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In February, the Obama administration announced its so-called Clean Energy Investment Initiative, a program that was seeking to generate $2 billion in commitments from the private sector to help spur clean energy innovation.
Just four months later, it seems, investors have willingly answered the call twice over amid rebounding interest in renewable energy.
The Obama administration said today that a collection of philanthropic groups, universities, and for-profit institutions have committed $4 billion to invest in clean energy. These are investments that might not fit in the average investor's portfolio. Instead, the money will fund things like solar, wind, and fuel cell technology, the type of potentially transformative innovation that all too often never sees the light of day because funding dries up.
Original Submission
(Score: 4, Interesting) by richtopia on Wednesday June 17 2015, @07:30PM
Being the armchair politician I am, the strategy should be to tax carbon sources. If the goal is to reduce carbon output, then tax carbon. Don't try to promote alternatives.
This would be the most free market strategy. We have identified a market externality (carbon emissions) and the government is trying to improve the population welfare. By increasing the cost of carbon sources, the free market will adapt; be it increase in efficiency of carbon usage, switch to alternative energy sources, or perhaps a change in culture that reduces demand for energy in the first place.
Added benefit: taxes are collected. Subsidies run out of money, and it is variability that really kills businesses. Having a subsidy for a few years just to be removed promotes strategies that game the system, and when the subsidies run out businesses may no longer be viable. What to do with the taxes upon collection is open to debate... but with all levels of government running a deficit I predict there is a use for the funds somewhere.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 17 2015, @11:34PM
Being the armchair politician I am, the strategy should be to tax carbon sources. If the goal is to reduce carbon output, then tax carbon. Don't try to promote alternatives.
Yay! Nuclear energy will trump all! As it should, if not for scaremongering troglodytes and fools who ignore pollution of battery production needed without said nuclear energy leveling things off.
If it's clean energy you want, you won't find a cleaner source than Nuclear... but that's an expensive growth area, and so existing energy companies advocate for government funding to expand into other less regulated higher profit areas, such as merely researching "Clean Tech".
I like your idea, it has a low probability of being duped, but the anti-nuclear propaganda will ensure it's no better of a plan than just letting energy companies do whatever they want (since that's what they are doing). Who do you think came up with the idea to hand them that grant money in the first place?
The real answer is to raise the cost of buying politicians such that the return on investment is less than innovation in an open market. Hell, if they openly wear their price tags, maybe the public can even buy a few instead of living in a pure plutocracy [economyincrisis.org] (as this Princeton study shows we are). So, remarkably, the answer is MORE GREED AND PAYOLA among politicians! This strategy is genius since it elegantly exploits the existing economic trends and pressures. What can possibly go wrong?!
(Score: 1) by Nesh on Thursday June 18 2015, @07:32AM
That's why fuel prices in europe are so much higher than in us, and that has been the case for decades.
While individual ICE are cleaner and leaner, this hasn't led to decreases in total emissions, on the contrary.
Traffic volumes just go up and up and up ..
Switches to alternative energy sources for transportation are still rare.
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Thursday June 18 2015, @02:52PM
I would argue that it is working; technology is catching up.
The major distinction is that Europe heavily taxes transportation fuel. This encourages more fuel efficient vehicles, or alternate energy vehicles. Both of these attributes are relatively popular in Europe compared to the USA. There is additionally more mass transit options - although mass transit beyond buses is a massive government undertaking that I would argue can only be started by a population lacking cars inherently - a different conversation.
Europe does pay more for electricity; however the nature of utilities does obscure my original argument, and I'm not particularly knowledgeable on Europe's electricity makeup. Off the top of my head I know France pulls a lot of power from nuclear power, while Germany for years lead the world in solar innovation (recently outpaced by China, and government subsidies are a large factor).