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The NYT tells the fascinating story of how frenetic bankers like Ralph Eads III raised way too...
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Sunday, October 21, 2012, 8:47 AM ETThe NYT tells the fascinating story of how frenetic bankers like Ralph Eads III raised way too much money to finance the shale gas production dreams of those like his frat brother Aubrey McClendon (CHK). "Quit drilling," pleaded T. Boone Pickens to his fellow EXCO (XCO) board members as gas prices plunged. It made sense, but there was a problem: The terms of the EXCO's financing and leasing agreements required the company to continue.
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Solar power. While very neat it's expensive and not worth the investment. Case in point, BP. BP had a solar division, and had several projects that were not producing appropriate returns, so they were shut down. BP operates wind farms which DO produce a return, so those continue to run. See how that works? Guess what, as far as I know, there is no tax payer money going to their projects.
Who do you think can afford to run projects like these, stumble, shut them down, and move on to the next working ones? Companies with money like Energy giants.
Another good one... We had our roof replaced several years ago, and I actually inquired about PV shingles. I'm all for alternative energy, I really am. A conventional roof that will last me 30 yrs guaranteed, 7k. A comparable PV roof.... 32k.
You figure it out.. When the technology works well enough, and is affordable. People WILL buy it. Stop trying to force private individuals to do things because YOU think it's better for us. If you hate fossil fuels and Energy companies so much, put your money where your mouth is. Move to the woods, find a redwood, don't shave, shower or do anything that will emit that deadly CO2, and just shut up already.
Exxon Mobil pays more in taxes than GE. Exxon Mobil is used as a scapegoat for the failure of this administration in securing energy independence and restraining prices of its equivalents.
People like you want to enforce a utopian world into us. It isn't right. Millions of poor Americans are struggling already with record gas prices. It is horrible what you people are doing. Enough is enough!
How many were employed 10 years ago?
I've never understood why subsidies for oil and gas were acceptable to so many people horrified by green energy subsidies. If you accept subsidies in principle, as almost everyone does for whatever it is they like, then the argument against green subsidies comes down to a prediction that green is almost certain to fail whether it's subsidized or not. I won't take that bet.
The larger the green sector gets, the greater the participation of unsubsidized players until the subsidy becomes, like with oil and other legacy subsidies just an entitlement for the unentitled. That's what I'm hoping for, that we get to the point that green energy companies become a powerful rather than marginal special interest. That IMO is success.
Green energy hasn't worked yet, and hasn't been able to stand on it's own after 30+ years of massive subsidies. Ask anyone in the industry, they'll tell you it'll fail without the gov't assistance.
Subsidies have nothing to do with ensuring taxes are levied on net income. They exist to give people an incentive to undertake less than desirable/profitable actions. There is no reason we as taxpayers should be subsidizing green energy companies to produce a product that is undesirable in the marketplace. Call a spade a spade please. The reason green co's get subsidies is that the federal government wants to incentivize people to undertake these uneconomic operations so they can assuage the left. I just cant stand the fact that $$$ are still being thrown at it even though it has been proven uneconomic time and time again.
Why should I care about the lowest motivation? All I care about is developing a clean resource for the day when it no longer seems wise to elect short-sighted politicians who want to postpone action. The government wants to incentivize people so green energy will be economically viable sooner rather than later, and on a larger scale than it could achieve on its own in a reasonable time. Those are good enough reasons, along with the environmental concerns. Dirty fuels have high external costs that don't appear on the companies books but have to be paid by taxpayers and health insurers. I have to take a broader view to compensate for the narrow view other people take.
And I do own oil and gas stocks and appreciate the tax advantages.
The companies putting the most $$$ to work to viable alternative energy, is the same oil/gas companies that everyone on the left want to lynch.
Natural Gas pricing is going to be low enough, that country should have only gas fired power plants. All the coal powered plants can be converted to gas fairly easily for a cleaner environment.
The other thing that makes sense is a simple solar panel above roofs in cold climate areas, just to provide warm water for showering, dish washing and other uses. This will reduce the grid upgrade needs and very efficient environmentally. Will keep world's entropy lower.
Investment thesis is very mixed and unclear. Price / Cost of energy to our economy is going down and importance of Mid East as energy producer will be going down too. If peace comes, the extra production from Libya, Iraq and Iran would bring the cost of oil down, as Saudi Arabia can not afford to be the swing producer.
http://nyti.ms/RPmhdB
It's all going to end badly. The shale gas industry accumulated half a trillion dollars of debts but produced only 23 TCF of shale gas so far. There will not be a happy ending.
And when I read about the "“secret” venture in the Haynesville Shale all alarm bells went off. Remember the South Sea Bubble and Mississippi anyone?
Quote: "Among the many companies to go public in 1720 is—famously—one that advertised itself as "a company for carrying out an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is."