What's the biggest specific subsidy of oil or gas right now that you know about?

Oh...the trillions we've spent on warfare in the Middle East comes to mind...

Correct ... its pure deception to continue allowing governments to shoulder this military expense ... petrol conglomerates must pay the full cost to society of fighting these endless wars to permit continued resource extraction ... once this cost is factored into petrol at the pump then ALL green energy sources suddenly become the obvious low cost choice

When taking in account of direct and indirect subsidies, see this IMF report: http://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2015/09/28/04/53/sonew07...

There are many other reports by many other groups...

Also consider the costs of using tax payer money to pay for/subsidies infastructure/reasearch in the fossil fuel industry.

Saying, "read this giant report that contains a bunch of other irrelevant data" isn't the most helpful. The other comments so far in this thread are argumentative, non-specfic, or I still couldn't verify their existence by googling.

I take it as a given that we want to continue to have cheap energy as we transition to renewable resources. Our economy and much of our quality of life are dependent on the incredible abundance that cheap energy has provided, so I'm not in favor of throwing the baby out with the bath water! If we need to defend our cheap energy supplies sometimes, that's probably OK.

The kinds of subsidies I'm interested in hearing about are where oil or gas is getting special treatment compared to other businesses. I'm not in favor of special treatment for most businesses, but I'm especially disinclined to unlevel playing fields.

I'm in favor of the adoption of renewables and somewhat in favor of subsidies and breaks for renewables to encourage it. I'm not in favor of special privileges for oil and gas, over and above what's afforded other industries. However, instead of penalizing oil and gas with respect to other industries, I'd prefer subsidies and breaks for renewables. Cheap energy is critical to pretty much everything.

From that report:

> The bulk of energy subsidies in most countries are due to undercharging for domestic environmental damage

I understand it's an accepted part of the word subsidy but it always feels dishonest when people treat "lost revenue" and actual money given to industries the same and then combine them into a huge number that is 95% theoretical losses that are difficult to quantify.

Right, argumentative, cloudy, and political. If that's what is meant by "dropping the subsidies", then the simple sounding solution actually hides all the complexity of the problem.

> What's the biggest specific subsidy of oil or gas right now that you know about?

The lack of a carbon cap. And also the fact that large ships and buildings are allowed to burn oil sludge without particulate filters.

US gas subsidy, clean coal research subsidies, tax credits for oil transportation / refinement. Totalled together its in the 10s of billions range

> Make it a phase out of two - four years..., it would boost sales of EV's and our entire transportation network

Doesn't work. Stuff simply does not scale that fast. Maybe the big automobile companies can scale up EV production, but there's still the battery bottleneck (which prompted Tesla to build the Gigafactory, but I am not aware of any other project even remotely near that scale - and Tesla sure as hell won't sell its batteries to competitors, they got enough demand with their cars + the energy storage stuff).

Public transportation will only be buses that are able to scale. Even light/street rail takes years to get politically approved and then financed, and actual proper intercountry transportation takes decades to build - if it gets built at all given how expensive it is.

Not being reliant on it would have a massive effect on the Middle East. Whatever stability they have now would go. That aspect would need a lot of care, and the West’s track record is not good.

It's not clear that oil revenues actually improve stability in the Mideast. A considerable proportion of the revenue is quite literally diverted into forces intended to cause states to fail or stagnate.

>A considerable proportion of the revenue is quite literally diverted into forces intended to cause states to fail or stagnate.

Yeah you're gonna need a credible source on that claim.

It's my understanding that, at their height, IS derived much of their revenue from captured oil assets. Note that I'm specifically not making the claim that all middle eastern oil revenue is tied to some terror group, but I'm pretty sure some of it is.

Please do correct me if I am wrong.

That seems like a very specific and comparatively small time period that doesn't really stack up to the attempted scale of claiming that a considerable portion of revenue is used to destabilize middle east states.

It gave them plenty of funds for sure (and only for a limited time) but saying it's a significant enough portion to the point of lending credence to the claim being discussed? I have trouble buying that without a source.

That ISIS got funding from oil is not controversial that I’m aware of. The Independent did a lot of coverage of it at one stage. I’m sure they aren’t the only group too. Depending on your politics, the Kurds make money from oil too, but they are a state waiting to exist in my view.

Sure, but that is something they need to figure out. The world cannot wait on the middle east to stabilize... they don't exactly have a great track record of doing so either..

China and India definitely can pay for a ton of oil.

That will never happen though, since the biggest O&G subsidy is the fact that the global oil market is denominated in US Dollars which coincidentally also happens to be the source of almost all US soft power.

Unless the US faces an actual challenge globally from China and/or Russia.

One day we will wake up and the US Petrodollar will be the emperor's new clothes.

Of course, electric cars are typically charged via some kind of fossil fuel so to a certain extent they also benefit from these subsidies -- just not as much.