I&#x27;m afraid this is missing the point. The subsidies we are talking about when it comes to energy are not &quot;cash in hand&quot; loans to energy companies.<p>It&#x27;s the tacit approval of and ignorance towards externalities energy companies cause, mostly pollution in any number of forms, from those carcinogenic to those crushing the climate (CO2) and finally things like nuclear waste (and possibly decontamination) that will be with us for many thousand years to come. These massive costs are not being accounted for, and they sum up to subsidies vastly exceeding the puny $50b cited here.