[quote=AN][quote=ocrenter]Your first paragraph is contradicted by your second paragraph. Again, who doesn’t love the banner of fighting crony capitalism? But under that exact banner, the end result is the status quo and solidifying of the established entrenched energy monopoly. You mentioned you want to roll back subsidies, I agree with you, but the billionaires have a bigger voice in government and they will make sure government will bend to their will. Why do you think congress agreed french fries and kitchup are vegetables?
I don’t want to stop drilling. I want enough market place support for nascent tech until they become self sustainable and they will bring the current energy monopolies to their knees.
Solar is a great example. Prices have come down just absolutely dramatically. Solar use to be President Carter’s pet project in the White House. Reagan ripped that thing out and ridiculed it. Now solar makes so much sense that even red blooded republicans are for solar energy. How did this happen? By not having any subsidies and allowing the electric companies to run the show while telling the public we are protecting them from crony capitalism?[/quote]
Not contradicting at all. Just because I don’t want government to spend more of our tax dollar on helping companies doesn’t mean I want your tax dollar to go fighting against billionaires. Why not let Bill Gates, Elon Musk, etc do the fighting? Why does the government have to get involved? Especially when that money is coming from the middle class.
I’m not arguing for status quo at all. But you have to realize that there are many competing technology. I don’t want tax $ going directly into companies. If we want to support fledgling tech, give that money to universities. Once the tech mature in the academic environment, the professors and researcher can then partner up with private capital. We already have Big Oil, Big Pharma, Big Bank, I don’t think we need another “Big…”. If you create “Big Solar” then that will impede the next tech advancement just as Big Oil as you say is impeding on the advancement of solar/BEV.
Funny you say that you want nascent tech to bring the energy monopolies to their knees. Why do we need to spend tax dollar to do that? Especially when I don’t believe our government will know which tech is the right nascent tech. I rather have the free market do that. As for breaking up monopolies, it’s pretty easy to do and government do it all the time. Think Ma Bell, Microsoft, and now even Google is under their microscope. As for Big Oil, all the government have to do is increase the CAFE and maybe the best tech win. No need to spend tax $ on companies like Solyndra. I rather have that $ go toward the poor and needy in our society, not to another rich Millionaire/Billionaire.
Solar price have came down because of the Chinese, not because of the government subsidies to companies like Solyndra. Again, you prove my point, I don’t think solar is the be all end all of energy. I was a lot more excited about Bloom Energy than solar before I got my solar. But because government poured a lot more subsidies into solar, it make it more affordable. If they pour the same amount of incentives into Bloom Energy and other Fuel Cell companies, I would have not gotten solar. I’m still excited about companies like Bloom Energy and probably will probably go Fuel Cell when they’re available. I have solar for a few years now and I’m fully aware of the advantage/disadvantage. I can’t go off grid unless I spend a lot more $. Last night, I went without power for over 8 hours. If I have Fuel Cell, I can be completely off the grid and wouldn’t have that problem.[/quote]
remember the Chinese subsidized their solar industry, which then led to dumping into the US market.
if the US government unilaterally decide to cut off all subsidies to alternative energy, plenty of other governments will continue that effort and we’ll end up as importer of alternative energy tech, instead of being innovators.
meanwhile, the elephant in the room is still the ginormous oil and gas subsidies stifling new tech.
as for Solyndra. Solyndra is that minor league player that we drafted and payed a hefty signing bonus for but ended up with a torn rotator cuff. all of the old veteran players now point to Solyndra and say, “see, should just keep playing us the big bucks instead of trying to discover new talent, you see how much of a waste that was, don’t you?”
