Like all new technologies (including oil going back a 100 years ago), it takes significant investment and infrastructure to start it. After technologies mature, the cost naturally comes down. How much resources does it take to build giant rigs to drill for oil, drill for oil, process the oil, build huge oil tankers to transport, build huge pipelines all over the country to distribute it, etc. Now that that whole system in place, it's hardly fair to compare it to a new alternative system that is just starting out.
You can bet that big business will not create an alternative unless there is a government pushing them to do so. There are a few exceptions like Apple and Tesla but for the most part, they don't.
For examples, look at our Food industries and Oil industries. What they are doing is horrible, yet they have bought out our government and use our taxes to give them benefits? Explain that one to me?
Why not give take away their subsidies and give it to alternative renewable power? This will increase the cost of oil, reduce the cost of alternatives. Why not take away subsidies from Monsanto and give it to local food producers. Those people that think organic is too expensive won't think so after fast food goes up in price and healthy organic places come down in price.
Oh and as a side benefit, America may just become a little heathier and some of our health care debates may just go away... After all the real problem with our healthcare is that we are sicker than ever....that is why the costs are high. No one wants to fix that, we just keep arguing about the symptom of the problem, not the problem itself.
Anyways, I've gone too far off topic.
Kan-O-Z
If only it were that simple.
There's rarely only one side to the story, and reality is often much more complex than we realize.
I can't really respond to you fully (because I honestly don't know enough), but just to point out why our energy problems aren't so cut and dried:
1. Big business will push for anything that will make them a profit. Currently, renewable energy just isn't as profitable. Many people don't realize exactly how much cheaper it is to use or, or scientifically why carbon based fuels are so much more useful. I'm not saying renewable energy is bad, or that we should ignore the externalities and stick with fossil fuels by any means. But the amount of energy per density (and mass) that can be stored in fossil fuels is absolutely incredible. And the fact that it can be transported so easily from place to place makes it even more useful.
Essentially there are two barriers here -- (a) economies of scale (when the market for these things are small, (fixed) costs are obviously higher, because you can't spread them out as much. And (b) the technology just isn't there yet -- if you look at the net present value of an investment in solar panels, it just doens't make financial sense. The upfront costs are simply too high relative to the alternative, and the ouput too low.
2. The cost of oil isn't determined at all by subsidies given to the oil industry. It's a worldwide market which is (not surprisingly) determined by global supply and demand. The growing demand by developing countries (and China especially) paired with a largely controlled supply to OPEC is what is primarily responsible for high oil prices. Subsidies won't change a thing in comparison with the other factors at play in that respect.
3. I will probably be villainized for saying this since popular opinion runs so strongly against Monsanto, but having worked in the agricultural industry alongside of them, what they are doing is actually very beneficial for humanity. For example, many of the new strains of corn they are developing are drout resistant and can actually be grown in places that things could be grown in previously, like West Africa. Additionally, many people like to rail again GMO (genetically modified organisms), but also want to have zero pesticides. Again, as someone who has some agricultural knowledge and experience -- you can't have it both ways. If you really want everything "organic", food prices would be an order of magnitude higher. GMOs actually enable farmers to use LESS pesticides on their crops, which I think is a great thing.
Are there instances of Monsanto bullying smaller farmers? I have no doubt. It's a large corporation, and with any institution that large, there's going to be fault and corruption. But let's at least look at both sides -- I for one would not want a world without GMOs and Monsanto. Some of the innovatino they are doing in the agricultural sphere is pretty incredible, and making life better for everyone.
4. Finally, I don't deny the corruption of big corporations lobbying for subsidies from Washington. There's plenty of it to go around, and I'm just as against it as you are. Though I am from a state with a large agricultural industry (Nebraska), I think some of the farm subsidies are among the dumbest fiscal policies that we have as a nation. They simply don't make economic sense.
That being said -- subsidies do play an important role, particularly through research and development, in the public good. Though they can clearly be used in corrupt ways, they can also be used to great effect to steer the market in a way that it would not otherwise go in. This can be a really good thing, particularly if there are a lot of externalities involved (basically an economic term for good or bad things that are not paid for or provide benefit to the decision making parties). Alternative energy can be a great place for those subsidies -- it provides an incentive to speed the growth of a market that would not get off the ground as quickly otherwise (chicken an egg problem -- no one wants it unless it is cheaper, but it won't become cheaper until more people want it).
Finally, I would suggest checking out this Forbes article on the nature of oil subsidies.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidbl...tax-provisions-are-not-subsidies-for-big-oil/ It explains a little more clearly our federal tax code and what incentives and breaks "Big Oil" is given.
5. A couple of closing comments:
(a) It is not exactly fair to compare the fossil fuel industry to the renewable energy market, since there are large technological differences that contribute to a wide profitability gap between the two. It's not just a matter of building the infrastructure -- if that were the case, it would have been done by now. People have been predicting how solar energy would come to the masses and replace coal since the 70s. Putting aside technological hurdles in the price of the solar panels aside, a huge problem is that large portions of the US are unsuitable for solar energy. How are you going to transport energy to those portions? With coal, it's actually quite cheap and easy -- just through it on a train and cart it off wherever it's needed. Not so much with solar power -- most of it would have to be generated in the south (and southwest in particular). Moving so much energy all the way up to New England? Immensely impractical and enormously expensive.
(b) It's very easy to simplify things -- villainize the big corporations and talk up the "little guys" and the underdogs. But the truth is that's the cheap, lazy man's way out. While I'm sure there's plenty or corruption in big corporations, and plenty to blame them for, its not all that simple. We are facing some thorny technological and economic problems that don't have an easy answer. On the one hand, we have to deal with the problems inherent to fossil fuels -- pollution and long run unsustainability, to name two. But we face a tradeoff with equally daunting problems inherent to renewable energy.
