Talk:Energy subsidy

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This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Juliasmallia.

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Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Mdbrenna.

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Edits
This is a valid topic and quite important one. However, to improve this article, I think that the tone should be edited to be more neutral. There are some weasel words, which should be avoided. It probably needs also more global context (Europe, Australia etc). I will try to find more info.Beagel (talk) 10:40, 9 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Beagel, for your on-going work with this article. Johnfos (talk) 21:19, 9 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Agreed. "Subsidies to renewable energy are generally considered more environmentally beneficial, although the full range of environmental effects should to be taken into account.[7]" I can pretty quickly find many contrary sources. What kind of calculations is this based on? 130.71.241.182 (talk) 14:12, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

This article does not provide any clear or specific data. Things most people would not deem "subsidies" are classified as such nor is there mention of specific countries, years, companies, etc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.189.91.103 (talk) 15:43, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

This article should be cleaned up or taken down. There are outdated citations knowledgeable edits give it some attention.

Under the Impacts of Renewable Energy Subsidies, there are only a few sentences and only one source sighted. This source should be better summarized and this section should include other sources offering different perspectives. Also, this section comes off as seeming biased. Juliasmallia (talk) 04:25, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

The Overview section is laid out in a distracting way, it would be more suitable to summarize the costs and benefits of energy subsidies to society in paragraph form, instead of summarizing the "arguments for or against" in bullet point form. This section does not sight a source for all of the information written, and since almost no information listed here is common knowledge, a source sighting is required. Juliasmallia (talk) 04:32, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

Externalities is a subsidy?
Not an expert here, but calling external costs a subsidy, is that an accepted use of the word? Feels a little metaphorical.--Jeff (talk) 12:52, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Agree with that. The section was not NPOV, used only one source, and most was directly quoted. Very doubtful that external costs can even be considered a subsidy in the context of this article. They are real costs, but "subsidy" generally implies a direct governmental action or policy. For these reasons I have removed the section. Keithpickering (talk) 01:23, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Is this true? "A 2009 study by the Environmental Law Institute[5] assessed the size and structure of U.S. energy subsidies over the 2002–2008 period. The study estimated that subsidies to fossil-fuel based sources amounted to approximately $72 billion over this period and subsidies to renewable fuel sources totaled $29 billion. The study did not assess subsidies supporting nuclear energy."

It seems to be contradicted in the next paragraph. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 153.110.6.132 (talk) 11:01, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Possibly misleading numbers
This is the area I'm talking about:

"A 2010 study by Global Subsidies Initiative compared global relative subsidies of different energy sources. Results show that fossil fuels receive 0.8 US cents per kWh of energy they produce (although it should be noted that the estimate of fossil fuel subsidies applies only to consumer subsidies and only within non-OECD countries), nuclear energy receives 1.7 cents / kWh, renewable energy (excluding hydroelectricity) receives 5.0 cents / kWh and biofuels receive 5.1 cents / kWh in subsidies.[11]"

Notice how the fossil fuel subsidies apply only within non-OECD countries. A lot of major countries are OECD member countries, including the US, Germany and Australia among others. The full list is here: http://www.oecd.org/general/listofoecdmembercountries-ratificationoftheconventionontheoecd.htm — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.193.8.48 (talk) 05:58, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Untrustworthy sources
Those writers who claim that fossil fuels are subsidized need to be called on to verify their facts from unbiased sources. Almost all cites to claims of such subsidies existing are to renewables sellers or their promoters. As direct competitors, these are not dependable sources of such information.

To quote the American Petroleum Institute, "The U.S. oil and natural gas industry does not receive 'subsidized' payments from the government to produce oil and gas." Thus, either API are lying (unlikely) or information is being 'massaged' by renewables promoters so as to present a misleading comparison of relative costs.

A BBC webpage reveals that fuel tax breaks to hard-up farmers were being misleadingly described as 'fossil fuel subsidies' by UK renewables promoters. I would be totally unsurprised if this categorisation covered most such claims.

A subsidy, especially a feed-in tariff, has the effect of making the product more costly for the consumer, whilst creating greater wealth for subsdized operators. A tax break, on the other hand, reduces the cost to the consumer, and achieves this at the expense of lower governmental taxation revenues. It does not directly contribute to the cost of supply or operator profits, although it may arguably boost operator sales by making the product more attractive. Thus, whilst both are a fiscal cost to the government, the tax break directly benefits the consumer, but the subsidy benefits the operators of loss-leader supply sources whilst harming the interests of the consumer.

By way of comparison, the UK Telegraph reports that that the 'Big Six' UK energy producers benefit more from subsidies than they do from the sale of actual energy produced by wind turbines. "The subsidy is worth £200 million more than the income from the electricity actually produced by Britain’s on and offshore wind farms."

A further Telegraph article of December 2013 points out that subsidies to loss-leader biofuel operations are proving extremely damaging to the World's ecology, by way of promoting uneconomic and unsustainable profiteering, and what amounts to environmental asset stripping. The benefits are small in comparison to the environmental and fiscal cost. For example, ".. a 2013 study by the International Institute for Sustainable Development shows that deforestation, fertilisers and fossil fuels used in the production of biofuels would emit about 54Mt of CO2. A full 92 per cent of the carbon dioxide 'saved' is just emitted elsewhere." --Anteaus (talk) 23:33, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

Remove the elephant from the room
I suggest to separate into a new page, Energy subsidies in the United States, the 2 relevant sections, leaving and a brief summary.--DadaNeem (talk) 21:09, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

The suggestion listed above is useful, as there is an imbalance of coverage for the Untied States versus the other countries listed. I would suggest including other countries, perhaps countries where energy subsidies proved a successful approach, and countries where they proved to be a failure. The information summaries seem biased, for example the statement "The large subsidies of Russia are costly and it is recommended in order to help the economy that Russia lowers its domestic subsidies." does sight a source, but the counter view is not discussed. Juliasmallia (talk) 04:42, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

Support Kyle MoJo (talk) 19:41, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

Misleading statement & source change suggestion
The statement in the opener "The IMF estimates that for 2015 the economic cost of energy subsidies worldwide will amount to US$5.3 trillion, or US$10 million every minute" is a bit misleading. I would suggest changing it to "Researchers at the IMF project that for 2015 the economic cost of total energy subsidies worldwide will amount to US$5.3 trillion in 2015, or US$10 million every minute". The source points to a news article about a research paper, but the actual research paper states on page 1 the following: "IMF Working Papers describe research in progress by the author(s) and are published to elicit comments and to encourage debate. The views expressed in IMF Working Papers are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the IMF, its Executive Board, or IMF management. " Still the authors are associated with the IMF and this is a relevant source, the other minor changes are to align with the wording in the actual paper. I would also suggest that the source be changed from the Guardian article to the actual source paper, or at least that source appended onto the statement as well. This is one of my first attempts at a wikipedia edit so I will leave this suggestion out there for a week or two before doing it myself to allow for conversation. Cspierce (talk) 19:43, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

IMF 2015 Paper available here: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2015/wp15105.pdf

IMF 2019 Paper here:

https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2019/05/02/Global-Fossil-Fuel-Subsidies-Remain-Large-An-Update-Based-on-Country-Level-Estimates-46509 Here.it.comes.again (talk) 12:36, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

$.6 trillion for 2015 for the US. Is this a straight cash amount for forgiven taxes, etc. This almost equals our deficit. What subsidies do other industries get, it seems the large industries may be on welfare. 2601:181:8301:4510:34CF:7B27:B10F:FBC8 (talk) 04:12, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

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Inconsistencies - or clarity needed
All from this article: A 2016 study estimated that global fossil fuel subsidies were $5.3 trillion in 2015, which represents 6.5% of global GDP.[3] The study found that "China was the biggest subsidizer in 2013 ($1.8 trillion), followed by the United States ($0.6 trillion), and Russia, the European Union, and India (each with about $0.3 trillion)."[3] SUMMARY: Globally, energy was subsidizied by $5.3T SUMMARY: US subsidized energy by $600B

The International Energy Agency estimates that governments subsidised fossil fuels by US$548 billion in 2013.[22] SUMMARY: Globally energy was subsidized by $548B

On March 13, 2013, Terry M. Dinan, senior advisor at the Congressional Budget Office, testified before the Subcommittee on Energy of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology in the U.S. House of Representatives that federal energy tax subsidies would cost $16.4 billion that fiscal year, broken down as follows: SUMMARY: US subsidized energy by $16.4B

So, which statement is accurate? These are drastically different numbers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Khilker (talk • contribs) 16:33, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

The confusion seems to arise from the inclusion of externalities in the IMF study, i.e. also the costs of environmental damage, even though this is not (directly) paid by government. I've made the best quick solution I could think of, which was to move this paragraph to its own section on environmental externalities. Hopefully this reduces the confusion, because I don't think these costs are what people immediately imagine when you speak of "subsidies" (although I'm not convinced it is totally wrong...) Kyle MoJo (talk) 20:12, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

Energy Subsidies in the European Union
Hello wikipedians, I was reviewing the article and I thought it would be good to update the section on European Union with most recent statistics.

I would suggest adding this sentence at the end of the paragraph:

According to the most recent statistics, subsidies for fossil fuels in Europe are exclusively allocated to coal (€10 billion) and natural gas (€6 billion). Oil products do not receive any subsidies.

Do please let me know if you're interested in updating the text. AlainMathuren (talk) 3 August 2017

Hi all, Just to let you know, I will go ahead with the update. AlainMathuren (talk) 27 October 2017

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Is this article "written like an advertisement?"
This cleanup tag says that this article are "written like an advertisement." Which parts of this article need to be revised? Jarble (talk) 18:40, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

I also was on this talk page to see if there was any discussion about this. I didn't see anything obviously advertorial in the article. I suggest to remove the cleanup tag if nobody raises any objections here.Kyle MoJo (talk) 19:36, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

Requested move 20 November 2019

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: No consensus. (non-admin closure) Cwmhiraeth (talk) 11:55, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

Energy subsidy → Fossil fuel subsidies – Most people searching for the info in this article would search for "fossil fuel subsidies". Fossil fuel subsidies are much much larger than renewable energy subsidies. The little content there is in this article on renewable energy and nuclear subsidies could be moved to the articles on renewable energy and nuclear power. Chidgk1 (talk) 19:30, 20 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Oppose. I see no need to split the article and do not believe a requested move is the correct way to go about doing so.  Calidum   17:10, 21 November 2019 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Sept 2021 IMF paper
This section is to provide a space for us to discuss, in general, how to present the content of the Sept 2021 IMF Working paper. Originally these were the references used:

It is also a space for specific comments about specific edits related to that IMF paper that are too long to fit in the Edit Summary space at each individual edit.

The reason I started this section is in response to a fairly large size of a table in the article (in the section "Subsidies by country") that was derived from that IMF paper using this third reference:

Two heads are better than one. Boyd Reimer (talk) 17:14, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

Right now the reference given for the source of the data found in the above-mentioned table leads directly to an Excel Spreadsheet. Instead of having a link that leads directly to that Excel Spreadsheet, here is a link that leads first to an IMF page and then to that Excel Spreadsheet. That is more accessible to Wikipedia readers who may not have access to the Excel program. This link to a web page is more in line with this Wikipedia guideline on accessibility: At this link is the quote, “Try to avoid directly linking to any content that requires special software.”

Let me clarify:

1. According to Wikipedia guidelines on Original Research our starting point should be a “Reliable Source” that is not usually a primary source. Therefore the starting point is the Guardian article at this link 2. The Guardian article has a link within it that leads to this IMF web link

3. That web link leads to a PDF of an IMF Working paper, “Still Not Getting Energy Prices Right.”

4. That PDF has a link on page 9 (footnote 8) that leads to this IMF web page

5. That IMF web page has this link in its left sidebar (Data and Diagnostic Tools) which leads to an Excel spreadsheet titled “Fossil Fuel Subsidies by Country and Fuel Database (2021).” That spreadsheet lists countries etc.

If a Wikipedia reader wants to access the reference link to that database that lists all the country data, they can do so in the most direct way by going to #4 above: this link at this IMF web page

Let me know what you think. Boyd Reimer (talk) 20:01, 22 October 2021 (UTC)