The True Cost of Renewable Energy

[Tyyr]

You do realize that in order to pay for it they'd have to raise your taxes as much as they'd raise your light bill right? Be it in your light bill or in your taxes the money is going to come from some where.

[Tsukiyumi]

Yeah, well, my invention says otherwise. Cheap, infinitely renewable, and totally clean. And, I really shouldn't be talking about it.

Outside of that, raise taxes on millionaires so regular people can pay reasonable rates. As is, the rates are already exorbitant.

[Tyyr]

Actually they're not. Rates reflect what it actually costs to generate the energy our society needs to function.

[Tsukiyumi]

Bullshit. Rates reflect what it costs for people to make a profit while generating the energy our society needs to function.

[Tyyr]

Wow, imagine that businesses trying to turn a profit. Just for fun Duke Energy, the people I pay to keep my lights on, runs on roughly an 8% profit margin. That also happens to be pretty close to where my own company runs. So if both companies went totally not for profit it would save you all of 8% on your electric bill.

Mother fucking pirates we are.

[Tsukiyumi]

8% is actually rather high.

But whatever. I've learned that people on the inside of corporations can't or won't admit that the entity providing for their family is screwing other people over in the name of the almighty dollar, so we aren't getting anywhere on this one.

When I put your company out of business later this year, don't be too mad. It's just business.

[Tyyr]

8% is high by what measure? Net profit margins often range from 25% or more in some industries to as little as 2 or 3% in others. For most businesses a net profit margin of 8% is strictly average.

Tsuki, seriously explain to me how people are getting screwed?

If I had to choose between betting on you putting me out of a job in the next decade or buying a lottery ticket I'll buy the lottery ticket because it actually has a chance of paying out.

[Mikey]

Tsu, I hope to all that's unholy that what you propose is feasible; further, I pray that you get a handle on business before you release it. 8% is a remarkably low margin compared to an average of all of retail and service industries combined. When you start going about putting the energy companies out of business, you'll make a pauper out of yourself if you think 8% is too high of a margin.

As for "it should be" funded by taxes... yes, it should now, when such things are in a developmental stage (or at least developmentally being integrated. If solar, or wind, or whatever next-gen green power, were to become mainstream and a typical part of the grid... well, then saying it should be funded by taxes is the same thing as saying your current energy provider at home should be funded by taxes. I shouldn't pay your light bill - and vice versa - no matter from what source the energy is generated. Saying anything otherwise based on the method of generation is tantamount to saying that you should pay my bill because the bulk of my electricity comes from nuclear but I shouldn't pay yours because yours comes from fossil fuel (I don't know if it does, but you get my example.)

[Tsukiyumi]

Tsuki, seriously explain to me how people are getting screwed?

Okay, serious explanation ahoy. Energy costs are based on prices of fossil fuels currently (for the most part), so the more reliant we are on non-nuclear energy sources, the average consumer is screwed over on multiple levels by price fixing (on oil) by the provider of the fuel, by the energy provider, and by the government in the form of taxes on your energy bill. How the government can get involved is beyond me, but I guess they'll get their taxes one way or another.

8% is certainly not an average profit margin. Car companies make 2-3% and drug companies make 80-90% on most products. I'll grant that the energy industry's 8% is kinda low when compared to drug companies.

If I had to choose between betting on you putting me out of a job in the next decade or buying a lottery ticket I'll buy the lottery ticket because it actually has a chance of paying out.

Keep telling yourself that, buddy.

I'll be happy to buy you a house if they don't shoot me for what I've discovered.

@Mikey - does anyone have a breakdown of what our tax dollars are being spent on exactly? I'd much rather pay my neighbor's light bill than give congress another raise or pay for bullsh*t projects they approve.

[Mikey]

One has nothing to do with the other. Subsidizing or not subsidizing any particular program won't change the amount of pork belly in the budget. If you want to advocate federally-funded utilities, then go right ahead (although I wouldn't envy you the task of delineating exactly how that's feasible.) However, we haven't broached that subject; and in the absence of that, there's really no way I can tell that it can make philosophical or fiscal sense to do what you propose.

[Tsukiyumi]

One has nothing to do with the other. Subsidizing or not subsidizing any particular program won't change the amount of pork belly in the budget. If you want to advocate federally-funded utilities, then go right ahead (although I wouldn't envy you the task of delineating exactly how that's feasible.) However, we haven't broached that subject; and in the absence of that, there's really no way I can tell that it can make philosophical or fiscal sense to do what you propose.

I'm saying that our tax dollars don't seem to go to anything useful. Taxing millionaires to pay 2-300 dollar energy bills the average people get smashed with would mitigate the problem somewhat. And, I don't know about Jersey, but Texas had federally-funded utilities until about '95. Since the switch, we're in a monopoly with a single company providing all of the services, no way to complain, and no alternatives.

Within the year, I promise you'll all understand my point. I'm going to give the world an alternative that can't be ignored or marginalized.

[Mikey]

Taxing millionaires to pay 2-300 dollar energy bills the average people get smashed with would mitigate the problem somewhat.

Yes, it would. And I have to admit that viscerally, it would feel good to see someone pay my heat and light who wouldn't even miss it. However, we happen to live in the United States of America, and that's not how we do things here; not until and unless, as I said above, we institute and across-the-board federally subsidized utilities program. Even in that case, if it were somehow able to happen, it couldn't be philosophically reconciled with our nation to make some folks pay and some get the subsidy, in any other way than the already-extant bracketed tax program.