Elizabeth Barrette (ysabetwordsmith) wrote,
Elizabeth Barrette
ysabetwordsmith
  • Mood: busy

The Importance of Government Spending

... is not just to boost the economy, but also to jumpstart technology.  When we don't do this, other countries that are willing to do it start getting ahead of us.  If you want to keep chanting "America is #1" -- and be talking honestly about something other than the prison population -- then you have to pay for it with government spending in education and the sciences.  There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. (Link courtesy of my partner Doug.)
Tags: economics, history, news, politics
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  • 17 comments
...go 4 levels up... Expand
siege

siege

January 27 2011, 04:42:20 UTC 10 years ago

http://www.solarbuzz.com/facts-and-figures/retail-price-environment/module-prices Certainly in terms of cost per watt, thin-film seems to be beating other photovoltaic cells. If you're buying for portable usage, that's the kind of incentive people like to hear. Also, thin-film solar cells are flexible, reducing damage from handling and impact. Hardly money flushed to the sewer since it means reduced maintenance and replacement costs in the course of hard usage, such as on the front lines of a military operation, or at a base or installation which cannot rely on local power generation and/or which may come under attack on occasion.

As this article emphasizes, certain energy technologies would be too expensive but for government-offered incentives for their use. One presumes that there are other publicly desirable technologies for which there was no initial demand, which are now widely used because of government subsidies specifically to encourage demand, whether or not those subsidies have been reduced or withdrawn entirely.

On the walking hand, of course, I'm pretty sure your personal demand is to remove all subsidies without exception and let the market eat the losers. I wonder what a market would look like wherein individuals actually have perfect information, though.
ford_prefect42

ford_prefect42

January 27 2011, 05:02:37 UTC 10 years ago

Yes. There are other uses for thin-film PV. They will be developed or not based on the effectiveness of thin-film PV for those functionalities, not the government subsidies for the construction of factories.

Thin film is beating other technologies per KWH, but is still not even close to the national mean grid price. There are examples in which thin film is competitive. They are examples of locations in which the local regulatory climate is *particularly* insane.

Solarbuzz lists the current per kwh price from PV at $.25/kwh at best. The US retail price of electricity on average is $.10/kwh. So, after *all this* taxpayer funding, after 30 years of constant subsidies, it is down to merely double the cost of conventional electricity, distributed over conventional grids, and after profit margins.

solpar cost/kwh
http://solarbuzz.com/facts-and-figures/markets-growth/cost-competitiveness

average per kwh price grid
http://www.eia.doe.gov/electricity/epm/table5_6_a.html

What is your definition of flushing money down the toilet again?

In the main, yes, I would withdraw all subsidies. Let the producers of products compete on a fair field without political selection and see where we end up. I think that the results will be better all around. Partly because subsidies have often been used to prop up inefficient and ineffective technologies long past their sell-by dates, and partly because even the few instances of beneficial applications didn't really offset the overall social costs of their implementation.

Yes, many energy technologies that do not make economic or energy production sense are in use today because of government subsidies. That is not an example of something having gone right, it's an example of something having gone badly wrong. Those technologies are a prime example of government socializing the cost of inefficient technology at great cost to those that recieve no advantage from them.

Genrally, as far as individuals having perfect information... I consider it the job of each company with a product to do their own marketting. And may the best product win. Yes, sometimes a bad idea gets more legs than seem rational (SUVs come to mind), but then, lacking perfect knowledge, you can't regulate any better than imperfectly knowledgeable people can decide.

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