7 ms·

Solar didn't magically just appear on the market at a lower price point than carbon-based resources though, it had to go through several iterations which requir

Solar didn't magically just appear on the market at a lower price point than carbon-based resources though, it had to go through several iterations which required significant investment capital. This is usually where government agencies like DOE leverage their capital investment programs because private business aren't interested in paying for the R&D to solve those kinds of big problems without a guaranteed success. Solar is only becoming cheaper today because of the research and capital that was put into developing the technology, not because it's inherently cleaner than coal. To your point, based purely on the market forces (i.e. excluding carbon taxes) coal is still a very viable option. And if the government is motivated to migrate businesses off of dirty energy resources, it also has a motivation to help develop alternatives that the market will accept. Solyndra[0] was one example of a company that received government support to develop solar technology and became notorious for defrauding the government in the process. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solyndra https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solyndra

jhgb 6y ago
> and became notorious for defrauding the government in the process Where's the evidence for that? The major point was that Solyndra bet on the wrong horse with CIGS; they were unknowingly doomed to fail from the start.
- ci5er 6y ago
  What happened with CIGS? There was a privately funded CIGS company here in Austin TX that also didn't make it (even though the founders and investors were solid) and I've not gotten a straight answer as to why - esp. confusing because the first quals looked very good.
  - jhgb 6y ago
    Well, nothing. That's basically the point. Or, at best very little happened with it. "It wasn't getting cheaper faster than silicon was" is the most concise answer I can come up with.
brendoelfrendo 6y ago
I'm not sure your point in bringing up Solyndra; with that notable exception, the fed's investments in renewables turned a decent profit. It's actually a problem, in hindsight: the program was supposed to take risks on innovative ideas and companies that would be difficult to find via traditional channels, but Solyndra had such a chilling effect that the DOE stopped taking those risks.
- save_ferris 6y ago
  Yeah, I meant to add the caveat that it was one of the most publicly notable government energy investments for the simple fact that it ended up in scandal, since many aren't even aware that the government invests in companies like this. I wasn't trying to criticize the initiative. > Solyndra had such a chilling effect that the DOE stopped taking those risks. It's frustrating to see that a private company's bad behavior wound up being a stain for the government like this.
  - brendoelfrendo 6y ago
    > It's frustrating to see that a private company's bad behavior wound up being a stain for the government like this. Definitely! Sorry if I came across as defensive, I'm just used to people using Solyndra to criticize the whole program. On the whole, the DOE made a big impact. It's just disappointing that one bad actor reduced that impact by turning into a political hot potato.
    - save_ferris 6y ago
      Not at all! Nothing to apologize for, I remember when that whole situation blew up very well. And I completely agree with you.
  - Pulcinella 6y ago
    Was it even bad behavior? I recall that there were allegations at the time that Chinese business were dumping solar panels onto the market and that meant Solyndra couldn’t compete. Though I’ve also found some news sources saying that the high prices for polysilicon caused a bunch of players to enter the market to produce it, causing prices of poly silicon to crash and Solyndra couldn’t compete. Either way it seems to be bad luck unless the CEO and board knew those were huge risks and intentionally downplayed them. Edit: It just seems unclear to be what the supposed fraud was.
ganafagol 6y ago
> To your point, based purely on the market forces (i.e. excluding carbon taxes) coal is still a very viable option. Oh please. Based "purely on market forces" can't exclude carbon emissions. That's a non-negligible externality which your market needs to price correctly. Not doing so is in effect subsidising coal. There is nothing "pure" about this, quite to the contrary. And this has been known for decades. It's 2021 now. We don't live in 1890 anymore.
- whatshisface 6y ago
  >Oh please. Based "purely on market forces" can't exclude carbon emissions. Huh? A bunch of people with no altruistic tendencies, and who are incapable of coordinating through any means but pricing, will not stop overfishing or carbon emissions. I don't get this often repeated thing about how not taxing carbon is subsidizing it, or how cap-and-trade is indistinguishable from naturally occurring markets. Both of those things are clearly artificial constructs built on top of the naturally-forming market. It's like many people are trying to use a perfect society as the zero-mark which all deltas and relative measures are measured from, while the state of nature (and the absence of a policy) is the obvious zero-mark to use.
  - ganafagol 6y ago
    No. Carbon emissions are hurting everybody on this planet. Even if you ignore plants, funghi and animals, then there are still a few billiom humans around that are participating in your market and get damaged by emissions. A fair market needs to contain provisions for compensation of this damage. Just because you can't see it right away does not mean it does not exist. Compare it with sewer systems in a city. Many businesses would be much more profitable if they could dump their crap straight onto the street. Municipal cleaning services would need to clean up and everybody pays them. So they'd be subsidised though this. We don't accept this, we have rules against it since it's not fair. They have to pay their share, and excessive generation of crap needs to pay accordingly. We don't accept this with crap on the street, and we should not accept it with crap in the atmosphere either. It's the exact opposite of a free market. It's misuse of a common resource.
socrates1998 6y ago
You ignored my main point, which is that coal is also subsidized because we don't accurately price in all the pollution. Solar would have been explored much sooner if we factored in the pollution.
ogre_codes 6y ago
> Solar didn't magically just appear on the market at a lower price point than carbon-based resources though You are ignoring the entire point of the post you are replying to. Extracting coal and burning it has massive external costs. Massive health costs to the workers and even people just living near coal extraction. Massive devaluation of land near the coal mines. Huge issues with non-carbon solution. That's all before the concerns about climate change. Few people were compensated for the massive destruction of wealth/ health & quality of life in the region. In many places the companies extracted every ounce of coal then when the lawsuits started pouring in, the company went belly up. Once you take into account all the costs outside the costs of acquiring the land and extracting the coal, coal is vastly more expensive.
jpgvm 6y ago
Uhh: > not because it's inherently cleaner than coal Is patently false. It took capital to get there but solar -is- inherently cheaper than coal. That is -exactly- why it's being deployed at scale now.

jhgb 6y ago

> and became notorious for defrauding the government in the process Where's the evidence for that? The major point was that Solyndra bet on the wrong horse with CIGS; they were unknowingly doomed to fail from the start.

ci5er 6y ago
What happened with CIGS? There was a privately funded CIGS company here in Austin TX that also didn't make it (even though the founders and investors were solid) and I've not gotten a straight answer as to why - esp. confusing because the first quals looked very good.
- jhgb 6y ago
  Well, nothing. That's basically the point. Or, at best very little happened with it. "It wasn't getting cheaper faster than silicon was" is the most concise answer I can come up with.

brendoelfrendo 6y ago

I'm not sure your point in bringing up Solyndra; with that notable exception, the fed's investments in renewables turned a decent profit. It's actually a problem, in hindsight: the program was supposed to take risks on innovative ideas and companies that would be difficult to find via traditional channels, but Solyndra had such a chilling effect that the DOE stopped taking those risks.

save_ferris 6y ago
Yeah, I meant to add the caveat that it was one of the most publicly notable government energy investments for the simple fact that it ended up in scandal, since many aren't even aware that the government invests in companies like this. I wasn't trying to criticize the initiative. > Solyndra had such a chilling effect that the DOE stopped taking those risks. It's frustrating to see that a private company's bad behavior wound up being a stain for the government like this.
- brendoelfrendo 6y ago
  > It's frustrating to see that a private company's bad behavior wound up being a stain for the government like this. Definitely! Sorry if I came across as defensive, I'm just used to people using Solyndra to criticize the whole program. On the whole, the DOE made a big impact. It's just disappointing that one bad actor reduced that impact by turning into a political hot potato.
  - save_ferris 6y ago
    Not at all! Nothing to apologize for, I remember when that whole situation blew up very well. And I completely agree with you.
- Pulcinella 6y ago
  Was it even bad behavior? I recall that there were allegations at the time that Chinese business were dumping solar panels onto the market and that meant Solyndra couldn’t compete. Though I’ve also found some news sources saying that the high prices for polysilicon caused a bunch of players to enter the market to produce it, causing prices of poly silicon to crash and Solyndra couldn’t compete. Either way it seems to be bad luck unless the CEO and board knew those were huge risks and intentionally downplayed them. Edit: It just seems unclear to be what the supposed fraud was.

ganafagol 6y ago

> To your point, based purely on the market forces (i.e. excluding carbon taxes) coal is still a very viable option. Oh please. Based "purely on market forces" can't exclude carbon emissions. That's a non-negligible externality which your market needs to price correctly. Not doing so is in effect subsidising coal. There is nothing "pure" about this, quite to the contrary. And this has been known for decades. It's 2021 now. We don't live in 1890 anymore.

whatshisface 6y ago
>Oh please. Based "purely on market forces" can't exclude carbon emissions. Huh? A bunch of people with no altruistic tendencies, and who are incapable of coordinating through any means but pricing, will not stop overfishing or carbon emissions. I don't get this often repeated thing about how not taxing carbon is subsidizing it, or how cap-and-trade is indistinguishable from naturally occurring markets. Both of those things are clearly artificial constructs built on top of the naturally-forming market. It's like many people are trying to use a perfect society as the zero-mark which all deltas and relative measures are measured from, while the state of nature (and the absence of a policy) is the obvious zero-mark to use.
- ganafagol 6y ago
  No. Carbon emissions are hurting everybody on this planet. Even if you ignore plants, funghi and animals, then there are still a few billiom humans around that are participating in your market and get damaged by emissions. A fair market needs to contain provisions for compensation of this damage. Just because you can't see it right away does not mean it does not exist. Compare it with sewer systems in a city. Many businesses would be much more profitable if they could dump their crap straight onto the street. Municipal cleaning services would need to clean up and everybody pays them. So they'd be subsidised though this. We don't accept this, we have rules against it since it's not fair. They have to pay their share, and excessive generation of crap needs to pay accordingly. We don't accept this with crap on the street, and we should not accept it with crap in the atmosphere either. It's the exact opposite of a free market. It's misuse of a common resource.

socrates1998 6y ago

You ignored my main point, which is that coal is also subsidized because we don't accurately price in all the pollution. Solar would have been explored much sooner if we factored in the pollution.

ogre_codes 6y ago

> Solar didn't magically just appear on the market at a lower price point than carbon-based resources though You are ignoring the entire point of the post you are replying to. Extracting coal and burning it has massive external costs. Massive health costs to the workers and even people just living near coal extraction. Massive devaluation of land near the coal mines. Huge issues with non-carbon solution. That's all before the concerns about climate change. Few people were compensated for the massive destruction of wealth/ health & quality of life in the region. In many places the companies extracted every ounce of coal then when the lawsuits started pouring in, the company went belly up. Once you take into account all the costs outside the costs of acquiring the land and extracting the coal, coal is vastly more expensive.

jpgvm 6y ago

Uhh: > not because it's inherently cleaner than coal Is patently false. It took capital to get there but solar -is- inherently cheaper than coal. That is -exactly- why it's being deployed at scale now.