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I don't buy the political argument. If it made financial sense you could just build it and take all your profits to lobby the politicians but obviously the econ

I don't buy the political argument. If it made financial sense you could just build it and take all your profits to lobby the politicians but obviously the economics are not very profitable yet. Edit: How did Tesla succeed is GM and the oil companies were supposedly going to use politics to keep the electric car from succeeding?

epistasis 4y ago
Make financial sense to whom? If solar is cheaper than natural gas, how does a utility profit from charging less? They are highly regulated, and are usually allowed to take a percentage as profit. So it's in their interest to take the more expensive option, depending on regulations Saying that solar isn't cheap is just ignoring the past five years of cost data.
- tppiotrowski 4y ago
  Natural gas runs on cloudy days and at night. Taking a bus is cheaper than flying, but if you want to get somewhere fast you need to fly. Price is just one metric.
  - epistasis 4y ago
    In the US, the rare instances of more open markets for electricity generation markets, like ERCOT, and seeing wind/solar/storage dominate over natural gas in new deployments. This wouldn't happen unless they actually were cheaper. However, regulated monopolies in other parts of the country have no incentive to innovate or use newer technology. Thus they make their five year plans (usually called IRPs) with opaque financial models with out-of-date costs, leading to bad decision making.
chrsw 4y ago
>How did Tesla succeed is GM and the oil companies were supposedly going to use politics to keep the electric car from succeeding? Maybe a different way to ask the same sort of question is: What would the auto industry look like now if the political climate had been more favorable towards electric vehicles?
- epistasis 4y ago
  And for that matter, Tesla cars are not renewable electricity. I'm taking about specific market forces in the electricity market in the US, not the car market.

epistasis 4y ago

Make financial sense to whom? If solar is cheaper than natural gas, how does a utility profit from charging less? They are highly regulated, and are usually allowed to take a percentage as profit. So it's in their interest to take the more expensive option, depending on regulations Saying that solar isn't cheap is just ignoring the past five years of cost data.

tppiotrowski 4y ago
Natural gas runs on cloudy days and at night. Taking a bus is cheaper than flying, but if you want to get somewhere fast you need to fly. Price is just one metric.
- epistasis 4y ago
  In the US, the rare instances of more open markets for electricity generation markets, like ERCOT, and seeing wind/solar/storage dominate over natural gas in new deployments. This wouldn't happen unless they actually were cheaper. However, regulated monopolies in other parts of the country have no incentive to innovate or use newer technology. Thus they make their five year plans (usually called IRPs) with opaque financial models with out-of-date costs, leading to bad decision making.

chrsw 4y ago

>How did Tesla succeed is GM and the oil companies were supposedly going to use politics to keep the electric car from succeeding? Maybe a different way to ask the same sort of question is: What would the auto industry look like now if the political climate had been more favorable towards electric vehicles?

epistasis 4y ago
And for that matter, Tesla cars are not renewable electricity. I'm taking about specific market forces in the electricity market in the US, not the car market.