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This touches a problem democracy inherited from the market participants it tries to emulate in the west nowadays. Longterm commitment to plans. It makes no se

This touches a problem democracy inherited from the market participants it tries to emulate in the west nowadays. Longterm commitment to plans. It makes no sense to support projects short term, only then to hand the developed fruits of labour over to those capable to longterm commit to development. This is also the most valuable trait a government can bring to the market, as it is a system usually optimized for exploring local optima, but incapable to traverse the ridges of the research landscape by itself to new "hunting grounds". In germany, a semi-conductor industry was existing and was given up, as further development would have needed propping up by government. Solar was developed and then fed to the wulfes locally, as entrenched energy providers sabotaged the support the young industry would have needed against chinas cheap manufacturing. And this pattern has played itself out over and over in western markets. Shortsighted entrenched interests sabotage "new Players" who venture to those capable to commit. So even, if at this moment, all parties agree to commitment, how longterm will this commitment be. Why should someone migrate from Taiwan to Canada, only to participate in a re-enactment of a short term "desert-flowering" of a chip industry? Nobody would try to make a career on such shifting grounds. You cant built a cathedral on sand.

konschubert 5y ago
Germany chose cheap solar over homegrown solar. It is not clear to me that German solar could have become as cheap as Chinese solar with the old subsidy scheme.
- aww_dang 5y ago
  There's also the subsidies provided by CCP central planners to consider. This subsidizes consumption in their target markets. I appreciate the strategic concerns. However, the obvious benefit of a foreign nation subsidizing your consumption shouldn't be overlooked. Some of the knee-jerk reactions to central planning suggest that the western nations should emulate the CCP's statist system. To be sure there are pragmatic concerns, but more concerning is the race to the bottom of top down planning this creates. Government bureaus will always find a rationale to expand purview of the state. Specifically, if photovoltaic solar isn't cost effective without subsidies, then why use it? When the state chooses winners and losers, it distorts the incentive based progression of technology. By narrowly focusing on artificially profitable PV solar, more efficient innovations may be overlooked. There's always an unseen cost when central planners misallocate resources away from profitable industries. Pragmatists' best case might be that strategic concerns outweigh the losses of productivity and employment.
  - nine_k 5y ago
    The problem is that you never know where better optima lie. You have to guess. It is easiest when a new optimum is easy to reach by just following the gradient. Short-term thinking works well here. There may be some optima much farther down, which take a lot of "buried" investment to reach: efficient photovoltaics, electric cars, reusable space launch systems, maybe even fusion power. We know that some of them are better optima than the previous state, because they have been reached. Some, like fusion power, haven't been, but there is a lot of hope that they'll work. Some other attempts, like supersonic passenger aircraft, ended up not as optimal as their proponents had hoped. You never know. The problem is that you can only reach these distant goals by concentrating resources and spending them without an apparent commercial result for years and decades. This takes a high concentration of resources and a commitment. Currently only billionaires and certain national governments can afford that. Most public companies are too beholden to their quarterly results to follow long-term policies which do not bring steady profits along the way, and many governments are in the same situation because the voters do not care about long-term goals enough.
roenxi 5y ago
There is no conflict between democracies and accomplishing long term goals. Common perceptions are skewed because (1) "everything works as expected" and (2) "obviously clever long term plan bears fruit" make boring headlines. If the democracies ever bring out the brass knuckles and try hard they'll probably succeed. Even mild tweaks like loosening IP protections and letting failed financial institutions go bankrupt once in a while would do wonders. But the political will is focused on, eg, the Green movement (and Germany is one of the world-wide leaders there) which sees it as essential to our survival that we replace cheap energy with clean energy. Now I'm sure a lot of readers believe in that as a goal but industry would rather go where the cheap energy is. The English speaking democracies have spent years deprioritising industrial reform in favour of improving welfare and supporting environmental initiatives at the expense of industrial competition. These are widely supported policies and fair enough, it is great to live in the west. But the long term effect of this is easy to anticipate - challengers will find it easier to compete.
- maxerickson 5y ago
  Solar energy (with storage!) is cheap energy. We aren't quite at the storage tipping point, but there is good reason to believe we will get there. Solar as generation tipped years ago. Make plans like energy in 2030 will be cheaper than it is now, not more expensive.
  - elzbardico 5y ago
    This is simply not true right now. It will be, I hope sooner than later, but not right now.
MichaelMoser123 5y ago
However longterm planning can be very rigid, in the GDR (east Germany) they used to joke that 'we have got the biggest microchips in the world' (old joke from the eighties, from the same domain, actually)

konschubert 5y ago

Germany chose cheap solar over homegrown solar. It is not clear to me that German solar could have become as cheap as Chinese solar with the old subsidy scheme.

aww_dang 5y ago
There's also the subsidies provided by CCP central planners to consider. This subsidizes consumption in their target markets. I appreciate the strategic concerns. However, the obvious benefit of a foreign nation subsidizing your consumption shouldn't be overlooked. Some of the knee-jerk reactions to central planning suggest that the western nations should emulate the CCP's statist system. To be sure there are pragmatic concerns, but more concerning is the race to the bottom of top down planning this creates. Government bureaus will always find a rationale to expand purview of the state. Specifically, if photovoltaic solar isn't cost effective without subsidies, then why use it? When the state chooses winners and losers, it distorts the incentive based progression of technology. By narrowly focusing on artificially profitable PV solar, more efficient innovations may be overlooked. There's always an unseen cost when central planners misallocate resources away from profitable industries. Pragmatists' best case might be that strategic concerns outweigh the losses of productivity and employment.
- nine_k 5y ago
  The problem is that you never know where better optima lie. You have to guess. It is easiest when a new optimum is easy to reach by just following the gradient. Short-term thinking works well here. There may be some optima much farther down, which take a lot of "buried" investment to reach: efficient photovoltaics, electric cars, reusable space launch systems, maybe even fusion power. We know that some of them are better optima than the previous state, because they have been reached. Some, like fusion power, haven't been, but there is a lot of hope that they'll work. Some other attempts, like supersonic passenger aircraft, ended up not as optimal as their proponents had hoped. You never know. The problem is that you can only reach these distant goals by concentrating resources and spending them without an apparent commercial result for years and decades. This takes a high concentration of resources and a commitment. Currently only billionaires and certain national governments can afford that. Most public companies are too beholden to their quarterly results to follow long-term policies which do not bring steady profits along the way, and many governments are in the same situation because the voters do not care about long-term goals enough.

roenxi 5y ago

There is no conflict between democracies and accomplishing long term goals. Common perceptions are skewed because (1) "everything works as expected" and (2) "obviously clever long term plan bears fruit" make boring headlines. If the democracies ever bring out the brass knuckles and try hard they'll probably succeed. Even mild tweaks like loosening IP protections and letting failed financial institutions go bankrupt once in a while would do wonders. But the political will is focused on, eg, the Green movement (and Germany is one of the world-wide leaders there) which sees it as essential to our survival that we replace cheap energy with clean energy. Now I'm sure a lot of readers believe in that as a goal but industry would rather go where the cheap energy is. The English speaking democracies have spent years deprioritising industrial reform in favour of improving welfare and supporting environmental initiatives at the expense of industrial competition. These are widely supported policies and fair enough, it is great to live in the west. But the long term effect of this is easy to anticipate - challengers will find it easier to compete.

maxerickson 5y ago
Solar energy (with storage!) is cheap energy. We aren't quite at the storage tipping point, but there is good reason to believe we will get there. Solar as generation tipped years ago. Make plans like energy in 2030 will be cheaper than it is now, not more expensive.
- elzbardico 5y ago
  This is simply not true right now. It will be, I hope sooner than later, but not right now.

MichaelMoser123 5y ago

However longterm planning can be very rigid, in the GDR (east Germany) they used to joke that 'we have got the biggest microchips in the world' (old joke from the eighties, from the same domain, actually)