Solar Subsidies

If Solar was cheaper, then it wouldn't need subsidies to get people to buy it. If Solar was cheaper, then it wouldn't need subsidies to get people to buy it. Anyone could see that the benefits would outweigh the costs without them, and there would be widespread adoption. In other words, the fact that you have to subsidize it to get people to buy it, is proof that the economics aren't there to do it without subsidies. ℹ️ Info           ~ Aristotle Sabouni Created: 2020-01-29

If Solar was cheaper, then it wouldn't need subsidies to get people to buy it. Anyone could see that the benefits would outweigh the costs without them, and there would be widespread adoption. In other words, the fact that you have to subsidize it to get people to buy it, is proof that the economics aren't there to do it without subsidies. So while residential solar can make sense for individual, in high energy cost states and factoring in subsidies, that's not because Solar is ACTUALLY cheaper. It's that under the fake economics of a regulator state, it might appear cheaper. Those aren't the same things.

Examples

For our house the costs of a solar system (say $10,000), and figure that with a $200/month energy bill, that means a 50 month (4 year) break-even. Which would be a good enough return. But that's not how the math actually works.

In reality, it's more like $20K to get peak power up enough to eliminate your bill... and another $10K to get the excess capacity required to charge for night, and another $10K for the storage and infrastructure costs. So at $40K your break even is about 17 years.

That's without interest/opportunity costs of capital (the idea that if you put that $40K in an investment, you should be making about 6-7% interest, compounded) -- so that $40K, if invested, should be worth $126,352.61 after 17 years -- in order to save $40,800 in energy bills? That kind of math only makes sense to left wingers.

Factor in maintance costs, that the solar only has a 20-25 year lifespan (with regrading returns), and so on. No one that can do math or logic would get it, if it wasn't for either subsidies, or the threat of raising their energy costs over time. (In a free market, you could expect that the cost of energy would decrease over time, not go up -- but California isn't a free market, and the cost of power there is already about 3x what it is in free'er states like Texas).

So no one would buy Solar without subsidies (and artificially high energy prices). So what did we learn? I know, if Greens/Progressives could learn, they wouldn't be Greens/Progressives. But this is written for the others, who still have some common sense.

Solar Power

           Main article: Solar Power

Different "Solar Power" has different issues: centralized (big plant) or distributed (residential) solar power. But there's a lot of flim-flam in what the cost/benefits are. It is not as green as the proponents pretend, it wouldn't need subsidies if it was cheaper, and it has no reliability unless it has backup plants that aren't "Green". So I debunk some of the lies (exaggerations).

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Solar Power If solar worked well, you wouldn't need subsidies. There's a lot of flim-flam and cooking the books.

Tags: Solar