Posted on 04/14/2015 3:37:02 PM PDT by Kaslin
One can’t help but be impressed by the seemingly great strides solar energy has been making of late. Bullish reports abound of added capacity, aggressive expansion, technical advances and a solar jobs boom. Industry elites engage in bold financial maneuvers that would make Gordon Gekko proud.
But don dark enough shades to see through the media-generated glare, and the picture looks less sunny -- and sometimes maybe a little shady.
The boom -- some might even call it a “bubble” -- America’s solar energy industry is enjoying stems neither from overwhelming competitive-market success nor from long-promised technological breakthroughs that finally made solar a major player in the U.S. energy sector. On the contrary, Solar today remains a niche energy provider, generating just 0.6 percent of all U.S. electricity, despite nearly four decades of taxpayer generosity, government favoritism and pampered treatment.
The sobering reality is that Big Solar’s day in the sun simply couldn’t be possible, and doesn’t appear economically sustainable, without continuous diversions of tax money, government assistance, energy portfolio carve-outs and utility cost-shifting schemes of various kinds. All are aimed at creating a “market” for solar that the industry apparently can’t establish on its own.
These are flimsy and fickle foundations on which to build an edifice this large, raising questions not just about the value of this underperforming public “investment,” but about the “correction.” Or will it be a crash? These threats loom should any major element of the solar safety net be removed.
A few lone voices within the industry advocate for weaning solar off these supports, believing that the industry won’t truly have “arrived” until it learns to operate in the real world. But the primary goal of the increasingly-powerful solar lobby—consisting of companies, federally-funded researchers, industry-supported “press,” green ideologues and a rising class of solar-welfare beneficiaries with an entitlement mentality—isn’t self-sufficiency, but prolonged or even permanent status as a ward of the state.
The decades-old solar safety net is much more vast, complex and costly than most Americans realize. Direct subsidies and market-creating mandates are just the tip on an iceberg. Additional means of support include research and development assistance, technology transfers from tax-funded facilities, trade protections, green stimulus giveaways (of which Solyndra was just one example) and Pentagon “clean power” purchasing programs.
Already adept at picking taxpayer pockets, the solar industry is also mastering the art of quietly mooching off of non-solar ratepayers through net-metering—a cost-shifting scheme imposed upon, or voluntarily adopted by, various utility companies across the country. Battles are escalating nationwide as utilities, which coddled and generously subsidized solar customers when they were a tiny minority of ratepayers, suddenly face a backlash for daring to call a halt to the freebies now that the rooftop-solar fad is making these formerly-miniscule cross-subsidies into a major problem.
Easy money, government giveaways, market preferences and other forms of government favoritism have created a gold-rush mentality within the industry that encourages reckless business behaviors and raises risks to taxpayers. With taxpayer money freely flowing, and potential downside risks minimized by mandated markets and government-guaranteed loans, it’s not surprising to see the rise of gaming and speculating on an unprecedented scale.
Rather than proceed cautiously, building a business model that can survive the absence of preferences, the uncertain future appears to bring out even more risk-taking and recklessness on the part of some major industry players—as if they’re betting that removing key supports will become politically untenable if they hurriedly construct a “too-big-to-fail” infrastructure and political base.
Industry boosters make much of the newly-added “green energy” capacity, the jump in the numbers of solar jobs and the economic ripple effects that the green gold rush is responsible for. But they rarely if ever ask how much of this is sustainable if any of the industry’s major supports are removed.
That’s a question we have to ask, and a reality we have to confront, unless “Big Solar” plans to remain a permanent ward of the state.
Solar as made politicians and their supporters very rich. Solar is a direct consequence of the man made global warming fraud; coupled with the ignorance of the American voter.
Solar power may someday amount to something. At the present, it’s a racket for ripoff artists.
I would prefer for government in California to “invest” in water from desalinization, not solar electric power, and not trains to nowhere.
End subsidies and mandates, let new technologies earn their keep
At present it is a money laundry. RICO.
Like every other alternate energy scheme, Solar power is a utopian idea that doesn’t have the technology to match the hype.
It would be nice if alternate energy sources weren’t cost restrictive and didn’t create as many, or more, problems than they solve.
But they are and they do.
“...California to ‘invest’ in water from desalinization not solar electric power...”
How about solar desalinization of seawater?
““...California to ‘invest’ in water from desalinization not solar electric power...”
How about solar desalinization of seawater?”
Poseidon has the largest desal plant in the Western Hemisphere under construction in Carlsbad CA, and a similar plan waiting final approval up the coast in Huntington Beach CA.
Solar has been more of a factor in desert regions, than near the coast where overcast conditions often exist for a short distance on the shore.
Solar will never amount to squat. When I took physics we had a problem, “Assuming 100% efficiency in converting available energy in sunlight to electricity how much surface area would be required to power the US?”. This was in the ‘70s. Answer? Every square inch of the state of Texas.
A 100% solar country would be very different. Welding? Thing of the past. Recycled aluminum? Are you kidding? Anyone with a brain knows solar is Unicorn crap. Then again, we’re talking Americans. 100 years ago Americans would have been ashamed to be so dumb.
Could you expand on this?
I’d love to be independent from (or at least less dependent on) the electric company.
Do you know how long it would take the average person (not living in either Arizona or Seattle) to recover the cost of investing in solar for their home? Also, what problems does it create?
What you subsidize; you get MORE of.
Actual USA electricity generation in 2012 of 4,047.7 Terawatt hours. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_of_the_United_States
Divide by 365*24 and get 462 Gigawatts per hour 462,000,000,000 watts
Area of Texas = 268,820 mi² or (696,241 km²) 696,241,000,000 square meters
The standard solar panel has an input rate of around 1000 Watts per square meter.
Now; do the math...
So at the current rate of use even the state of Texas wouldn’t be enough!
I've been pricing 5 kW grid-tied systems for my house and these big operations like Verengo, Solar City, etc. are relying on the government subsidy to juice their profits. Their profit margin is basically designed to steal the 30% government credit from the homeowner plus the nominal profit. If the government credit ever goes away, many of these companies will too. Ever wonder where the sleaziest of used car salesmen go - solar power system sales.
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