That's the problem with cheap oil, like we have now with fracking, it kills all market incentive to develop clean energy. If we're ever going to get serious about climate change we need a dynamic carbon tax that keeps the price of fossil fuels stable and high.
If we had such a carbon tax right now, that kept gas price at the previous price of $4/gallon, it would be a huge windfall that could be used to spend on clean energy incentives as well as low-income energy subsidies.
well no, because most renewable energy sources aim to produce electricity. Very little electricity is generated using oil, so the oil price should have little impact on most renewable energy production. The culprits are cheap gas and coal - especially coal, which really should be heavily taxed because of the huge health and environmental impacts from mining and burning coal.
Within the US, little electrical generation comes from oil (about TK%), but outside the US that level's rather higher -- something I only learned recently myself when trying to rebut the statement that oil was significant in electricity generation elsewhere.
Hrm. Still not all that big. 256 Mtoe per the IEA in 2012, of 6,497 MTOE, about 4% - 6% depending on how you read net global imports / exports. (How does the world import/export to itself?)
Though in many parts of the world, electricity comes from gasoline or diesel generators on small scale rather than central generation plants.
There's also the fact that renewable energy can produce liquid or gas fuels via the Sabatier process (resulting in natural gas) or Fischer-Tropsch fuel synthesis (liquids). These aren't used in bulk now, but could be, and represent a possible carbon-neutral gas and liquid hydrocarbon fuel source in future.
It's all linked because fracking produces both gas and oil. But I agree coal is the biggest culprit. That's why the tax should be on carbon, not a specific fuel. But the tax should be designed to be dynamic somehow to act as a stabilizer to keep prices from going to high or to low too fast.
If we had such a carbon tax right now, that kept gas price at the previous price of $4/gallon, it would be a huge windfall that could be used to spend on clean energy incentives as well as low-income energy subsidies.