President-elect Trump is moving quickly to choose cabinet members and announce his priorities for next year. Tax policy will be on the agenda, including scaling back the green energy tax subsidies passed in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). The tax subsidies have ballooned in cost from $390 billion over 10 years to more than $1 trillion. Green energy is costly to the federal budget, but it also imposes costs on the environment. Last week, I examined the Biden plan to cover Western public lands with 538,000 football fields worth of metal-and-glass solar panels. Another environmental issue is green energy trash. Solar panels, wind turbines, and lithium batteries have limited lifespans, are only partly recyclable, and create disposal problems down the road. Federal policymakers need to balance the potential CO2 benefits of these technologies with the collateral damage, including the disposal problems.
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Table of Contents
- President-elect Trump is moving quickly to choose cabinet members and 1
- Inflation Reduction Act IRA. The tax subsidies have ballooned in cost 1
- Green energy is costly to the federal budget but it also imposes costs on 1
- Another environmental issue is green energy trash. Solar panels wind 1
- Solar panels have a 25- to 30-year lifespan and many panels could be 1
- What happens down the road if 538000 football fields in the West are 1
- There are similar problems with wind turbines. They have a lifespan of 2
- 30 acres in Sweetwater Texas. There are also windmill blade dumps in 2
- Iowa and Grand Meadow Minnesota . 2
- What if economics turns against wind power in coming years Maybe 2
- A coal power plant near me operated 63 years before closing and the 2
- Lithium batteries are the central component of electric vehicles EVs and 2
- Dismantling and recycling the battery materials is difficult and the great 2
- Dumping EV batteries into landfills creates risks of contaminating soil and 2
- The environmental impacts of green energy are complex and need to be 2
- Cato scholars discuss the IRA green subsidies here and here . 2
