theprof00 said:
And what do you consider to be more deserving? |
Pretty much anything. I'd rather the government pay people to dig and refill ditches.
I think the problem is... your not really thinking this out. Which I will illustrate through some points the first few of which just about nobody could disagree with.
1) Logically, Green Energy is not a new product that creates new demand.
It's not like say... the Ipad, which if comes out and is something everybody wants. Green Energy is simply a form of Energy, and it pretty much completely just displaces demand for more traditional energy.
2) Therefore, establishing that Green Energy does not create demand, this leads to one of two possibilties. I'll let you decide which of these is true... though I suspect it's a combination of both.
A) Green Energy, and subsidies for it displace demand for regular energy. Therefore jobs in the regular energy sector invariably have to be lost... and there is no net economic gain because gains in green energy are offset by losses in other energy sources. Therefore, we are sacrificing money for no economic growth, in the name of stopping global warming.
B) Green Energy is serving excess demand. Therefore more green energy is being supplied and just as much hydrocarbons are being used, just elsewhere and with markets who normally couldn't access it due to being outbid by the bigger guys. Therefore we are spending excess money to create an expensive product, only for all those hydrocarbons to be used anyway, with no actual change in global warming, despite the claims that we are doing this for global warming.
(Fun Time article about B by the way. http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2112907,00.html)
3) Essentially this means one of two things.
A) Green Energy will only replace traditional energy with HUGE subsisides that would cost a crazy amount, unless we try and "run out the clock. and wait for it to be cheap" Either way, there will be no gain in jobs. As for jobs... keep in mind, this is assuming that making green equipment and running it is = to making unclean equipment, running it, and mining/drilling and preparing said products for work. Pretty clearly not the case. Hence why Green jobs cost dirty jobs.
B) Green Energy will continue to grow, and really SHOULD grow without subsidies since the demand is out there. However, Hydrocarbons will always be the first choice by someone until it's cheap... meaning hydrocarbons will be used anyway at max levels.
4) Say you are a solar plant operator. You get a solar subsididy to make your electricity as cheap as other forms of electricity. What benefit is there... in spending all kinds of money to make your plant more efficent and cheaper... when the end result will be the government lowering your subsididy the first chance it gets? Where is your benefit towards progress? Why wouldn't you instead of keep upgrading and losing money as your subsidies get cut too quickly and instead just keep the systems you have, save up some money for upgrading, and then just upgrade whenever the subsisides are about to disapear?
Subsisdies HURT progress by removing motivators for improvement.
That's not even counting the risk of subsidies needing to be taken away in the future due to budget constraints, leading to HUGE collapses.... which if
A) Is true, you no longer have proper infrastructure for traditional fuel, leading to energy costing WAY more and hurting economic growt quite a bit.
B) Raise prices because there has been more access to energy, leading to growth in other places leading to more competition for said energy.
