Taxpayers Still Shelling Out Billions Annually in Fossil Fuel Subsidies

[Rhiannon12866]

The world's richest countries continue to subsidize at least $100 billion a year in subsidies for the production and use of coal, oil and gas, despite repeated pledges to phase out fossil fuels by 2025.

The Group of Seven, or G7, consists of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the U.S. The group, as well as the larger G20, agreed as early as 2009 to phase out fossil fuels in order to combat climate change.

But a new report from Britain's Overseas Development Institute (ODI) reveals that on average per year in 2015 and 2016, the G7 governments supplied at least $81 billion in fiscal support and $20 billion in public finance, for both production and consumption of oil, gas and coal at home and overseas.

"With less than seven years to meet their 2025 phase-out deadline, G7 governments continue to provide substantial support the production and use of oil, gas and coal," the authors stated.

The study, co-authored by Oil Change International, the International Institute for Sustainable Development and the Natural Resources Defense Council, was issued Monday ahead of the G7 summit in Canada.


More: https://www.ecowatch.com/g7-fossil-fuel-subsidies-2575139413.html?utm_source=EcoWatch+List&utm_campaign=cdbba35763-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_49c7d43dc9-cdbba35763-85350385

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[Cicada]

1. Hope: natural gas plant zero pollution, cheaper than current plants

Vox June 1 (I am too dumb to figure out links, sorry) describes a test plant which so far works. Zero co2, zero pollution, tech should be cheaper than current natural gas plants. There is one problem, where to put the co2 that is accumulated. They have it segregated. They can put it underground if the plant is next to a big cave or something. Maybe they can figure out how to use the co2 to make something useful and non polluting. But that seems a problem they can solve.

[Rhiannon12866]

2. This article? That natural gas power plant with no carbon emissions or air pollution? It works.

Back in April of 2016, I wrote about an exciting new technology for which construction was just getting underway: the Net Power natural gas power plant. It promised to capture its own carbon dioxide emissions, not in a separate, expensive, power-intensive process like conventional carbon-capture facilities, but as part of the combustion cycle. The company claimed that the technology will ultimately enable it to produce power at prices cheaper than conventional fossil fuel power plants — with carbon capture built in.

Net Power had just started work on a small, 50 MW power plant in La Porte, Texas, meant to demonstrate that the technology can work.

As of last year, the plant completed construction. And as of this week, it has achieved “first fire” and is running a battery of tests meant to ensure that everything is working up to snuff. If all goes well — lead designer and chemical engineer Rodney Allam recently told Nature, “we’re still smiling” — the plant will begin generating electricity in earnest later this year. The company plans to build another 300 MW plant for sometime in 2020.

That will be a very big deal. Zero-carbon natural gas, with no air pollution (did I mention no air pollution?), would be an excellent complement to renewable energy and a cleaner path for countries now planning for more fossil fuel use. It would change carbon capture from something expensive, burdensome, and inessential to something integral to power plants. But it would still have to find a place to bury all that CO2, or find someone to sell it to.

More: https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/6/1/17416444/net-power-natural-gas-carbon-air-pollution-allam-cycle

[Duppers]

4. IMPRESSIVE

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[mitch96]

3. "Billions Annually in Fossil Fuel Subsidies"

This is great information when my conservative friends talk about "welfare mammas".. I wonder who gets a bigger slice of the "subsidies" pie... grrrrrrrr

m