Giving a business tax breaks is not the same as almost fully funding one. The fossil fuel industry pay billions of dollars in taxes, not including the tax paid by the end user. Renewable energy isn't taxed at any level...if they were, these products would be far too expensive to even consider.
When we first started using electricity around the country who paid for the power lines that now criss cross the nation? Who paid for the R/D that led to fracking of today? Who developed the oil fields, and gave oil companies cheap rent, and access to, public lands? All of you people who hate the idea of renewables in spite of all the good they all do for the country deliberately choose to ignore the history of the fossil fuel industry, and the amount of money paid to develop that beginning industry back in the late 1700's, and early 1900's.
https://cen.acs.org/articles/89/i51/Long-History-US-Energy-Subsidies.html
'In comparing current support for renewable energy with past aid for today’s traditional energy sources, the report focuses on two types of assistance: funding during the first 15 years of support and annualized expenditures over the life of the energy source.
The first 15 years, the report says, are critical to developing new technologies. It finds that oil and gas subsidies, including tax breaks and government spending, were about five times as much as aid to renewables during their first 15 years of development; nuclear received 10 times as much support.
Federal support during the first 15 years works out to $3.3 billion annually for nuclear energy and $1.8 billion annually for oil and gas, but an average of only $400 million a year in inflation-adjusted dollars for *renewables.
For coal, which generates half the nation’s electricity, the authors were unable to quantify government support for the first 15 years, which includes federal and state aid. Coal, Pfund notes, benefits from a host of centuries-old programs that signal a rich history of aid, which is intertwined with the development of the nation. The aid runs deep and comes in many forms—state and federal tax breaks for mining and use; technological support for mining and exploration; national resource maps to encourage exploration and development; tariffs on foreign coal; and aid to steel smelters, railroads, and other industries that burn coal to encourage greater use and develop a steady market for coal.
“It has been a long heyday for coal,” she says, describing states and workers vying for jobs and business."
How Much Do Renewables Actually Depend on Tax Breaks?
https://cleantechnica.com/2012/08/0...re-in-historical-subsidies-than-clean-energy/
"You know the line — “Renewable energy shouldn’t receive government support. If it can’t stand on its own in the free market, it doesn’t deserve to grow.” The answer — total freakin’ hogwash, horsefeathers, balderdash!
First of all, as you might have gathered from the title, fossil fuel’s historical subsidies are like skyscrapers next to single-family-renewable-energy-subsidy homes. This is, notably, without including the massive indirect subsidies the oil and gas industry receive in unchecked externalities that wreak havoc on our health, our quality of life, and the potential viability of the human species after climate change is done with us.
You can see in this chart below that historical oil and gas subsidies are over 13 times larger than renewable energy (not including biofuels) subsidies:"