Fossil Fuels

What did "The Big Guy" mean when he said, in the debate, we would transition from the oil industry, which means the fossil fuel industry? What did he mean when he said we would end subsidies for the fossil fuel industry? The most important thing to remember is nobody is promising to do away with oil use because that is not possible. Almost everything we buy, consume, or use requires fossil fuel; if it is plastic it is oil (EVs are over 50% plastic). So the term we hear is we are going to be "Net Zero Emissions" by a certain date. NZ does not mean we will end pollution, it means that if we pollute here then we have to spend money somewhere else to mitigate that pollution; maybe by planting a tree. How does that happen? Companies can buy carbon credits or trade Renewable Energy Credits, so if they produce X amount of CO2 then they just pay for that amount of credits; they are net zero; that is simplified but that is how it works. In certain states, utilities are required to purchase a certain percentage of their power from renewable sources, no matter the cost. In reality, the costs do not matter to the utility because it is passed on to the user through higher energy bills. When large companies or utilities become net zero by buying wind or solar energy that is produced in West Texas for their facility in Houston, they are still using the power produced from the coal or gas plant up the street, and the renewable energy is being produced in a place with very little consumption. Unfortunately, this causes a transition away from an efficient reliable electric grid to an inefficient unreliable grid (the rolling blackouts in California will soon be coming to your town). Doing away with subsidies means doing away with depreciation, and doing away with deductions. These are things that our tax code allows for every business, so reducing subsidies on fossil fuel really means increasing taxes to the point of being punitive, which means that fossil fuel companies cannot afford to produce fossil fuels in the US, so they go elsewhere and we again become dependent on foreign oil. The Renewable Energy industry receives both tax credits and deductions, and these are significant. If you do not know, tax credits or money given directly to the company for their capital spend in addition to their allowed deductions and depreciation expense. So if there is a 30% credit and a company spends $100 they get $30 given to them, they then also get to write off all of their other tax code deductions. Those credits add up to approximately 2.4 cents per kilowatt hour. In other words, if the market for power trades, power is a traded market on the wholesale level, at 0 cents per KWH, the green energy company still makes 2.4 cents per KWH for "green" energy companies. There are no subsidies like that for fossil fuel.

So the question becomes if we do not do away with the use of fossil fuel, how do we get to net zero? The answer is the government taxes US fossil fuel companies out of existence, which causes the employees in those companies along with the employees who serve these industries to lose their jobs, America again becomes dependent on foreign oil, the government creates a carbon tax based on fossil fuel usage (i.e., driving tax at the gas pump or added costs on the power bill), so that those people who are having a hard time because they lost their fossil fuel jobs have to spend more money. This creates a need for the government to bail out those "hurting people" through welfare programs or COVID type bailouts which cost those people working more in taxes and causes more people to become dependent on government entitlements. Through this dependency rights can be taken away as a qualification for receiving these benefits, or benefits can be sold through things such as mandatory gun buybacks. Of course you would never voluntarily participate in a gun buyback program....unless you need government money for food. Control of energy is the first step in the march to Socialism. If you vote Democrat, you are voting for Socialism, which leads to Communism.