



Is Professor Nocera's solar brew a savior or a wishful thinking?














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RE: So...
By Lugaidster on 11/26/2008 12:49:46 AM , Rating: 2
you need the subsidies, otherwise why would a company risk money on new technologies. Oil and carbon didn't have competition when they appeared. Today they are to big to let free market determine the winner before a crisis appears.

To put it in other words, unless we give money to research and subsidize alternatives we will just have to wait for oil and electricity prices to be so high that most won't be able to pay them.

Don't blame the subsidies, blame the subsidizers for making bad choices.

RE: So...
By nstott on 11/26/2008 2:06:13 AM , Rating: 1
Companies and venture capitalists risk money on new technologies without government subsidies because they have hope for profit in the future. This also promotes less money being waisted on corporate R&D that show little promise of economic feasibility. Free market capitalism has been the greatest economic force for technological innovation and advancement more so than any other.

Oil and coal did have competition as energy sources when they appeared. For example, windmills were around long before oil and coal were used for power. Windmills were replaced because oil and coal had certain advantages.

I blame crypto-communist educators who teach patently false versions of history and economics. It seems you could use some lessons from ringold and masher.

RE: So...
By nstott on 11/26/2008 2:37:24 AM , Rating: 2
On second thought: oil and coal compared to wind used as a power source was probably a sticky example to bring up. Windmills were used for pumping water and grinding grain before oil and coal were used in steam engines, but coal has been used to heat for much longer. Both fossil fuel-powered steam engines and windmills were used to generate electricity around the same time after the invention of the electric motor, so that is perhaps a better example. Fossil fuels were chosen over wind for electrical power generation due to certain advantages.

RE: So...
By Lugaidster on 11/26/2008 9:20:07 AM , Rating: 2
While most of the time I would agree with you, this just isn't the case. If you hadn't non-profit organizations working on nuclear fusion power generation we wouldn't know anything of it. There are alternatives that need time, time that investors aren't willing to wait in light of better immediate alternatives.

You might have more knowledge on the subject, and I do agree that I could use a little reading on certain principles. But you still have to see that sometimes you do need subsidies. I just believe that for some technologies, that is the case.

You do have to remember that oil and coal have hundreds of year in the market and they have the backup of multi-million dollar companies. Usually, these companies would rather put money on lobbists pockets to convince that you need nothing more than use it to research alternatives.

RE: So...
By Ringold on 11/26/2008 4:50:04 PM , Rating: 2
You bring up fusion; thats one thing. Government money pretty much has to be involved in development of technologies with no hope for profit for decades on in to the future.

However, you can argue as much as you want about renewable energy subsidies. The fact is that some entrepeneurs and people running existing and growing renewable energy firms (such as solar panel manufacturers or a wind turbine manufacturer) are already on the record denouncing the subsidies. They point out that profitability for some companies has already been attained, private investors are already happily giving them billions of dollars, and that subsidies at this point merely prop up weak competitors instead of allowing the true winners to rise to the top. Silly things also end up happening, like Germany installing tons of solar panels, raising global costs and keeping much sunnier locations from expanding as much themselves. Thats of course predictable; government intervention always leads to misallocation of resources.

It also doesn't matter that much how long coal and oil has been around. All that matters is cost. Beat coal, and do so while also performing in other key areas of consideration (such as reliability, etc), and in the long run it doesn't matter how long a company has been around. Google's running circles around Microsoft, it didn't matter that Google only recently got the governments ear. All that matters is that its search engine is more pleasing.

Not sure why it matters how "big" oil companies are. First of all, many of them have business units making break throughs in various renewable technologies themselves. Second of all, the road of history is littered with former giants rendered by young upstarts.

You also say not to blame the subsidies but instead the subsidizers for not picking the proper winner.. Here, you show you fundamentally don't understand what process the free market is meant to carry out. It's impossible to pick the proper winner ahead of time. The market is the ultimate acid test at determining what most efficiently meets the needs of the market. That's the basic advantage of free markets.. Instead of a government committee trying to understand everything about every business, relationships between them, needs, wants, products, etc, decision making is instead distributed.

RE: So...
By nstott on 11/26/2008 7:18:30 PM , Rating: 2
I'm all for funding R&D through government grants, which includes research on nuclear fusion. I'm against government subsidies to prop up companies selling products that are not profitable (Although I think tax breaks for developing businesses are good). Research grants and subsidies are not the same thing.

Many fossil fuel companies also spend a lot of R&D on alternative energies. Energy is energy to them. Once it becomes profitable, energy companies want to make money off of it.

Oil Companies Promote Alternative Energy

Shell Quadruples Renewable Energy Project Spending

BP: Alternative Energy

Oh, and all of the oil lobbyists explain why we've been drilling in ANWR. Oh yeah, we haven't been...

