Fossil fuel lobby dollars return as subsidies
Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute advocates changing lightbulbs to compact fluorescent and implementing design changes in current architectural models as a partial, and incremental, solution to the energy fix we’re in. He does not yet realize the potential of the cold fusion future.
However, he has provided a valuable service in exposing the fossil fuels lobbying efforts that help to mold policy away from conventional alternative energies, not to mentions clean cold fusion energy. Mr. Brown’s recent analysis of International Energy Agency data revealed that worldwide, “direct fossil fuel subsidies added up to roughly $500 billion in 2010.”
The IEA’s World Energy Outlook Executive Summary released last November stated “Subsidies that encourage wasteful consumption of fossil fuels jumped to over $400 billion.” And additional $100 billion is funneled to the production-side.
Why all the subsidies when demand is so high?
According to The Center for Responsive Politics‘ website Open Secrets, oil, gas and electric utilities in the US spent $2.3 billion lobbying their government legislators to support their industry since 1998.
The top US spenders on lobbying government legislators for support of industry-friendly policy actions include these companies:
| Company | US$ spent lobbying government |
| General Electric | $257,590,000 |
| Exon Mobile | $166,722,742 |
| Edison Electric Institute | $156,585,999 |
| General Motors | $123,679,170 |
| PG&E | $119,580,000 |
| Data from Center for Responsive Politics |
And what does that lobbying get?
Legislation favorable to the industry, and subsidies.
Altogether, worldwide governments gave an average $1.5 billion US a day subsidizing fossil fuel industries. And scrapping fossil fuel subsidies would “avoid 2.56 gigatons of carbon-dioxide per year by 2035 – that “could provide almost half of the extra cuts the world needs to stay within its carbon budget” as reported by the Washington Post.
Conventional alternative energy, whose financial lobbying is puny compared to fossil fuel industry, is increasing its support for Washington DC politics. In response, the World Energy Outlook claims “The share of non-hydro renewables in power generation increases from 3% in 2009 to 15% in 2035, underpinned by annual subsidies to renewables that rise almost five-times to $180 billion.”
In an early Ca$h Flow interview with James Martinez, David J. Nagel described a 5-year program to fund cold fusion research; starting at $20 million a year, and ramping up to $40 million annually, a pittance compared to the subsidies for fossil fuels.
An average of $30 million a year for five years to bring cold fusion research to the next phase, and more importantly, as Professor Nagel describes, bring a young group of scientists into this field of research to continue to innovate and drive the next-generation energy for our planet.
The IEA has not taken into a account the new energy technology based on cold fusion, and therefore, their forecast is lacking.
What is not lacking is the scenario of dire consequences should we continue to fund dangerous energy choices, and ignore the solution of ultra-clean and abundant cold fusion energy.
Cold Fusion Now!
Related Links
World Energy Outlook 2011 International Energy Agency home
An update of the G20 Pittsburgh and Toronto Commitments: A new report Joint report by IEA, OPEC, OECD and World Bank on fossil-fuel and other energy subsidies from www.oecd.org
Governments Spend $1.4 Billion Per Day to Destabilize Climate: WEO Data Highlights by Lester R. Brown Earth Policy Institute
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Warm regards and electrifying anticipation.
Will Obama make a statement about ecat soon? I think so, two Republican politicians have and a couple of us have been informing the Democratic election committees of this, NFE (nearly free energy) may be an important board in anyones political platform; especially once the “cat” is out of the bag and in the marketplace. Oil lobby dollars won’t get you elected in the face of NFE.
It all comes down to a matter of timing. Can Cold Fusion replace Fossil fuel at the same rate that FF disappears?
There are still significant problems to solve. Can we get Rossi’s NiH to operate at the required 400C necessary for efficient steam engines? Can we get it to run reliably without any energy input?
What about the lag time from bench top to market?
Now that the genie has been let out of the test tube, are there other CANR exothermic nuclear reactions waiting to be discovered? Without a decent theory we are shooting in the dark when it comes to predicting possible avenues of investigation.
The Widom Larson theory has to have some large rocks thrown at it to see how robust it is. Let us hope that the authors of the theory will provide us with the ammunition. This would be a test of their integrity as scientists.
I believe that intrinsic fear and the desire to make a significant contribution to our predicament is a powerful combination. Although a dollar or two might not go astray, it would have to come with complete lack of strings. The last thing we need is for the bean counters to be picking winners. They are timorous by nature, and nothing we know of now will save us. We need people whose egos are robust enough to go out on a limb and be proved wrong a hundred times or more. Success will come from repeated failure.
If we fail then it i a case of the devil take the hindmost.Things will get pretty snarly during the transition to a lower population base.
I believe that the transition is upon us now.
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I think the Solyndra scandal shows clearly that even massive government subsidies can’t keep losing businesses afloat in the face of economic reality. LENR is a highly disruptive energy technology because it is much much less expensive than fossil fuel. When LENR becomes widespread, government subsidies to fossil fuel companies will be like putting water into a bucket with a big hole in the bottom, regardless of how badly politicians want to support their dying mega-campaign donors. Good luck trying to protect their dying industries by stifling LENR, because that will just put their constituents at a significant disadvantage in terms of energy cost (like the US placing a big import tax on Chinese solar panels so as to keep Solyndra afloat – nonviable politically).
No, large fossil fuel lobbying and campaign donations will predictably have little effect in turning the tide on the coming LENR wave.