Vice-President Gore specifically mentions a carbon tax instead of a BTU tax. A carbon tax won't shift additional taxes to nuclear power....a BTU tax on non-renewable energy sources would. I won't hold this against him (much).
From Nobelprize.org, Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) won -
"for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change"
Good for Al. After his BTU tax fiasco, he has realized that the problem is green house gases and climate change, not energy use. A tax shift to CO2 and other green house gases (including N2O) would deal with the real problem, not simply cater to the prejudices of some self-styled "environmentalists" who confuse "renewable" with "good". Reply to this
Greetings. The failed Clinton/Gore BTU tax......should have been a tax SHIFT. It may then have been enacted and we'd be way better off now.
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The big problems are global warming (P.S. - not "climate change"), U.S. dependence on foreign energy (world "peak oil" is closely related); the U.S. trade deficit, and air pollution.
The best solution: a phased-in, federal tax shift from income to non-renewable energy sources. Non-renewable because energy sources such as fossil fuels and nuclear power are not paying their external costs.
For fossil fuels an example of an external cost not being paid for is global warming. For nuclear power, examples of external costs not being paid for are the costs of long-term storage of nuclear waste:
- Yucca Mountain (if it ever opens) will be filled to capacity by 2014. Even though there is a Nuclear Waste Fund, where is the waste generated after 2014 going to be stored long-term? At what cost? (see Solve4Biggies It's time to stop the madness-->
"Another reason to not build more plants - the experts say Yucca (if it's ever built) will be full with JUST the waste generated by 2014. (Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!! - (primal scream)); how can some even be THINKING of building more. Let's be adults people. 'The NWPA limits the capacity of the proposed Yucca Mountain repository to 63,000 MT of initial heavy metal in commercial spent fuel.5 The 103 U.S. commercial reactors currently operating will produce this quantity of spent fuel by 2014.'")
- What about transportation costs to get all of the high-level nuclear waste around the country to Yucca? Is this factored in? No.
Nuclear power had it's opportunity to prove itself - with obscene subsidies (Between 1948 and 1998, more than $66 billion was spent on nuclear energy research and subsidies. ) ...... It's not economical.
I'm pro-federal tax shift....not anti-nuclear. Let's stop the subsidies, enact a federal tax shift to begin the process of all of us paying for the externalities and take it from there. More Solve4Biggies entries on why nuclear power is a bad idea:
You claim that the feds have spent 66 billion dollars on subsidies to nuclear power? That is about twice what they have collected from the nuclear industry for disposal of the "waste"; that is, the valuable fuel contained in those "spent" fuel rods.
OK so maybe they should double the charge for collecting and disposing of that nuclear "waste" (that they don't actually collect or dispose of). That would still leave nuclear electricity cheaper than coal or natural gas, even with no charge for the CO2 emitted.
But since no new nuclear plants have been built or even started for the last 30 years, where has that subsidy gone? On research? Is money spent on solar or wind research also a subsidy to those energy forms. And what of the tax break for ethanol?
Is money spent on nuclear fusion research also a subsidy? Should the government spend ANY money on research into possible new energy sources? Reply to this
The fact "that they don't actually collect or dispose of" is EXACTLY the problem. Why don't they? Since the waste has not been stored in a way the will make it safe for 100,000 years.....then you (nor the nuclear energy industry) knows what it costs. You (and the nuclear energy industry) don't know whether this fee needs to be doubled or increased by a factor of 50 to ensure safe long-term storage. So.....there's really no argument you're making about doubling or whatever....until there is a proven site (now sites because Yucca will be filled by 2014), proven storage techniques and an accepted way to transport this dangerous stuff.
So....lets phase-in a tax shift from income to non-renewable energy in the form of a BTU tax and START recognizing (by actually paying for it) the exorbitant external costs of non-renewable energy sources like fossil fuels and nuclear power.
The subsidies on renewable energy have been a fraction of those of non-renewable energy -
Compared with renewables, nuclear and fossil fuel technologies enjoy a considerable advantage in government subsidies for research and development. [6]
A 1980 Pacific Northwest Laboratory report found that, of $516 billion spent on energy subsidies through 1978, 50 percent had gone to oil, 25 percent to electricity, and 25 percent to nuclear, hydro, gas, and coal. [7]
For fiscal year 1996, Congress appropriated $422 million for fossil fuels, $227 million for nuclear fusion, $252 million for nuclear fission, $400 million for nuclear waste (only half of which is paid for by nuclear waste fees on generators), but only $273 million for all renewable energy technologies combined. [9]
In addition to receiving subsidies for research and development, conventional generating technologies have a lower tax burden. Fuel expenditures can be deducted from taxable income, but few renewables benefit from this deduction, since most do not use market-supplied fuels. Income and property taxes are higher for renewables, which require large capital investments but have low fuel and operating expenses. A 1996 study by Resources for the Future found that the total tax burden of natural gas facilities is only 0.507¢/kWh (in 1993 dollars), compared with 1.521¢/kWh for biomass generators. [10] Even if the renewable energy production tax credit were counted (no biomass plants had qualified as of 1998), the tax burden would be over 50 percent higher than for a natural gas plant. [11] The tax burden for wind energy is approximately as high as for biomass. [12]
There's more in the UCS article....
Yes, the money spent on nuclear fusion research is also a subsidy.
My question: what have we gotten, what do we have NOW for this HUGE investment??
It's time for a federal tax shift and it's renewable energy's "turn."
