美国和欧洲陷入了一场能源转型补贴的竞赛
经济学家警告称，巨额补贴可能引发新一轮通胀
待富的欧盟成员国在抱怨富裕国家的不公平游戏
中国石化新闻网讯 据油价网2023年7月15日报道，“虽然媒体称之为补贴战争，但参与其中的各方都渴望保持合作与一致的形象”——无论给它什么名号，都很难否认一个显而易见的事实：美国和欧洲如今陷入了一场竞赛——一场能源转型补贴的竞赛。
去年夏天，当美国国会通过《通胀削减法案》时，许多公司有理由庆祝：它们将获得慷慨的财政支持以建立或扩大业务，只要它们属于任何“可持续”类别。
欧洲的气氛则不同。在欧洲的商业领袖们有理由开始担心另一件事：《通胀削减法案》提高了美国商品的竞争力，而随之而来的是欧洲自身商品竞争力的下降。
除此之外，亚洲能源成本不断飙升，而美国的竞争对手由于本土化生产而享有各类更低费率。欧洲商界领袖要求欧洲决策者作出回应。
在某种程度上，欧洲决策者们履行了承诺。欧盟今年早些时候通过了《净零工业法案》。
欧盟的这项法案旨在“提高欧盟净零技术工业基础的竞争力和弹性，这将构成一个负担得起、可靠和可持续的清洁能源系统的支柱”。
这听起来不错，但欧洲企业对此并不满意。看来，《净零工业法案》是一项仓促而就的工作，然而就像所有草草了事的法案一样，它并不太成功。但这是一份典型的布鲁塞尔文件，“不必要的复杂和不够具体”。
化工巨头索尔维公司首席执行官伊尔哈姆·卡德里当时对英国《金融时报》记者表示：“美国采取了一种简单策略，可以立即激励企业投资，而欧盟提出的政治框架缺乏精确要素，也没有吸引外资企业进行投资的简单、明确的理由。”
与此同时，在美国，《通胀削减法案》的实施也不全是轻松愉快的事。《通胀削减法案》最初的价格标签略低于4000亿美元，将在10年内分摊。6月份宾夕法尼亚大学估计，《通胀削减法案》的价格标签实际上将超过1万亿美元。
这个数字还可能更高，因为法案中设想的补贴没有上限。据高盛和瑞士信贷称，投票通过该法案的议员低估了补贴方案的成本，低估幅度高达300%。
可以说，人们并不是在真正地“投资”，而是在排队等待政府的资金，而自己的资金只有最低限度的贡献。然而，华盛顿和布鲁塞尔的情绪似乎都是“为了完成任务，什么都可以”，这里的任务是从以碳氢化合物为基础的经济向以其他能源为基础的经济转型。
美国人显然更慷慨，尽管一些怀疑论者警告说，为了给《通胀削减法案》提供资金，联邦政府将需要印更多的钱，使经济陷入通货膨胀的漩涡。
与此同时，欧盟将在《欧洲绿色协议》中为自己的补贴工作拨款5000亿欧元，另外5000亿欧元将来自欧盟投资计划(InvestEU)下的公共和私人融资，以及各国政府的个人捐款。
但这些国家的政府也有自己的内部补贴计划。这些计划使邻国相互矛盾，因为并非所有成员国都同样富有，那些待富欧盟成员国则抱怨富裕国家进行了不公平的游戏。
然而，即使有内部争吵，似乎最大的问题还是《通胀削减法案》。
《金融时报》援引德国经济部长的话报道说：“(美国人)想要半导体，想要太阳能产业，想要氢能产业，他们想要电解槽。”
事实上，美国人的确想要拥有一切。而且似乎除非欧盟团结起来，简化补贴分配程序，否则企业和投资将从欧洲向西外流。
从去年开始，欧洲大陆对外部能源供应的依赖暴露无遗，欧洲为失去经济辉煌而悲伤。与此同时，值得关注的重磅节目将是《通胀削减法案》的钱多久会用完，以及所有这些补贴的实际结果将是什么。
李峻 译自 油价网
原文如下：
Countries Wage War Over Clean Energy Subsidies
· The United States and Europe are locked in a subsidy race for the energy transition.
· Economists are warning that huge subsidies could trigger a new wave of inflation.
· Poorer EU member states are crying unfair game on the part of the wealthy ones.
Journalists are calling it a subsidy war. Those involved in it are keen to preserve an image of cooperation and agreement. Whatever you call it, it's hard to deny the obvious: the United States and Europe are locked in a race—a subsidy race for the energy transition.
When Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act last summer, many companies had reason to celebrate: they were going to get generous financial support to build or expand their businesses as long as they fell into any "sustainable" category.
The mood was different in Europe. There, business leaders had reason to start worrying about one more thing: the increased competitiveness of U.S. goods thanks to the IRA and the consequent reduced competitiveness of their own goods.
That was on top of their soaring energy costs while the U.S. competition enjoyed low rates thanks to local production. European business leaders demanded a response from European decision-makers.
In a way, decision-makers delivered. After several national government officials, the EU passed earlier this year something called the Net Zero Industry Act.
The act aimed to "increase the competitiveness and resilience of the EU's net-zero technology industrial base which will make up the backbone of an affordable, reliable, and sustainable clean energy system."
That sounds good on paper, but businesses were not happy with it. It appears the Net Zero Industry Act was a rushed job, and like all rushed jobs, it was less than a success. Yet it was a typical Brussels document: needlessly complicated and insufficiently specific.
"The US has adopted a simple strategy that immediately incentivises businesses to invest while the EU is coming with a political framework that lacks precise elements and misses simple, clear cut reasons for businesses to invest," the chief executive of chemicals major Solvay, Ilham Kadri, commented to the FT at the time.
Meanwhile, it was not all fun and games in IRA-era United States, either. The initial price tag of the bill was a bit below $400 billion, to be spread over ten years. Last month, the University of Pennsylvania estimated that the price tag of the IRA will in fact top $1 trillion.
It could go even higher, too, because the subsidies envisaged in the bill are not capped—there is no upper limit. According to the Democrat legislators who voted the bill into law underestimated the cost of the subsidy package by as much as 300%.
It could be argued that people are not really "investing money" but rather waiting in line for government money with a minimal contribution of their own funds. Yet the mood in Washington, as in Brussels, seems to be "Anything to get the job done," where the job is the transition from a hydrocarbons-based economy to one based on other sources of energy.
The Americans are clearly more generous, although some skeptics have warned that to fund the IRA, the federal government would need to print more money, trapping the economy in an inflation spiral.
The EU, meanwhile, is allocating half a trillion euros for its own subsidy efforts, packaged in the European Green Deal, another half a trillion should come from public and private financing under the InvestEU program as well as from national governments as individual contributions.
But these national governments also have their own internal subsidy plans for the transition. And these plans are pitting neighbors against each other because not all member states are equally wealthy, and the poorer ones are crying unfair game on the part of the wealthy ones.
"The [Americans] want to have the semiconductors, they want the solar industry, they want the hydrogen industry, they want the electrolysers," Habeck elaborated, as quoted by the FT.
Indeed, the Americans do want all that. And it seems that unless the EU gets its act together and simplifies the subsidy distribution procedure, there will be a business exodus from Europe in a western direction.
Europe will be left to mourn the loss of its economic glory, which began in 2022 when the continent's dependence on external suppliers of energy was revealed in full light. Meanwhile, the blockbuster show to watch will be how long before the IRA money runs out and what the actual outcomes of all that subsidizing will be.
