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If you push for free markets, Big Oil isn't going to be the first to yield. If we can't get rid of CO₂ subsidies, solar subsidies are necessary.
by wizzwizz4 6y ago
If you push for free markets, Big Oil isn't going to be the first to yield. If we can't get rid of CO₂ subsidies, solar subsidies are necessary.
- lumost 6y agoThe free market really has no method of pricing developments with 30+ years to profit/free cash flow. The government first started subsidizing solar to be price competitive in specific situations in the 1970s. There simply aren't any rational free market actors funding large unprofitable initiatives for 40 years with the expectation that the technology will be a bananza after all the principals have retired or are dead.
- Hammershaft 6y agoExactly, private market r&d dollars chase a local maximum that influenced by the length of patent laws.
- lostlogin 6y agoIsn’t the damage to climate and health arguably a subsidy to big oil? While they get that damage for free, of course they win.
- wizzwizz4 6y agoActually, they wouldn't win; many renewables are cheaper than fossil fuels nowadays. Though this is a good point; we need to factor “stealing from the future” and other externalities into the price somehow, if we are to use a capitalist market. (Hence carbon taxes, rather than carbon subsidies, should be government policy.)