The entire solar industry IS and WAS subsidized with tax cuts for the materials and installation at the federal state and local level) and flooding the market with installers trained at the federal government’s expense. And yet the companies (multiple) who got direct subsidies because their investors were friends of the White House still managed to fail.
So cronyism and the invisible hand of the market are alive and well.
I just can’t get that worked up over a billion dollars lost at the federal level over a decade on bets that seemed plausible, and more of which will help give us energy independence.
Our annual defense budget is $680 Billion. A billion lost over a decade that actively aids our defense is a rounding error.
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“Here in the real world, very few states of affairs are purely good or purely bad. Usually there are benefits and drawbacks to any particular situation or course of action. The OP points this out for oil prices.”
If this article is to be believed, you are wrong. Apparently, renewables are always good no matter what.
“Renewables are more expensive than oil, and so putting money into renewables actually increases the average cost of energy which allows oil prices to rise to meet as long as demand stays constant.”
Are you telling me that all the tax incentives, regulatory easements, and direct federal, state, and municipal subsides are actualy a subsidy to the petroleum companies?
“But I wanted to point out that a failed firm is a sign of a healthy market because market competition manifests in the form of some firms failing and others surviving in a sort of Darwinian process.”
They didn’t fail because of cutthroat competition. Most of their business is based on government subsidy and tight regulation of their competition. Most of Stimulus failures occurred because investors didn’t believe they needed a workable business model in an environment where the DoE couldn’t afford for them to go under. And they were right. Despite Solendra going under, the investors made out (literally) like bandits, and the taxpayers (by agreement of the DoE) picked up the tab for the losses.
““boot on the throat of the petroleum industry”…is that really how you’d characterize the current state of affairs?”
In the White House, yes. In certain statehouses, yes. Just because Texas, North Dakota, and certain coastal states have made the US a net exporter of petroleum doesn’t doesn’t mean the petroleum industry isn’t getting major resistance from behind from the State Dept, the DoE, the EPA, and the Dept of the Interior. Incidentally, are you aware that the Dept of the Interior has granted the wind industry a decades long waiver on all the protected raptors they slaughter? And the solar industry for all the birds the fry?
“A billion lost over a decade that actively aids our defense is a rounding error.”
How does it aid our defense? The article says that inexpensive oil is making the Middle East unstable. I presume it is making Africa and Russia unstable too. If renewables ever come close to the efficiency of petroleum and coal, it will drive the price of oil into the ground. I’m not saying we should be against renewables if they ever become a product that is viable without taxpayers being forced to buy it. But don’t try to file it under the defense budget because it won’t make us safer. Nor doesn’t benefit our economy in anything like the short term. The oil industry is one of the few profitable blue collar employers this country has left.
i don’t think rapid destabilization of the Middle East is in any sane persons best interests, but I do think energy independence is a long term, strategic national security issue. We may want to have that debate at another place or time 
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Well, then the US government should invest in wooden alarm clocks. We could corner the wooden alarm clock industry and have all the highly paid workers here. Investing in any industry is viable when governments are shelling out billions to pay for the products whether or not the products would be valuable without the government money backing it. Have you heard of the Securities Bubble. An industry founded solely on borrowed money is the definition of an investment bubble.
Problem solved. The US is now the top oil producer in the world – more petroleum than it uses. We are safe.
They focus almost entirely on the Great Depression, and regularly show documentaries about how ancient civilizations were taught advanced economic theories by aliens?
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I’d be hard pressed to argue that the guys currently on the top of the heap in Saudi Arabia don’t have it coming; it’s just that I am not so foolish as to pretend that I can even imagine what a disaster them getting it would cascade into.
I know a guy working on the oil rigs. He flys in and out of Melbourne every few weeks. While other companies are surviving this attempt to squeeze competitors out, it is very much at the expense of employees. A lot of jobs being lost. For him, a stable timetable that lets him see his family is gone. He just doesn’t know when he is coming or going.
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If anyone involved in this decision is surprised when their ‘innovative solar energy technology’ starts being produced without their name on it, or their cut of the licensing fees being paid, they are an idiot.
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What? The below quote is from the article. Read much, bro?
There are lots of technical problems to solve in the renewables world, such as power-storage; and there are potentially larger institutional problems, like getting power companies to cut their own throats by investing in smart, peer-to-peer grids that sideline their role as Masterblaster to our Bartertown.
Effectively. You don’t believe in unintended consequences, huh?
Evidence helps you to be more credible. I mean, I’d take your word on it, except that you’ve been wrong about pretty much every assertion you made so far, so you’re kinda in a hole.
Some evidence might be nice, again, since again – you do not seem to be very credible so far. And I mean, more than just “the EPA regulates the oil industry”. Unless you’re against all environmental regulation whatsoever, that’s pretty reasonable. And the Dept of Interior is the dept that actually opens up federal land under lease to oil companies. My impression is that the oil industry is not exactly starved for new US plays, so again…evidence.
Like, most powerful people in the world are against it, yet it is still the most profitable industry in the world ever. You’re making that claim. Back it up.
Yeah, I’m really not terribly worried about the birds.
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I don’t suppose you’ve checked the decline rate on fracked wells?
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Would the Saudis be unable to run deficits?
I dunno, for two and a half years we have been exporting small amounts of a finite resource to Canada (according to EIA) of a single type of energy source. That is cool in one way (but not another). And I still stand by the assertion that reducing the overall need for petroleum is a strategic opportunity.
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Coming soon: artificially inflated oil prices.
Until we start paying the environmental costs. The piper does need to be paid, one way or another, no matter how much certain segments of our population try to ignore that fact.
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Though do note where most of the renewable growth is coming from: biomass heat, which is also an environmental disaster on several levels. Just a slightly different one than fossil fuels.
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True and we have a lonnnnnnng way to go. Just wish we could unlatch from the Petrochemical teat.
I’m a big fan of hydroelectric for a number of reasons, but unfortunately it seems to be up there in the list of things that people don’t want built.
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