Slashdot Mirror
Next Texas Energy Boom: Solar
Layzej writes: The Wall Street Journal reports: "Solar power has gotten so cheap to produce—and so competitively priced in the electricity market—that it is taking hold even in a state that, unlike California, doesn't offer incentives to utilities to buy or build sun-powered generation." Falling cost is one factor driving investment. "Another reason for the boom: Texas recently wrapped up construction of $6.9 billion worth of new transmission lines, many connecting West Texas to the state's large cities. These massive power lines enabled Texas to become, by far, the largest U.S. wind producer. Solar developers plan to move electricity on the same lines, taking advantage of a lull in wind generation during the heat of the day when solar output is at its highest."
How many GOP Texans were screaming about how solar, wind and other renewables were nothing but communist liberal bullshit and yet.. here we are.
Bread and circuses.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
But it's ALSO true that government subsidies can accelerate the development of practical cost-effective technologies
It's ALSO true that government subsidies can slow development by pushing inferior technologies into mass production before they are ready. Subsidies can occasionally be justified, but in the case of solar, the billions spent on subsidies would have been far better employed on R&D to find technology that made economic sense, rather than mass deployment of technology that did not.
this is a risk that, in general, the free market does not take :-)