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I am hopeful the same way you are. But nobody should ignore the fact that current developments in solar panel prices were heavily driven by government policy. U

I am hopeful the same way you are. But nobody should ignore the fact that current developments in solar panel prices were heavily driven by government policy. Unguided market forces may get there eventually, but we don't have enough time for "eventually". (And we certainly don't have any time for misguided plans that actually try to subsidize carbon emissions, which is a big chunk of our current policy.)

zaroth 8y ago
The government subsidies for solar (themselves not without controversy) are great examples of how we can nudge resources to be applied to areas with the greatest positive externalities. Government absolutely has a crucial role to play. Government works best when it can offer $1 of incentive to entice $9 of private investment. We have to be very careful of proposals that work the other way around. For example the EV tax credit offered up to $7,500 tax credit for someone to spend on average let’s say $50k on an electric car. $1 of subsidy incentivized $6.66 of spending. But to make that car someone actually wanted to buy, automakers spent many billions in R&D up front, which was also incentivized by the EV tax. The EV tax credit is estimated to cost about $7.5 billion once all the major automakers have entered the market and sold their share (200,000) of vehicles. I’m not sure if we got a 1:10 ratio, but it’ll be in that ballpark. This credit made particular sense because it leveraged the technology curve by allowing scale-up to occur in the face of the prohibitively high cost of batteries which now have come down to the point where EVs can be sold profitably without the subsidy. I don’t think we’d be looking at $100/kWh for the batteries without that subsidy.
- achenatx 8y ago
  this model works great and can solve all kinds of problems. Rather than investing directly in companies like solyndra, incentivize public sector investment with tax incentives but also X-prize style awards for achieving major milestones. For example 10 million to whomever can come up with a system to reliably educate inner city kids, reduce homelessness, reduce drug use, violent crime, etc.
briandear 8y ago
> but we don't have enough time for "eventually". I disagree with this. We’ve been told throughout the past 50 years that we “only have 10 more years to fix x.” And every single time the end of the world failed to arrive as scheduled. The sense of extreme urgency is nothing more than politics: an attempt to scare people into demanding a shift in the ownership of the means of production to fit political goals rather than environmental ones. A thought experiment: if capitalism could solve the climate tomorrow and BP and Exxon were at the forefront of it, would AOC and friends support it? Of course not. The only “solution” that crowd cares about is one that involves pure socialism which calls into question their actual commitment to the environment. It appears that improving the environment is being used as a means rather than an end: our fear of environmental calamity seemingly obfuscates our memory of the lack of freedom under Soviet styles of government. If protecting the environment would stop serving as a dog whistle for anti-capitalism, then we’d could make a lot more progress on actually improving the environment.
- ljcn 8y ago
  I don't think your premise is correct. There have indeed been a lot of environmental scares (ozone layer, acid rain, ..., which were fortunately fixed with international effort), but mainstream climate science has if anything been far too conservative. For example, we're at the upper end of climate model ensembles from just ten years ago.[0] [0] http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-models.htm http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-models.htm
- achenatx 8y ago
  they believe in socialism as a means to an end not an end in and of itself. If you can achieve what they would like to achieve (elimination of suffering) by some other means, I suspect they would be open to it. I personally think they have the wrong goals and that inequality and suffering are what drive people to become better and achieve.
- gameswithgo 8y ago
  I would support your exxon in your thought experiment, and I'm a "friend" of AOC.
gameswithgo 8y ago
Everything is affected by government policy. Fossil fuels too get massive subsidies from governments the world over including the USA.

zaroth 8y ago

The government subsidies for solar (themselves not without controversy) are great examples of how we can nudge resources to be applied to areas with the greatest positive externalities. Government absolutely has a crucial role to play. Government works best when it can offer $1 of incentive to entice $9 of private investment. We have to be very careful of proposals that work the other way around. For example the EV tax credit offered up to $7,500 tax credit for someone to spend on average let’s say $50k on an electric car. $1 of subsidy incentivized $6.66 of spending. But to make that car someone actually wanted to buy, automakers spent many billions in R&D up front, which was also incentivized by the EV tax. The EV tax credit is estimated to cost about $7.5 billion once all the major automakers have entered the market and sold their share (200,000) of vehicles. I’m not sure if we got a 1:10 ratio, but it’ll be in that ballpark. This credit made particular sense because it leveraged the technology curve by allowing scale-up to occur in the face of the prohibitively high cost of batteries which now have come down to the point where EVs can be sold profitably without the subsidy. I don’t think we’d be looking at $100/kWh for the batteries without that subsidy.

achenatx 8y ago
this model works great and can solve all kinds of problems. Rather than investing directly in companies like solyndra, incentivize public sector investment with tax incentives but also X-prize style awards for achieving major milestones. For example 10 million to whomever can come up with a system to reliably educate inner city kids, reduce homelessness, reduce drug use, violent crime, etc.

briandear 8y ago

> but we don't have enough time for "eventually". I disagree with this. We’ve been told throughout the past 50 years that we “only have 10 more years to fix x.” And every single time the end of the world failed to arrive as scheduled. The sense of extreme urgency is nothing more than politics: an attempt to scare people into demanding a shift in the ownership of the means of production to fit political goals rather than environmental ones. A thought experiment: if capitalism could solve the climate tomorrow and BP and Exxon were at the forefront of it, would AOC and friends support it? Of course not. The only “solution” that crowd cares about is one that involves pure socialism which calls into question their actual commitment to the environment. It appears that improving the environment is being used as a means rather than an end: our fear of environmental calamity seemingly obfuscates our memory of the lack of freedom under Soviet styles of government. If protecting the environment would stop serving as a dog whistle for anti-capitalism, then we’d could make a lot more progress on actually improving the environment.

ljcn 8y ago
I don't think your premise is correct. There have indeed been a lot of environmental scares (ozone layer, acid rain, ..., which were fortunately fixed with international effort), but mainstream climate science has if anything been far too conservative. For example, we're at the upper end of climate model ensembles from just ten years ago.[0] [0] http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-models.htm http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-models.htm
achenatx 8y ago
they believe in socialism as a means to an end not an end in and of itself. If you can achieve what they would like to achieve (elimination of suffering) by some other means, I suspect they would be open to it. I personally think they have the wrong goals and that inequality and suffering are what drive people to become better and achieve.
gameswithgo 8y ago
I would support your exxon in your thought experiment, and I'm a "friend" of AOC.

gameswithgo 8y ago

Everything is affected by government policy. Fossil fuels too get massive subsidies from governments the world over including the USA.