[ExI] The silent PV revolution

[Eugen Leitl]

On Sat, Mar 31, 2012 at 12:26:32PM -0600, Kelly Anderson wrote:

> It is nearly as bad to subsidize solar as it is to subsidize big oil.
> In 50 years, people will be complaining about subsidies for BIG SOLAR.

In <10 years, *I* will be complaining about solar tax (as in: tax on Wp of
output) and pork-barrel government guaranteed buy quota for big monopoly
solar projects like Desertec.  

Oh, and I'm complaining *right now* about government pork-barrel of off-shore
wind subsidies. Because if you're cutting 37% of small PV FiTs, there's
no damn reason to keep subsidizing big off-shore projects where there's
plenty spare area for on-shore. 

> Sigh. Will the government never learn to just let the markets be?

Because government passes the best laws that corporate money can buy? 
Now, that was too easy, wasn't it.

But that's slightly unfair, Germany *did* actually bootstrap the global
solar market effectively single-handedly. Because, on their own, markets
are really really lousy at that.