Wind-Energy Sector Gets $176 Billion Worth of Crony Capitalism
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That’s an astounding level of subsidy. In 2014 and 2015, according to the Energy Information Administration, during times of peak demand, the average wholesale price of electricity was about $50 per megawatt-hour. Last winter in Texas, peak wholesale electricity prices averaged $21 per megawatt hour. Thus, on the national level, wind-energy subsidies are worth nearly half the cost of wholesale power, and in the Texas market, those subsidies can actually exceed the wholesale price of electricity.
It was just few decades ago that the clean air act was enacted and they had to begin limiting certain emissions. And it wasn't until 1990 that they had to limit sulfur emissions. And in 2007 SCOTUS ruled that CO2 was a pollutant. But somehow Trump is going change some of these regulations. A power plant can emit 250 tons of Nox and 100 tons of sulfur yearly It looks like he intends to increase NOx.
But you are right about some of those subsidies for renewables although I wouldn't use those numbers that you used. The numbers used by the Tx govt are more accurate.
Plus those subsidies were temporary and now, here and in other parts of the world, they have begun to fall. The point of the subsidies was to achieve economies of scale.
But the pollution subsidies for fossil fuels go on for ever. They never end. And they are going to get worse because Trump is relaxing the standards.