Recent Analysis and Reports
A Boon to Bad Biofuels: Federal Tax Credits and Mandates Underwrite Environmental Damage at Taxpayer Expense. Subsidies to meet EISA mandates amount to more than $400 billion through 2020. Subsidy criteria need to better protect taxpayer and the environment. Earth Track and Friends of the Earth. (May 2009).
Review of the 21st Century Energy Deployment Act (discussion draft). Detailed evaluation of the structure and incentive alignment for key decision makers within the Clean Energy Deployment Admnistration. Lending capacity could exceed $100 billion. (Version: 14May09).
Nuclear Power as Taxpayer Patronage: A Case Study of Calvert Cliffs Unit 3. DRAFT. Detailed review of economic and political strategy of UniStar's proposed new reactor in Lusby, MD. Prepared for the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center. (April 2009).
Energy Transition: Mapping an Appropriate Role for Goverment. Critiques massive federal funding for nuclear and other energy technologies; provides criteria to vet which policies are more or less likely to work. Slides from NPEC/Heritage meeting Is Subsidizing Commercial Energy Projects the Best Way for America to Achieve It's Energy Goals. (March 2009).
Subsidies to Nuclear Power in the United States: The Case of Calvert Cliffs Unit III. Slides from Joint NPEC/Carnegie meeting Costing Nuclear Power's Future. (February 2009).
Subsidies to Ethanol in the United States. With Ron Steenblik. Published in D. Pimentel (ed), Biofuels, Solar & Wind as Renewable Energy Systems. Thanks to Springer for permission to repost. (August 2008).
Subsidies to Nuclear and Biofuels Among the Most Costly Carbon Abatement Strategies. Provides subsidy cost per mt CO2eq abated via goverment supports to biofuels (including cellulosic) and nuclear energy. Integrating data from McKinsey & Co. on abatement options, demonstrates subsidies comprise the least efficient options for addressing climate change. Prepared for Greenpeace Solutions. (June 2008).
MA Bioenergy Initiative Requires Restructuring to Ensure Energy Market Neutrality and Cost Efficiency. Critique of the state's plans to subsidize ethanol, mandate biodiesel, and mostly ignore end-use efficiency. (Feb. 2008).
Energy Subsidies: How Much Does Nuclear Power Have in Common with Ethanol? Presentation for the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center evaluating similarities in these two heavily subsidized energy resources. (Jan. 2008).
Biofuels - At What Cost? Government support for ethanol and biodiesel in the United States: 2007 Update. Report. Summary slides from release. Growing production and more subsidies converge to trigger an estimated $93 billion in support to ethanol and biodiesel for the 2006-12 period. The report also contains a detailed review of the large and potentially environmentally harmful biofuels subsidies in the pending Energy and Farm bills. Prepared fo the Global Subsidies Initiative. (Oct. 2007).
Critique of DOE loan guarantee program. Formal comments outlining market distortions and structural weaknesses in DOE's multi-billion dollar program to subsidize favored energy technologies. Authorized under Title XVII of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, the program creates a huge potential windfall to the nuclear sector. Also accessible on DOE site. (July 2007).
Taking Stock of the Biofuels Boom. Article for the Interpress News Service. (June 2007).
Biofuels in the Transport Sector: Promoting Policy Neutrality. Presentation to the World Bank Transport Forum outlines a number of principles for good alternative fuel policy that focuses on displacing petroleum consumption in transport rather than trying to select the winning technology. (March 2007). A more detailed policy description, for comment, can be found in Remaking Biofuels Policy: Neutrality and Competition. (April 2007).
Ten Most Distortionary Energy Subsidies. Highlights ten global subsidies that, if corrected, would materially realign prices signals to more effectively achieve energy market end goals. A shorter version of this paper appears in the Handbook of Energy, 2007. (January 2007).
Biofuels - At What Cost? Government Support for Ethanol and Biodiesel in the United States. Full Report. Executive Summary. Detailed review of state and federal subsidies, prepared for the Global Subsidies Initiative. Subsidy costs per unit fossil fuel or GHG displaced are very high. Faster and more efficient ways to achieve these goals should be pursued. (October 2006).
See also: Costing the proposed Alternative Fuels Standard from the Bush state of the Union Address. With Ron Steenblik, Global Subsidies Initiative. (February 2007).
Subsidies in the US Energy Sector: Magnitude, Causes, and Options for Reform. Examines the political drivers behind subsidy proliferation in the US federal system and a variety of options to improve transparency and contestability of the subsidy programs. Paper contains ballpark estimates for US federal subsidies by energy type. (November 2006). OECD final print (no live links) is also available. For more details on the oil subsidies, see data we provided to the Christian Science Monitor.
Reforming Subsidies in the US Energy Sector: Large Challenges Lay Ahead. Presentation to the OECD Workshop on Subsidy Reform and Sustainable Development, Helsinki, Finland. (June 2006).
Financial and Corruption Risks with Federally-Provided Insurance against Reactor Delays. Comments to the US DOE on structural problems with the delay insurance program, generating large financial risks. Recommends auctioning insurance contracts to reduce public subsidies and corruption risks from the program. (December 2005).
Nuclear Power in the US: Still Not Viable Without Subsidy. Updated estimates of subsidies to nuclear energy showing that 60-90% of the cost of new nuclear power is the result of public subsidy rather than private investment.
Structural Challenges to Cutting Government Waste. Discusses Porkbusters and other efforts to expose government waste. Proposes ways to more effectively align the incentives of individual members of Congress with taxpayers to control wasteful spending.
NuSubsidies Nuclear Consortium. Learn about the power of Policy-Enhanced Investing to turn nuclear power from the dog of Wall Street into the mightily-hyped favored solution for all of the US' energy woes. Right-click mouse to open hyperlinks.
Frequently Requested
Fueling Global Warming: Federal Subsidies to Oil in the United States. Prepared for Greenpeace. 
Federal Energy Subsidies: Energy, Environmental, and Fiscal Impacts. Alliance to Save Energy. 
