Comment by didgetmaster

6 hours ago

I am confused. The article claims that solar is the best, cheapest source of power. It also claims that the Trump administration is undermining it in the US by cutting federal subsidies.

If solar truly is the cheapest, why does it need any help from any government? It would seem to me that it should flourish in any capitalist society where money naturally flows towards the cheapest solution that actually works.

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didgetmaster

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hnmullany  6 hours ago

Solar still makes sense economically in the US without explicit subsidies - that's why it is still getting built.

But the Trump admin is also with-holding permits and cancelling long distance transmission that would allow it to reach non-local markets. The fossil fuel industry is also sponsoring astro-turf campaigns on the local level to ban new deployments.

  • belorn  4 hours ago

    Long distance transmission is part of the cost of production when the location of the production is non-local to the consumption.

    With-holding permits is stupid, as are bans on new deployments, but neither are subsidies. You can cut subsidies to zero and at the same time give out all the permits people requests.

ViewTrick1002  6 hours ago

Where at the point in the transition where the level of subsidies, if any, determines the speed of the build out.

The question is: how early do you retire existing thermal power plant?

defrost  6 hours ago

The USofA is a broligarchy not a capitalist society, so there's that.

Trump has his thumb on the scales, cancelling wind farms in progress via executive order, not cancelling the federal subsidies for fossil fuels, etc.

There are always transition overheads to breach - in China the government there subsidised the non existant EV industry into being, now that's going gang busters the government support has dropped back to near zero.