[ExI] The silent PV revolution

BillK pharos at gmail.com
Thu Apr 5 14:21:55 UTC 2012


On Thu, Apr 5, 2012 at 2:43 PM, spike wrote:
> Har.  I am worried that various governments including the US, have
> subsidized too many solar cells into existence and now they will inevitably
> starve as the markets are not ready to support them.  In my own neighborhood
> I see Solyndra, which made a rookie error: started up a factory in a state
> in which the labor is unionized.  How hard is it to see that isn't going to
> work?
>
>

Not quite.  Western governments first subsidised *usage* of PV to
encourage people and companies to install solar panels to help the
move away from fossil fuels.

They forgot that the panels were supposed to be bought from China
(like everything else) where Western production has been moved to over
the last 20 years. Because the West now has a huge unemployment
problem and there was a large pork barrel of newly printed money
available, the government subsidised PV startup companies to create
jobs.  As soon as the new money was spent, the startups went bust due
to cheaper panels arriving from China.   Quite obvious really.

But they can easily print more billions. No problem.   ?????? Really ???????

BillK




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