The climate denialists in the Coalition has a simple message about the carbon price:

It’s a tax.

Taxes raise prices.

Prices on electricity, fuel and other things therefore will go up.

What about the alternative? The problem for progressives is that our arguments are nuanced. We don’t necessarily see the world in Manichean absolutes, black and white, good and evil.

It's not rocket science.

Electricity prices without a carbon price will continue to rise. Doesn’t really make intuitive sense, but that’s without knowing that degrading energy infrastructure pushes up prices. We haven’t had a carbon price in the last three years (or really, at all) yet elecricity prices have continued to go up – because of the old power lines, substations and other infrastructure.

Energy produced from non-renewable sources cost more than renewables because you need to continually mine coal (or gas or uranium).

Once you build the wind farm or soal plant, you don’t need to pay for the fuel.

The wind and sun are free, so there are almost no ongoing cost.

A carbon price will lead to lower energy prices… because it will mean we use more wind, solar and geothermal energy that don’t have expensive fuel costs.

Whatever our message, we on the progressive side of politics need to significantly simplify our key message about the carbon price and renewables.

Related posts:

1. Gas should be included in carbon price
2. Exchange rate movements had bigger impact than a carbon price
3. Assessment of the “Clean Energy Future” policy

Another report from the New York Times tells how in the US, most government subsidies for energy research goes to polluting fossil fuels and unsafe nuclear energy:

Despite a lot of promises, no one so far has wanted to pay the extra costs to make wind and solar more than a trivial energy source. Research is uncertain and expensive, and the benefits seem far away.

So while all kinds of domestic energy technologies are being advanced in the name of energy independence, most of the money and attention are still focused on the dirty but cheaper standbys: offshore oil, oil sands and coal, in all its various incarnations, from straight out of the pit to black-coal liquid.

“You have fossil fuels competing with renewable fuels,” said Benjamin Kroposki, a senior scientist at the Renewable Energy Laboratory. “Renewables lose every time.”

One example is the shotgun approach to tax incentives, loan guarantees and other spending in the 2005 energy act, the first major energy legislation enacted by Congress in a decade: $13.1 billion for oil, gas and coal, $12 billion for nuclear energy and $7.7 billion divided up among a wide assortment of renewables like ethanol, hydroelectric, wind and solar.

Now that they are in control of Congress, Democrats have promised to increase the amount going to renewable energy sources, taking the money from tax breaks for oil companies.

But even additional money for renewable energy will be going up against government tax policies that encourage more energy consumption. Companies can still deduct purchases of sport utility vehicles and utility bills, for example, while consumers get a break to build bigger homes with deductions for interest payments on mortgages, even on second homes, that far outweigh their energy saving credits.

Meanwhile, fuel efficiency standards for automobiles have changed only slightly over the decades, and the federal government still does not have a building code to encourage energy efficiency.

The graphic (from NYT) shows that fossil fuels are projected to rise significantly, while renewables remain well below the levels the world (and the US) need to reach by 2020 and 2030.

(Via Sean Kidney.)

Related posts:

1. 100% renewable energy in Australia by 2020
2. The nuclear energy spectre
3. This election, $9 billion in renewable energy is at stake

The New York Times reports that money is being funneled to dangerous nuclear energy over safe, clean and unlimited solar and wind energy projects:

Scientists are hoping to expand the range of sunlight’s wavelengths that can be absorbed, and to cut the amount of energy the cells lose to heat. One goal is to make materials to force photons to ricochet around inside the silicon to give up more of their energy.

For decades, conventional nuclear power and nuclear fusion received dominant shares of government energy-research money. While venture capitalists often support the commercialization of new technologies, basic research money comes almost entirely from the federal government.

These days, a growing amount of government money is headed to the farm-state favorite, biofuels, and to research on burning coal while capturing the resulting carbon dioxide, the main heat-trapping smokestack gas.

(Via Sean Kidney.)

Related posts:

1. The nuclear energy spectre
2. Most subsidies still go to dirty, polluting fossil fuels
3. Japanese nuclear emergency now catastrophic