[ExI] Bosch exits Solar business in Germany

[John Clark]

On Wed, Mar 27, 2013 at 7:24 AM, Eugen Leitl <eugen at leitl.org> wrote:

 > there are no advancing PV technologies in the USA.
>

True, Solyndra had very advanced technology but apparently it wasn't
advanced enough because it went bankrupt in 2011.

> Germany was a world leader in PV, until China took over.
>

And now neither Germany nor China nor the USA nor anybody else can make any
money off of photovoltaics, and that fact should be telling you something.
Maybe solar technology has been as over-hyped as fusion technology has
been; both are the technology of the future and perhaps always will be. I
wouldn't bet my life on either one and I don't understand why you would.

> The reason for current overcapacity is that Germany and Italy now have
> flat demand, because Germany has killed
> incentives stone cold dead
>

In other words Germany has stopped lying to the free market and now
everybody knows that in reality electricity from the sun is much more
expensive than previously thought.

> Bzzt. You create new markets by temporary subsidies, which push new
> technologies into economies of scale
>

That's not how INTEL became huge, nor Microsoft, nor Apple, nor Amgen, nor
Google, nor Ebay, nor Amazon, nor Facebook, not even Standard oil. It might
make sense for the government to help pay for basic energy research, but
subsidizing a production product in the marketplace is nuts, it makes it
seem that a problem has been solved when it really has not been.

> Malicious and capricious slashing of subsidies in Germany to deliberately
> damage renewables [...]
>

In other words they stopped deceptively making it seem that electricity
from the sun was cheaper than it really was. Well you're correct about one
thing, all energy subsidies are going to be temporary because you can only
distort reality for so long; as Richard Feynman said "For a successful
technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature
cannot be fooled".

> Chances are US has already missed the boat.


OK, then there is no point in people in the USA worrying about it and
whatever will be will be.

> If solar doesn't succeed, we're dead.


If solar doesn't succeed, and recent developments make one think that maybe
just maybe it isn't the next big thing after all, then it might be wise to
have a plan B like nuclear energy and a plan C like methane clathrate ready
to go. Your plan B and that of all environmentalists is freeze to death in
the dark. It might be wise to at least talk about other ways to produce
energy than solar just in case; I mean if we're dead anyway what is there
to loose?

  John K Clark
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