its strong ties to fossil fuel industries).

And, to separate energy from policy & politics is just an irresponsible thing to do, in my opinion. Energy is very heavily influenced by policy and politics. And will be for as long as one can see. Helping to deliver the Dirty Energy Squad a loss is a key need for advancing clean energy and other cleantech.

If clean energy and dirty energy were actually on equal footing, i’d be all for letting society decide. But that’s simply not the case. Dirty energy has had over a century of government support that dwarfs clean energy support, and externalities alone dwarf clean energy support, yet one party has essentially signed a blood pact to do everything in their power to kill clean energy support. It’s sad.

I wish i never had to write a post on politics in my life. But that’s not the case if i want to do my job adequately.

Following the logic of your economics 101 such a deal would see resources flow into renewable energy and reduce the costs of dealing with the problems caused by fossil fuels (and nuclear power). 

There is little in your life in which the government and taxpayer money did not play a major creative role.

Start with the computer on which you type your claims, add in the internet, then the grid from which you get the power, then the railroads which haul the coal that supplies some of that electricity and the dams which supply some.  The list goes on….

The government, we the citizens, constantly help new business activity emerge.

Conservatives and libertarians need to take a long, hard look at the talking points they’ve been told to use.  Stopping government assistance to emerging industries helps only one group of people –  those in other countries.

If we stop supporting emerging industries we hurt America.

Can you wrap your head around that?

Healthcare and environment not included here are some examples of subsidies to those industries mentioned: Nuclear:to put hints in perspective according to Grist : ” $95 billion (in 2011 dollars) on nuclear energy R&D. That is more than four times the amount spent on solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, biofuels, and hydropower combined.”  http://grist.org/nuclear/stop-the-nuclear-industry-welfare-program/Coal: 17 billion in subsidies – credit to think progressCredit for Production of Nonconventional Fuels ($14,097)- IRC Section 45KCharacterizing Coal Royalty Payments as Capital Gains ($986) – IRC Section 631(c)Exclusion of Benefit Payments to Disabled Miners ($438) – 30 U.S.C. 922(c). Other-Fuel Excess of Percentage over Cost Depletion ($323)Credit for Clean Coal Investment ($186)Special Rules for Mining Reclamation Reserves ($159)84-month Amortization Period for Coal Pollution Control ($102)– IRC Section 169(d)(5)Expensing Advanced Mine Safety Equipment ($32) – IRC Section 179EBlack Lung Disability Trust Fund ($1,035)Oil: hundreds of billion (don’t have an exact figure)These subsidies are generally provided through our tax code but they are basically no different than govt spending programs that provide money directly. If you preferentially reduce taxes for big oil by giving them a much lower rate it adds a burden to other other businesses that are taxed at a much higher rate. The govt is still going to spend was it is committed to spending to run this country and that $$ has to come from somewhere. Oil was making record profits at $55 a barrel and got those tax incentive then. Why should they get them now when the price is  close to $90. “According to the most recent study by the Congressional Budget Office, released in 2005, capital investments like oil field leases and drilling equipment are taxed at an effective rate of 9 percent, significantly lower than the overall rate of 25 percent for businesses in general and lower than virtually any other industry.”

When we start to pick the winners, we also pick losers as they are the companies who got no subsidies but still need to compete with those who did. 

All that said, many of us would agree that the PTC has had some positive effects on the growth of the wind and solar industries.  We cheer the advance of alternatives displacing coal and, to a lesser extent gas and petroleum.  

The way I see it, when you attack conservatives / libertarians you drive those of us who value energy independence as well as fiscal responsibility to ally with oil companies instead of clean energy.  The blatant politics does you a disservice. 

The problem is not the support or lack of support for Clean energy.The problem is (and your post clearly proves it) that we talk about support or lack of support ***ONLY*** for Clean Energy.

Romney Would End Wind Energy Production Tax Credit [ but will keep all the tax breaks and support for nuclear and fossils. ]

You dont want support for clean energy yet not a word about the support for nuclear and fossils.

And YES – Clean Energy will eventually become competitive with subsidized nuclear and subsidized fossils who by the way have huge externalities. Even if USA cuts all the support for Clean Energy.

But it will take 10-15 year longer than EU, China, Japan etc. 

There are a lot of us who believe in smaller government AND clean energy.  Once this government has managed to destroy private sector initiative with high taxes and deficit spending there will be little left to invest in the clean energy that most of us do want.

You do an excellent job of finding and pointing out the success stories in in clean energy.  I believe that you are advancing the cause of clean energy in this way.  However, if you turn off your conservative or libertarian readers  with your pro-Obama bent you only harm that cause.