Big Oil on Clean Energy: More Mandates (and Subsidies), Please

Earlier today we linked to Daniel Yergin's pitch for Big Oil in renewable energy and had the throwaway line:

I know Yergin raises some folks hackles...

Here's Environmental Capital on the CERA report:

...What CERA is saying is that this new-energy market, while small, should get more government help to grow. Traditionally, oil companies have often argued that the fact that renewable energy depends on government mandates and subsidies means it’s little more than an expensive dalliance. The CERA report also notes these technologies wouldn’t be around without government fiats and handouts. But then it argues for more of both.

“Putting a price on CO2 emissions, setting mandates, and providing subsidies all work to kick-start and sustain many clean energy technologies,” CERA says in its report, the findings of which CERA released publicly this month. The goal, CERA says, should be to structure subsidies so they ensure “that these technologies get off the drawing board and are able to wean themselves from the support” as they grow.

How to do that will be big debate. But it’s a different debate than the traditional one: whether the government should push clean-energy technologies in the first place.

Here's the first comment on the EC post:

Daniel Yergin, in late 2004, promised us that by the end of 2005 oil prices would be back down to a long term price of $38 or less–because rising production would drive prices down. Oil hit $60 in 2005, even before the hurricanes.
For more information, do a Google Search for Daniel Yergin and click on “Daniel Yergin Day.”

Comment by Jeffrey J. Brown - February 25, 2008 at 1:46 pm

We promise, no more self-reverential posting today.

"We've turned into quite the little braggart, eh Mr. Analyst?"

"I know, I know, em-phasis on the first two syl-lables"