4 ms·

I can't read the article, but I think evidence like this is important when it comes to the whole idea of government subsidises impacting on free markets. The f

by dm319 6y ago

I can't read the article, but I think evidence like this is important when it comes to the whole idea of government subsidises impacting on free markets. The free market has become a bit of a religion for some (you can see in the comments here), and there's this staunch divide between those that believe the free market will always come up with a humanitarian solution, to those that believe the government need to push things for it to happen. My FIL was head of a large coal plant in the UK, and is very critical of renewable energies, their cost, the impact on the fossil fuel industry etc... It simply isn't possible to have a conversation with him about global warming - he will simultaneously argue it isn't happening and it's natural and not caused by us. He might be an extreme example, but there is general scepticism of government subsidies here. I'd love to see a study where researchers take things that are seen as good/important/essential to modern life and measure the amount of public/government sponsorship that helped bring it about.

est31 6y ago
The US government heavily subsidizes oil and has heavily subsidized nuclear as well. Both were choices for strategic reasons, to be independent in sources of energy (and to have nukes). Preventing climate change and becoming independent from non-renewables seems like a worthwhile strategic goal to me, too. And these are only the active subsidies. We're not even talking about the externalities.
jakozaur 6y ago
Startups need early adopters who value potential and future vision. Innovators and early adopter look beyond your current offering. The challange is finding equivalent of early adopters for commodity markets such as electrical energy. That where the government policies could step in. There are some things that initially are too expensive, but at scale could be game changing. Instead of grants, I would allocate $100mln - $1Bln / year to auctions. to buy at lowest price, the cheaper price available should unlock bigger pool. Good examples for government subsidies: 1. Negative carbon emission. 2. Carbon-free steel. 3. Carbon-free concrete. 4. Synthetical fuels such as natural gas or gasoline.
- beefield 6y ago
  I have thought something similar regarding developing countries. Instead of giving money/help to a developing country, you should foster local industry by committing yourself to buy ten thousand gadgets produced locally. The local cleptrocat would have difficulties siphoning off the money as the products would need to be demonstrably produced. Then, once the gadgets are produced and people employed, you do not need to even export those gadgets, but just auction them off locally, so the gadgets end up as increase in local welfare. In the best case you may even make a small profit... Of course, it is difficult to judge what the locals produce best, but somehow I still think that induced demand would be helpful, and better than just dumping the money there.
  - cycomanic 6y ago
    The problem is that often enough part of the motivation in foreign aid is not making the developing nation independent, but more dependent, i.e. using the nation as either a source of cheap resources/labour or as a future market. So what foreign aid does is actually establish market dominance of the "first world" companies.
skocznymroczny 6y ago
Because there are two different topics. Whether global warming occurs or not, and whether it is man-made or not. First one is easy to prove, just look at the temperature charts over the years and analyze. Second one is harder to quantify.
- WorkLobster 6y ago
  I think, in broad strokes, human origin for the temperature change is pretty simple to estimate and test? We know how infrared scatters on CO_2 from quantum/EM physics, so from that it should be possible to take the difference in global concentration due to humanity and incident solar radiation, and derive as a result an expected temperature rise. This can then be matched against historical average temperature records. I'm being a classic physicist and assuming everything is a first-order approximation, so someone do correct me if I'm wrong.
LatteLazy 6y ago
I always find the free market vs government arguments a false dichotomy. Even the free-est markets require a whole host of government services: regulation, standards setting, contracts enforcement, antifraud measures provision and infrastructure to name but a few. People only cry free market when they don't like a particular government activity. That coal plant relies on infrastructure to get its coal. It needs fair utility prices to deliver its power to customers. It needs reliable (abuse free) markets to sell the power on. It needs voltage and frequency/time standards to access the network. It needs contract enforcement to actually get paid by its customers. It needs insurance and educated workers and a CEO who won't embezzle. All provided by government, all welcomed by industry. But suddenly government has no place in free markets when it comes to CO2.
- westurner 6y ago
  Should we prefer penalties or incentives in order to use predictable markets for the change we need?
  - LatteLazy 6y ago
    That depends on whether you want power to be cheaper or more expensive. Cheaper is nice but you'll pay for it taxes etc. Expensive is painful at the point of consumption but encourages efficiency. It's a strategic and political decision and depends on a nations needs and objectives...
    - westurner 6y ago
      I want to minimize the external environmental costs of electricity production and distribution. Given that the market has selected the least energy-efficient cryptoasset, we should not expect markets to just change given the existing incentives.
  - NeutronStar 6y ago
    Why not both?
- whimsicalism 6y ago
westurner 6y ago
> I'd love to see a study where researchers take things that are seen as good/important/essential to modern life and measure the amount of public/government sponsorship that helped bring it about. Essential technology investment of US tax dollars? NASA spinoff technologies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spinoff_technologies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spinoff_technologies NSF, DARPA, IARPA, In-Q-Tel, ARPA-e (2009) List of emerging technologies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_emerging_technologies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_emerging_technologies
RobertoG 6y ago
>>"I'd love to see a study where researchers take things that are seen as good/important/essential to modern life and measure the amount of public/government sponsorship that helped bring it about. " You could be interested in this book: https://marianamazzucato.com/entrepreneurial-state/ https://marianamazzucato.com/entrepreneurial-state/

by dm319 6y ago

est31 6y ago

The US government heavily subsidizes oil and has heavily subsidized nuclear as well. Both were choices for strategic reasons, to be independent in sources of energy (and to have nukes). Preventing climate change and becoming independent from non-renewables seems like a worthwhile strategic goal to me, too. And these are only the active subsidies. We're not even talking about the externalities.

jakozaur 6y ago

Startups need early adopters who value potential and future vision. Innovators and early adopter look beyond your current offering. The challange is finding equivalent of early adopters for commodity markets such as electrical energy. That where the government policies could step in. There are some things that initially are too expensive, but at scale could be game changing. Instead of grants, I would allocate $100mln - $1Bln / year to auctions. to buy at lowest price, the cheaper price available should unlock bigger pool. Good examples for government subsidies: 1. Negative carbon emission. 2. Carbon-free steel. 3. Carbon-free concrete. 4. Synthetical fuels such as natural gas or gasoline.

beefield 6y ago
I have thought something similar regarding developing countries. Instead of giving money/help to a developing country, you should foster local industry by committing yourself to buy ten thousand gadgets produced locally. The local cleptrocat would have difficulties siphoning off the money as the products would need to be demonstrably produced. Then, once the gadgets are produced and people employed, you do not need to even export those gadgets, but just auction them off locally, so the gadgets end up as increase in local welfare. In the best case you may even make a small profit... Of course, it is difficult to judge what the locals produce best, but somehow I still think that induced demand would be helpful, and better than just dumping the money there.
- cycomanic 6y ago
  The problem is that often enough part of the motivation in foreign aid is not making the developing nation independent, but more dependent, i.e. using the nation as either a source of cheap resources/labour or as a future market. So what foreign aid does is actually establish market dominance of the "first world" companies.

skocznymroczny 6y ago

Because there are two different topics. Whether global warming occurs or not, and whether it is man-made or not. First one is easy to prove, just look at the temperature charts over the years and analyze. Second one is harder to quantify.

WorkLobster 6y ago
I think, in broad strokes, human origin for the temperature change is pretty simple to estimate and test? We know how infrared scatters on CO_2 from quantum/EM physics, so from that it should be possible to take the difference in global concentration due to humanity and incident solar radiation, and derive as a result an expected temperature rise. This can then be matched against historical average temperature records. I'm being a classic physicist and assuming everything is a first-order approximation, so someone do correct me if I'm wrong.

LatteLazy 6y ago

I always find the free market vs government arguments a false dichotomy. Even the free-est markets require a whole host of government services: regulation, standards setting, contracts enforcement, antifraud measures provision and infrastructure to name but a few. People only cry free market when they don't like a particular government activity. That coal plant relies on infrastructure to get its coal. It needs fair utility prices to deliver its power to customers. It needs reliable (abuse free) markets to sell the power on. It needs voltage and frequency/time standards to access the network. It needs contract enforcement to actually get paid by its customers. It needs insurance and educated workers and a CEO who won't embezzle. All provided by government, all welcomed by industry. But suddenly government has no place in free markets when it comes to CO2.

westurner 6y ago
Should we prefer penalties or incentives in order to use predictable markets for the change we need?
- LatteLazy 6y ago
  That depends on whether you want power to be cheaper or more expensive. Cheaper is nice but you'll pay for it taxes etc. Expensive is painful at the point of consumption but encourages efficiency. It's a strategic and political decision and depends on a nations needs and objectives...
  - westurner 6y ago
    I want to minimize the external environmental costs of electricity production and distribution. Given that the market has selected the least energy-efficient cryptoasset, we should not expect markets to just change given the existing incentives.
- NeutronStar 6y ago
  Why not both?
whimsicalism 6y ago

westurner 6y ago

> I'd love to see a study where researchers take things that are seen as good/important/essential to modern life and measure the amount of public/government sponsorship that helped bring it about. Essential technology investment of US tax dollars? NASA spinoff technologies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spinoff_technologies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spinoff_technologies NSF, DARPA, IARPA, In-Q-Tel, ARPA-e (2009) List of emerging technologies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_emerging_technologies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_emerging_technologies

RobertoG 6y ago

>>"I'd love to see a study where researchers take things that are seen as good/important/essential to modern life and measure the amount of public/government sponsorship that helped bring it about. " You could be interested in this book: https://marianamazzucato.com/entrepreneurial-state/ https://marianamazzucato.com/entrepreneurial-state/