I'd like someone here to mount a moral case for why driving up the price for regular users of power to subsidise solar panels is acceptable?
Would anyone accept that increasing gas taxes to give Tesla owners a cash payment is an ethical proposition?
The people most affected by increased electricity prices are the poor. These are the people most unlikely to have solar panels.
I'm all for allowing people to put their money into whatever they want. I am against subsidies for solar or any other energy, when those subsidies are paid for by the other users. It is very unfair on low income households.
Until we stop subsidizing coal, oil, and gas through direct subsidy, tax breaks, extremely expensive wars and ignoring the effects of pollutants, subsidizing renewables is the only way to make it fair.
I am absolutely for removing all subsidies for all forms because I am confident that solar presents a much better value. But ask a politician to suddenly start charging fossil fuel users for our wars and pollution and they'll instantly pull out the line that "raising prices hurts the poor".
So subsidizing solar is just more politically feasible. It is certainly not the best solution but reversing a 100 year old industry is basically not going to happen. So if we don't want solar to be at a disadvantage (which would strike me as immoral given the value it offers) we basically have to subsidize it.
But soon, unsubsidized solar will be cheaper than our indirectly subsidized fossil fuels. The raw panels already only cost $4000 or so for a 5kw home system, and great effort is underway to reduce the cost of installation and inverters.
It is unfair to ask non-fossil fuel users to live in a world polluted by fossil fuels, but nobody ever asked us about that one.
Would anyone accept that increasing gas taxes to give Tesla owners a cash payment is an ethical proposition?
Yes, I would accept that. In fact if you consider that we are giving Tesla owners a cash payment when they buy the car, a lot of people accept that proposition.
I'm not sure why you think that the people most affected by the increase in electricity prices are the poor. Sure, poor people are more susceptible to all price increases, but is electricity worse than food? Or even gas? Note that your electricity bill is heavily dependent on the size of your house. My current electricity bill, all in, is $50 a month. I live in a 1 BR in NYC. Back when I had a 3BR condo in CT, it was $150-$350 a month. The size of the house factors in a lot. I imagine most poor people don't have bedrooms to spare that they spend a bunch of money air conditioning in the summer.
I do know that many low income areas are right next to highways, and that pollution from gasoline powered cars impacts the health in those areas greatly.
So if you want to talk about ethics, I think it is very ethically appealing to incentivize people to reduce emissions that are likely harming people near highways a lot more than a slight increase in electrical bills or gas taxes.
Poor people are often subject to fuel poverty, especially in regions with cold winters. This is established fact, and it's shocking in a world where power can be abundantly generated and distributed that poor people suffer and even die as a result.
The cash payments for Teslas are just wrong. Subsidising the purchase of wealthy peoples cars using taxpayer money is indefensible IMO.
If I change the vehicle from a Tesla to a turbo diesel BmW SUV, is it still ethical? The X5 has lower emissions as well.
It's absolutely stupid to argue that we can only subsidize fuel poverty OR electric cars while we spend a trillion dollars on evil wars and another trillion dollars on subsidizing a parasitic banking system.
Added to which, subsidies are how almost all countries build up their industries which provide jobs and wealth for all. China didn't get rich by letting its currency float and letting free markets reign.
Demand for solar panels may be higher in some of the third world communities since it is one of the few sources of electricity; there aren't too many grids to connect to.
Global climate change impacts the poor the harshest. They're the least able to cope with it, and can least afford the long-term impact economically and to their food supply.
The subsidies to solar assist in building out the long-term technology/energy innovation and infrastructure necessary to combat climate change. Those investments must be made, because we're not going to just magically wake up one day with extremely effective solar, we have to build our way there gradually through university science, commercial R&D and product deployment.
I'd argue that the wealthier people buying these panels are paying their fair share of the overall cost when it comes making the energy shift possible, and were even more so in decades past when it was far more expensive and far less efficient. The top 20% pay something around 70% of all income taxes; the bottom ~15% have a negative tax basis; so the wealthy are largely funding the tax credits that they're claiming anyway.
The contribution the poor are making in very slightly higher electricity rates, is their fair share of contribution to the solution of climate change. No different than any other product build out in history, in which the rich subsidize most of the expense of new technology, but poorer consumers also have a role to play as prices come down.
It's also worth noting that in the US at least, the poor often have subsidized utilities. It's the middle class that is actually taking the bulk of the cost hit you're referring to, not the poor.
If you are stating that current poverty should be made worse so that the currently ineffectual emissions reductions through the use of solar panels might benefit their grandchildren by changing the arrival date of spring by one day, then that's a completely bankrupt argument.
'Very slightly higher electricity rates', 'fair share of contribution to solution of climate change'
The fact is, household solar panels has - rounded off to the nearest whole number - 0% changed the amount of co2 emitted in countries like the United States. This is because there has been no change in gas or coal power generation as a result of solar panels. The entire contribution of solar is still less than 1%.
Meanwhile the UK government started collecting statistics on fuel poverty and some areas had 15% fuel poverty - mainly in unemployed households in rented accommodation. This number has doubled since 2005, when 'fight global warming' policies by interfering in the energy market became popular and energy prices have doubled or more.
It's incomprehensible to me that anyone can say 'pay more, suckers, I got mine!' when we are talking about energy for people to keep their homes habitable. And all this for an ineffective response to a far-off problem.
I cannot fathom the popularity of such thinking, when the same people, if presented with any other taxation or cost increase on poor people to subsidise consumption of rich people - would say that it is unthinkable.
It takes 'suffer in silence, it's for your own good' thinking too far.
>If you are stating that current poverty should be made worse
NOBODY is suggesting that.
If you want to fix poverty in the United States, there are several very straightforward ways of doing this - bolstering SNAP, extending medicare, raising the minimum wage, building social housing and creating a job guarantee (as was done during the last depression).
These are, incidentally, all things that anti-solar groups like ALEC are also usually against.
Added to which, solar panels are actually the only form of power generation which is within the reach of poor people, which is why millions of people in the third world are taking advantage of it. Give 0% credit for it (as is available to all big banks in the US to play their gambling games) and literally everybody would be rich enough to take advantage of it.
But if you are increasing energy prices for things like solar subsidies, then you are making poverty worse. There is no avoiding that.
I'm not going to comment on all your other suggestions - that's not the point I want to make. That point is - making poor people pay more for electricity so that rich people can get a rebate is just wrong. There is no justification for it. To fix things, first you have to stop making them worse.
Please point out where I said, or even hinted at, anything like this:
"If you are stating that current poverty should be made worse ... "
Raising electricity prices a fraction of a percent on poor people who are already receiving subsidized utilities, is not making their poverty worse. As you noted, solar isn't widespread, and thus is obviously not raising electricity prices in a meaningful way.
The price of coal moving up or down 1% does more to impact the price a poor person pays for electricity than all of the solar tax credits in the first world combined.
It's clear that the poor in the US are not going to pay a lot more for energy. They're going to receive higher subsidies from the welfare state to compensate for any price increases. Given the poor are already running a negative tax basis, it's accurate to say they're not paying for electricity at all to begin with. And to make this point easily clear: show me the negative tax basis of the average poor person in the US, and then show me the average poor person's electricity bill.
If one actually cared about the poor and their electricity bill, the only meaningful place to start is the Federal Reserve, putting an end to their 40 year debasement of the US dollar and this chart that it has caused:
Your right, I misread your original comment. However, supporting subsidies for solar through increased prices for everything else does penalise the poor.
We are in agreement about the Fed. Only the debasement goes back further than 40 years - that was merely the acceleration point.
You do know that PPA rooftop solar is zero $ upfront & cheaper than 'normal' electricity, right? Nothing stopping the poor from getting it. In fact, I would be very surprised to hear that PPA customers average income is lower than in the general population.
Would anyone accept that increasing gas taxes to give Tesla owners a cash payment is an ethical proposition?
The people most affected by increased electricity prices are the poor. These are the people most unlikely to have solar panels.
I'm all for allowing people to put their money into whatever they want. I am against subsidies for solar or any other energy, when those subsidies are paid for by the other users. It is very unfair on low income households.