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Considering the vast majority of alternative energies (wind, geothermal, tidal) are already in use on some power grids, it's not as though we're hurting for experience on the matter. We can easily identify any potential hiccups using these small-scale tests rather than rush to get our technology out right now which will be vastly outdated within five years. Is it bad for the environment to wait? Yes, absolutely. But not as bad as rushing out with horribly inefficient solar panels and discovering that unless we turn all of Arizona into a solar farm, we'll have to keep running the coal plants anyway. The science is young enough that there are still very large advances to be made in a relatively short time frame. It would be a mistake to try to transition right now.

You're starting with an assumed motive (unsubstantiated at that) and them moving backwards and forcing all actions you see to fit into that assumption. That's a pretty warped way of looking at it. Doubly so when it leads you to ignore the actual factual realities of the situation. What's really bizarre about this is that you assume absolute greed motives for somehow forcing us to stay on fossil fuels, while discounting that the exact same greed motivations exist for those who build and operate the sources of alternative energy (and sell the result). Please tell me you don't really think that the owners of a solar power plant, or geothermal plant, or hydroelectric plant aren't all just as much interested in profits as the owners of a coal fired plant?

I just find that to be the worst reasoning to use in this discussion.



The reason we should not subsidize alternatives to the point of making uncompetitive solutions competitive is that this retards the research and development which would otherwise make them "better" (and thus competitive). If I have an alternative product that costs 30% more to produce the same amount of energy, and the public is not willing to pay 30% more, then I can't compete in the market (not large scale anyway). This gap will cause me (and investors in alternative energy) to spend the time and money reducing that number difference until the result *is* competitive. At that point, it's a real alternative, I can bring it to the large scale market and instead of losing money to provide that alternative power, we make a profit. This allows the alternative to thrive without constantly needing public money to keep it going.

If instead, the government subsidizes that 30% gap, I can go ahead and sell my product today. Now, I have very little motivation to improve it since the government has already decided to step in and make up whatever difference is needed to make my product marketable. In fact, there's some argument for the opposite to be true. If I spend time and money improving my product so that it's now just 15% more expensive, wont the government reduce their subsidy to match? Probably. And heck, this actually provides me an incentive to run my business inefficiently on the assumption that I can fritter away money on things, call it part of the total expense to provide my alternative energy, and still convince an environmentally driven government subsidy regime to keep funding whatever difference is needed to ensure that whatever quotas of power utilization nationwide are met.


Whenever you use the government to create a "free money" condition, people will show up to take advantage of it. And in this case, the most common ways they'll do that will also happen to prevent development of alternative energy. It's a bad idea. Fund research, don't subsidize with the intent of making unprofitable products able to content in the market anyway. That's a horrible idea all the way around.

TL:DR = If you subsidize a product the company is much less likely to improve it to a point where it's profitable without the subsidy.

Or that's what I got at least.

Edited, Oct 25th 2011 1:35pm by someproteinguy

Now you end up with a decision to make if it isn't a viable technology by the end of the heightened subsidies though. Trying to determine if a technology is worthy of more funding, or if that money is best spent on competing technologies is a bit of a judgment call. Do you try and improve a solar panel, or study how to make a better fish ladder? (over simplified of course!) No one expects something to be viable right away, but there's a point where a rational person can start to wonder if the subsidy is becoming a permanent crutch; politically-motivated subsidies to the side for the moment.

I think the focus for R&D, government subsidized R&D anyways, should be on the grid. It needs to be able to collect, store and re/distribute energy from lots of small sources.

Edited

Edited, Oct 26th 2011 12:06am by Elinda

Offered without comment:

I do enjoy reading a good novel before bed.

Which works if there's just one company involved. The problem is that we're looking at an industry, and the industry has private investors as well as the subsidies. What you're doing is creating a "free money" situation. What's to stop me from taking an existing non-marketable product, putting a glossy sheen on it, and claiming that if only I can solve some technical problems <insert cleverly worded tech doc here>, it could produce <ridiculous energy for cost estimate> and solve our energy problems? What's the likelihood that some group of political appointees in Washington are going to detect my BS in a field of similarly looking projects (some of which may actually be on to something)? Remember, if even experts in the fields could perfectly predict which research projects will bear fruit, no one would ever fail to produce a marketable product (which we all know is false). There's no way the bean counters can know. They're going to give me money as long as I've got a slick presentation and perhaps the right political contacts.


Then, subsidy in hand, I soak some private investors as well (or soak them more than I already do), live high on the hog as CEO of my soon-to-fail company, and when things go wrong, we'll all just chalk it up to a necessary cost for doing the right thing for the environment. Even in the absence of government subsidies, and with every investor making decisions based on hoped for returns, there are companies that do this all the time. It happens. By putting the government, which has no profit motive, into the position of subsidizing such things, you're just asking for even more raider style capitalism.


And the worst problem is that even when those companies fail, someone else will start another company and do the same thing. What this means is that it's even harder to tell the good ideas from the bad. You will flood the market with people attempting to take advantage of the free government money and who have no intention of building a product at the end. Which makes it that much less likely that legitimate ideas with real potential for generating exactly the kinds of advancements we need will be the ones which receive the subsidies and garner attention. The presence of government subsidies might even affect how private investors spend their money.


I know you complained of tl;dr, but when you just dismiss what I'm saying out of hand when it's presented in simple/short form, I don't know what else to do. This is a very real problem, with very real consequences. We really do hurt the rate of real advancements in these fields by attempting to subsidize the results. Even your solution doesn't work, because the companies doing this don't care if the subsidies run out. They're in it to make a few hundred million dollars over a few years on the government's dime and then move on to other things. And there's a pretty much endless list of people who will do this as long as the government is foolish enough to just hand out free money.




Easy way to waste a ton of taxpayers dollars, yes.

Please, you eat up whatever the right wing media tells you to.


Protip: Alternative/Green energy is automatically better. Depends on what you're criteria are for judging what better means, though.


Also, alternative energy R&D would hardly be a waste of tax payer money. No more than military R&D, at any rate. And you conservatives seem to be all for that...

Sure. And I addressed that in my post. Do you have any idea how many ideas for products fail even when the people coming up with the ideas and working on them are experts in their direct fields and have a vested financial interest in succeeding? There's simply no way that a group of bean counters in Washington can possibly make good decisions about which products have a high probability of success. At best, we have to conclude they're going to get it wrong even more often than the people who actually work in those fields (and in directly relevant aspects of those fields), right?

Additionally, the likelihood of a panel of government bureaucrats figuring out when they're being snowed by the folks at a company giving them the dog and pony show is pretty close to zero. The folks giving the dog and pony show are pretty much always going to be vastly more knowledgeable in their field than the guys they're presenting to. I'm just not sure what sort of vetting you think can happen here. If the top experts in a field can't tell you if a given product will work or be marketable 5 years from now, then the government vetting process is just a wild guess.

They aren't selecting based on how likely the products are to succeed. They can't know that (well, they can presumably rule out obvious failures). Thus, whatever process they use isn't market driven. It's politically driven. It's going to weigh much more on how well the proposed products sell on the political market. Can they put it in a fact sheet that makes them look like they're supporting all sorts of interesting and exciting new forms of alternative energy? That's the criteria being used, and it's a pretty crappy one.


That's why it's a bad idea. There's no good means by which they could choose which companies and which product ideas to subsidize. I don't know how to say this more clearly. In a tech field, where the tech is not yet there in terms of marketability, it's a complete crap shoot as to which products will work and which wont. The government throwing money at random companies doesn't help anything at all, and quite arguably hurts things a hell of a lot.

"Carbon neutral".


I include nuclear fission. And, with new strides perhaps in around a decade I'll add fusion to the list.


Yaaay.

Until then Solar, tidal, wind, hydro, geothermal and thingy will have to fill the gap.

I was just using words you're familiar with. As you're so very politically minded.

When I say Carbon Neutral I mean what you would think it means, zero net CO₂ emissions. Which, in this case would mean technologies which do not result in a **** load of CO₂ (or any other greenhouse gas, with the exception of water) being pumped into the atmosphere.

If it has to clear 5 million acres of land, then that's fine. So long as the land wasn't being used for anything more productive. To use the USA as an example, you have huge swathes of Midwest or Desert not being used for anything. These places would be ideal for solar or wind farms.

Actually come to think of it they'd be idea for nuclear power stations too, no people around to complain and all that.

If I'm not okay with pumping the atmosphere with pollution, why would I be okay with pumping the sea full of it? Seems like a pretty redundant question to me.

I'm being reasonable here, gbaji. We have to implement these measures now, or when we need them we won't have them. It is a much simpler thing to modify an already existing infrastructure than it is to create a whole new one.

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