Any change over of a technology costs.
If green energy was the norm and the world or countries were changing to fossil fuels the government would help with grants to build the infranstructure. That cost is going to b higher than any existing subsidies or grants being given to the existing system to help with the initial hurt. The infrastructure of building enough fuel stations close together for a FF, (fossil fuel), vehicle to get to, without it running out between stations to encourage the purchase of more FF cars whose manufactures are receiving subsidies
That is a given and how the system works for an emerging energy source in transmission
The question about giving subsidies to GE, (green energies), companies if they are not paying for themselves is addessd for the most part in the above scenario
That question can b turned around.....Why are fossil fuel companies getting tax breaks, and subsidies and financial support. These companies have been operating for 100 years. If they still need finantual help there is something wrong, they are making record profits from year to year.
Here is what poped up with AI search when I did a general search asking on the costs to each energy source. Both fossil fuels and Nuclear.
Used the AI search answers. Most other source of answers could b misconscrewed as political
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Of all the above, there is only one actual grant mentioned (and I don't agree they should get those grants).
Everything else are breaks of some sort (that's not giving money, it's taking less money than the government felt it should be entitled to).
Whereas most of those are actual grants.
Now, to be honest, few, if any, of the tax breaks any company gets should be there as there are few legitimate taxes levied on industry at all. The whole tax scheme is there not for revenue, but for leverage. Do as we say and we'll give you a tax break. Grease our palms in the right way and we'll give you a bigger tax break. The whole scheme is disgusting and self corrupting.
Both Solar and Oil create hazardous pollution. Solar in the building of the panels, the installation (covering large fields, necessitating serious environmental disruption, etc.), and oil with the refining process more than any other step. Oil, however, has a lot more uses. Less than half of the output of a barrel of oil is gasoline. Oil is used for everything from medicines to the plastics in the computers were using to have this discussion. Cutting fuel use is good for the environment, but it isn't going to significantly impact the need for oil.
Round figures.
If a car is twice as economical today @$4 pg, than it was @$3pg ( inflation adjusted), that makes it a third cheaper.
Watched an interesting vid on US oil production. The us imports just about all its crude oil to b refuned for domestic use.
It exports most of its crude oil because it's refineries are not designed for the domestic grade.
I have yet to do a deeper dive into this. I do remember reading about the difference in oil production and refineries when refineries slowed their production due to covid
You are correct in that we use heavy crude to make gasoline, kerosene, jet fuel, aviation fuel, etc., so we import that from Canada and Mexico (mainly).
But we refine our own oil into a lot of other things.
Back to solar (sorry for jumping around here): both solar and wind have the problem of production vs demand. Oil can be produced when you need it, or stored for when you need it. Solar power cannot, nor can wind. As someone suggested earlier, pumped hydro storage could help, but that still has the issue of damaging the environment. It also has the issue of using a natural resource needed for other things. Not being able to irrigate fields or supply water to a town because the water is needed for hydro-electric storage is a serious problem. Imagine trying to use this method in California or New Mexico.
And if the climate is so delicate it gets messed up by a slight increase of a gas which makes up a tiny percentage of the atmosphere, I cannot imagine the heat islands of solar or the energy take from the wind will do it much good. Of course, I mist definitely could be wrong on that one, I'm just speculating.
We've gotten energy for cars and energy for houses all conflated, but... as it comes to energy for homes, businesses, factories, data centers, etc., solar, wind, and even fossil fuels, have a problem: infrastructure and the fact the energy production and/or storage has to be in a large, central compound (so to speak). This means more and more wire to move the energy from the distant power plants/storage facilities/power generation facilities to the homes, businesses, factories, data centers, etc..
Modular reactors, and most especially, TMSRs, don't have this issue. You can put a data center in the middle of nowhere and power it with a TSMR with no need for heave, long distance energy transportation. If a city gets bigger, and/or its energy needs go up, you can install another TSMR.
Oak Ridge, TN is installing two new small, modular reactors in the near future. They don't require the huge reservations of the old reactors, they're safer, and they won't need long transmission lines. They're being built right where they are needed, with one to power the city and the other to power the labs.
In the end, I think the real issue is our tendency to want a one size solves all solution. I think there are places solar would be good (how about the roofs of all those new data centers, for example). I think there are places for electric cars (if my wife drove to work every day, I think we'd probably have one for her. A Tesla's ability to keep its interior a reasonable temperature would be a godsend for her and her MS heat & cold sensitivities. They're ability to self drive to you in a parking lot would be great, too!
Speaking of "not going into work every day," there's a way we could cut down on a lot of pollution. Why are so many companies requiring desk-jockeys to be in the office every day? How much more environmentally friendly would home offices, or even local office space, be as apposed to people commuting back and forth every day?
Anyway, I'm done rambling on—and boy have I been!—We'll blame it on the headache meds.
