Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Epigraph
- Dedication
- Contents
- Analytical table of contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The global energy system
- 3 Virtue and energy efficiency
- 4 Utility and energy externalities
- 5 Energy and human rights
- 6 Energy and due process
- 7 Energy poverty, access, and welfare
- 8 Energy subsidies and freedom
- 9 Energy resources and future generations
- 10 Fairness, responsibility, and climate change
- 11 The imperative of making just energy decisions
- Index
- References
8 - Energy subsidies and freedom
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 October 2014
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Epigraph
- Dedication
- Contents
- Analytical table of contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The global energy system
- 3 Virtue and energy efficiency
- 4 Utility and energy externalities
- 5 Energy and human rights
- 6 Energy and due process
- 7 Energy poverty, access, and welfare
- 8 Energy subsidies and freedom
- 9 Energy resources and future generations
- 10 Fairness, responsibility, and climate change
- 11 The imperative of making just energy decisions
- Index
- References
Summary
In 1954, US President Dwight Eisenhower faced a difficult situation. Under the Atoms for Peace Program, announced in December 1953 to the UN General Assembly, he had pledged to “strip the atom’s military casing and adapt it to the art of peace.” The central theme behind Atoms for Peace was to demonstrate that the power of the atom could be converted from a terrifying military force into a benign commodity. A secondary driver, less obvious but still salient, was competition with the Soviet Union. Developments outside the nuclear industry during the 1940s and 1950s, such as the Alger Hiss case, the pro-Soviet coup in Czechoslovakia, the Soviet blockage of West Germany, the Chinese revolution, and Soviet progress developing atom bombs, hydrogen bombs, and nuclear reactors convinced many American planners that they were in a “race to save the world from communism.” Atomic energy was one key component of winning this race, and the reason for choosing to go forward was not necessarily to produce a “cost competitive” nuclear power plant but to demonstrate to the world the superiority of American engineering prowess. The role of the government, in other words, was to be an entrepreneurial custodian of atoms. Yet, atomic energy was then far from technically or economically feasible.
How, then, were Eisenhower and his planners to, first, decide whether his program should be done by the government as opposed to private industry? Secondly, if it was to be government sponsored, how was he to convince investors, vendors, and taxpayers to participate? The Eisenhower Administration’s answer was a program of lavish public subsidies, earmarking billions of tax dollars for research, development, demonstration projects, and offering limited liability guarantees for nuclear accidents. In the American case, government created a market for nuclear power, rather than seeing one emerge organically.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Global Energy JusticeProblems, Principles, and Practices, pp. 256 - 287Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2014
References
, From Edison to Enron: The Business of Power and What It Means for the Future of Electricity (London: Praeger, 2005), p. 80Google Scholar
and , The National Politics of Nuclear Power: Economics, Security, and Governance (London: Routledge, 2012)Google Scholar
, “The Origins of Nuclear Power: A Case of Institutional Conflict,” Social Problems 32(5) (June 1985), pp. 474–487CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and , “Containing the Atom: Sociotechnical Imaginaries and Nuclear Power in the United States and South Korea,” Minerva 47(2) (2009), pp. 119–146CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, Nuclear Power: Still Not Viable without Subsidies (Washington, DC: Union of Concerned Scientists, February 2011)Google Scholar
, Reforming Energy Subsidies: An Explanatory Summary of the Issues and Challenges in Removing or Modifying Subsidies on Energy that Undermine the Pursuit of Sustainable Development (New York and Paris: UNEP and IEA, 2002)Google Scholar
, Reforming Energy Subsidies: Opportunities to Contribute to the Climate Change Agenda (New York: UNEP, 2008)Google Scholar
, Federal Energy Subsidies: Energy, Environmental, and Fiscal Impacts (Washington, DC: ASE, April 1993)Google Scholar
and , “Federal Fossil Fuel Subsidies and Greenhouse Gas Emissions: A Case Study of Increasing Transparency for Fiscal Policy,” Annual Review of Energy & Environment 26 (2001), pp. 361–389CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, “Subsidies to Energy Industries,” Encyclopedia of Energy 5 (2004), pp. 749–765CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, “Creating Incentives for Environmentally Enhancing Technological Change: Lessons from 30 Years of U. S. Energy Technology Policy,” Technological Forecasting and Social Change 65 (2000), pp. 125–148CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and , “Letters and Responses: The Real Cost of Wind Energy,” Science 294(5544) (November 2, 2001), pp. 1000–1003Google Scholar
, “Preface,” Subsidy Reform and Sustainable Development: Political Economy Aspects (Paris: OECD, 2007), pp. 7–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, Federal Financial Interventions and Subsidies in Energy Markets 2007 (Washington, DC: US Department of Energy, April 2008, R/CNEAF/2008–01)Google Scholar
, Energy Subsidies: Their Magnitude, How They Affect Energy Investment and Greenhouse Gas Emissions, and Prospects for Reform (Geneva: UNFCCC Secretariat Financial and Technical Support Program, June 2007)Google Scholar
, The Economic Cost of Fossil Fuel Subsidies (Berkeley: Haas Energy Institute, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and , Perverse Subsidies: How Tax Dollars Can Undercut the Environment and the Economy (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2001)Google Scholar
, Power Drain: Hidden Subsidies to Conventional Power in India (Pune, India: World Institute of Sustainable Energy, 2008), p. 15Google Scholar
, “Energy Subsidies: The Ball Is Now in the WTO’s Court,” Globe and Mail, April 2, 2013Google Scholar
and , Public Subsidies and Policy Failures: How Subsidies Distort the Natural Environment, Equity, and Trade, and How to Reform Them (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2001)Google Scholar
, “Global Challenges: Accountability and Effectiveness,” in (ed.), New Directions in Political Science: Responding to the Challenges of an Interdependent World (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), pp. 211–230CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, Energy Subsidies: Lessons Learned in Assessing their Impact and Designing Policy Reforms (New York: UN Foundation, 2004)Google Scholar
, “The Gulf’s Renewed Oil Wealth: Getting it Right this Time?,” Survival 50(6) (December 2008/January 2009), pp. 129–150CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and , “Resilient Royals: How Arab Monarchies Hang On,” Journal of Democracy 23(4) (October 2012), pp. 74–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, “The Specter of Fuel-Based Lighting,” Science 308 (May 27, 2005), pp. 1263–1264CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
, Contesting the Future of Nuclear Power: A Critical Global Assessment of Atomic Energy (London: World Scientific, 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, “Problems, Dilemmas, and the Energy Crisis,” in (ed.), Social and Political Perspectives on Energy Policy (New York: Praeger, 1981), pp. 1–17Google Scholar
and , What Would Jefferson Do? The Historical Role of Federal Subsidies in Shaping America’s Energy Future (DBL Investors, September 2011)Google Scholar
, Department of Energy: Key Challenges Remain for Developing and Deploying Advanced Energy Technologies to Meet Future Needs (Washington, DC: US GAO, December 2006, GAO-07–106Google Scholar
“Deep Trouble,” Economist, May 8, 2010, p. 11
, Achieving the G-20 Call to Phase Out Subsidies to Fossil Fuels (Canada: IISD, October 2009)Google Scholar
, Review of Rural Energy Access and Environmental Conservation Challenges and Approaches in Myanmar (Yangon: UN Development Program-Myanmar, March 2012)Google Scholar
, Reforming Environmentally Harmful Subsidies (UK: Institute for European Environmental Policy, March 2007)Google Scholar
, The Aluminum Smelting Industry: Structure, Market Power, Subsidies, and Greenhouse Gas Emissions (Canberra: Australia Institute Discussion Paper, January 2002)Google Scholar
and , World Fossil Fuel Subsidies and Global Carbon Emissions (World Bank, October 1992, WPS 1002)Google Scholar
, “Will the Friends of Climate Emerge in the WTO? The Prospects of Applying the Fisheries Subsidy Model to Energy Subsidies,” Carbon & Climate Law Review 2(1) (2008), pp. 78–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, The Price of Power: Poverty, Climate Change, the Coming Energy Crisis, and the Renewable Revolution (London: New Economics Foundation, 2004)Google Scholar
, Government Responses to Oil Price Volatility (Washington, DC: World Series Report #2, July 2009)Google Scholar
, Changes in End-User Petroleum Product Prices (Washington, DC: World Bank, Extractive Industries for Development Series #2, July 2009)Google Scholar
, “Libertarianism,” in (ed.), Justice: A Reader (Oxford University Press, 2007), p. 49Google Scholar
, “Libertarianism: The Self Has Free Will,” in (ed.), Introduction to Philosophy: Classical and Contemporary Readings (Belmont: Wadsworth Publishing, 1991), pp. 391–398Google Scholar
, Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2009), p. 60Google Scholar
, “Property and Need: The Welfare State and Theories of Distributive Justice,” Stanford Law Review 28(5) (May 1976), pp. 877–902CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, “Distributive Justice, Welfare Economics, and the Theory of Fairness,” Philosophy & Public Affairs 4(3) (Spring 1975), pp. 223–247Google Scholar
, “Intergenerational Justice,” in and (eds.), A Companion to Applied Ethics (London: Blackwell Publishing, 2003), pp. 279–294Google Scholar
, “Natural Resources Policy, 1975–1985,” Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 3 (1976), pp. 253–288CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and , “Property Rules, Liability Rules, and Inalienability: One View of the Cathedral,” Harvard Law Review 85(6) (April 1972), pp. 1089–1128CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, “Information and the Change in the Paradigm of Economics,” American Economic Review 92(3) (June 2002), pp. 460–501CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, “Ecology and Opportunity: Intergenerational Equity and Sustainable Options,” in (ed.), Fairness and Futurity: Essays on Environmental Sustainability and Social Justice (Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 118–150CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, “Welfare and Wealth, Poverty and Justice in Today’s World,” Journal of Ethics 8 (2004), pp. 305–348CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and , Perverse Subsidies: How Tax Dollars Can Undercut the Environment and the Economy (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2001)Google Scholar
, “Energy,” in Subsidy Reform and Sustainable Development: Political Economy Aspects (Paris: OECD, 2007), pp. 93–110CrossRefGoogle Scholar
et al., Wasting Assets: Natural Resources in the National Income Accounts (Washington, DC: World Resources Institute, 1989)Google Scholar
, Nature’s Number: Expanding the National Economic Accounts to Include the Environment, ed. and (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1999)Google Scholar
, Policy Applications of Environmental Accounting, World Bank Environment Department Papers, Environmental Economics Series (January 2003)Google Scholar
, , and , “A Sustainable Development Framework for Assessing the Benefits of Subsidy Reform,” in Subsidy Reform and Sustainable Development: Political Economy Aspects (Paris: OECD, 2007), pp. 31–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, “Easing Subsidy Reform for Producers, Consumers, and Communities,” in Subsidy Reform and Sustainable Development: Political Economy Aspects (Paris: OECD, 2007), pp. 61–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and , “Energy Security: Security for Whom?,” Yale Human Rights and Development Law Journal 11 (2008), pp. 217–258Google Scholar