Solar water heaters are one of the most commercialized renewable energy technologies in the world and yet on a per capita basis, U.S. implementation ranks 28th in the world behind relatively undeveloped countries like Albania and Slovenia.
China leads the world with an installed base equivalent to 52,500 megawatts of energy, more than 30 times the installed base of the U.S., and other developed countries like Germany, Japan, Switzerland, France, Austria, and Australia all rank far ahead of the U.S. in per capita solar hot water implementation.
Why does the U.S. lag so far behind the rest of world in solar hot water implementation? The answers are many and include consumer concerns about ascetics and cost, a fragmented supplier base of relatively small companies, competing technologies that make make buying decisions confusing and difficult, and the resistance of vested interests. Perhaps the biggest reason for the U.S. lag in implementation are national and state energy policies that are both incoherent and inconsistent.
[The petroleum industry] "probably has larger tax incentives relative to its size
than any other industry in the country"
Donald Lubick
U.S. Department of Treasury's former Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy
As a country, we claim to believe in free market economics, but while the left hand of government may be saying "let the the solar hot water market make it on it own merits", the right hand is handing out large subsidies to the coal, natural gas, nuclear, and oil industries. It is estimated that the American oil and gas industry receive anywhere between $15 billion and $35 billion a year in subsidies from taxpayers, and these subsidies don't include American's military policing of the Persian Gulf, which was estimated to cost $25 per barrel of oil even BEFORE we invaded Iraq.
Since president
Nixon signed the Project Independence bill in 1974, followed by Carter's signing of the Energy Security Act in 1980, there have been dozens of energy bills passed with the intent of leading us toward the goal of energy independence. However, from 1974 to 2006 our oil imports have risen 191% from 1.27 billion barrels per year to 3.69 billion barrels and imports now amount to 65% of our total oil consumption. In addition, we have gone from being self sufficient in natural gas production to importing 19.5% of our needs.
The 2005 Energy Bill was the latest attempt to cure our addiction to oil, but the bill was more a homage to "business as usual" and was packed with over $27 Billion dollars of subsidies to the oil, gas, coal, electrical generation, and nuclear industries.
The 2005 Energy Bill signed by President
Bush includes over $6 Billion in Oil & Gas subsidies and $9 billion in coal subsidies, and $12 Billion in nuclear subsidies including:
- geological and geophysical costs associated with oil exploration can be written off faster than present law, costing taxpayers over $1.266 billion from 2007 to 2015.
- owners of oil refineries can now expense 50% of the costs of equipment used to increase a refinery's capacity by at least 5%, this will cost taxpayers $842 million from 2006 to 2011
- natural gas companies will save $1.035 billion by being able to depreciate capital expenditures at a faster rate that currently allowed by law
- some royalty payments for drilling for natural gas in the Gulf of Mexico will be waived
- exempts the gas industry from the Safe Drinking Water Act for a coal-bed methane gas drilling technique called "hydraulic fracturing," a likely source of pollution in our underground aquifers
- increases the ability to exclude a broad range of oil and gas exploration and drilling activities from public involvement and impact analysis under the National Environmental Policy Act
- provides $1.612 billion in tax credits to invest in new coal power plants, $1.147 billion in tax breaks for owners of coal power plants to install pollution control equipment, and authorizes the appropriation of $4.8 billion of taxpayer money to help build a new fleet of coal power plants.
- provides a production tax credit of 1.8-cent for each kilowatt-hour of nuclear-generated electricity from new reactors during the first eight years of operation, costing $5.7 billion in revenue losses to the U.S. Treasury through 2025
In contrast the 2005 Energy Bill provides 30% tax credit for commercial and residential solar hot water or PV (photovoltaic) installations. Unfortunately, for residential applications that credit is capped at $2,000 per homeowner and expires Dec 31, 2008.
Free markets do a great job of sorting out price, supply, quality, and demand variables, but they are completely deaf to concepts like energy security or the desire to transform our energy mix in the direction of renewables. If we want to catch up with Slovenia, we need to stop subsidizing old energy and start subsidizing renewables.