[socrates1998]

The problem with this idea that we subsidized solar until it was profitable is not accurate.

Solar power doesn't pollute and I would argue that all other forms of power that do pollute aren't taxed nearly enough for it, with coal being the most obvious example.

Coal power sends an insane amount of carbon into the atmosphere. If we properly carbon-taxed coal, it would go out of business tomorrow. And that doesn't even get into the environmental destruction that comes from strip mining.

Strip mining is when coal companies buy a whole fucking mountain and then destroy it piece by piece to remove the coal. How the fuck is that not good for the environment and our society after the coal is gone?

So, solar power really is a lot of cheaper than coal when you consider all the negative externalities that it brings.

[save_ferris]

Solar didn't magically just appear on the market at a lower price point than carbon-based resources though, it had to go through several iterations which required significant investment capital. This is usually where government agencies like DOE leverage their capital investment programs because private business aren't interested in paying for the R&D to solve those kinds of big problems without a guaranteed success.

Solar is only becoming cheaper today because of the research and capital that was put into developing the technology, not because it's inherently cleaner than coal. To your point, based purely on the market forces (i.e. excluding carbon taxes) coal is still a very viable option. And if the government is motivated to migrate businesses off of dirty energy resources, it also has a motivation to help develop alternatives that the market will accept.

Solyndra[0] was one example of a company that received government support to develop solar technology and became notorious for defrauding the government in the process.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solyndra

[ganafagol]

> To your point, based purely on the market forces (i.e. excluding carbon taxes) coal is still a very viable option.

Oh please. Based "purely on market forces" can't exclude carbon emissions. That's a non-negligible externality which your market needs to price correctly. Not doing so is in effect subsidising coal. There is nothing "pure" about this, quite to the contrary. And this has been known for decades.

It's 2021 now. We don't live in 1890 anymore.

[ogre_codes]

> Solar didn't magically just appear on the market at a lower price point than carbon-based resources though

You are ignoring the entire point of the post you are replying to.

Extracting coal and burning it has massive external costs. Massive health costs to the workers and even people just living near coal extraction. Massive devaluation of land near the coal mines. Huge issues with non-carbon solution. That's all before the concerns about climate change. Few people were compensated for the massive destruction of wealth/ health & quality of life in the region. In many places the companies extracted every ounce of coal then when the lawsuits started pouring in, the company went belly up.

Once you take into account all the costs outside the costs of acquiring the land and extracting the coal, coal is vastly more expensive.

[jhgb]

> and became notorious for defrauding the government in the process

Where's the evidence for that? The major point was that Solyndra bet on the wrong horse with CIGS; they were unknowingly doomed to fail from the start.

[brendoelfrendo]

I'm not sure your point in bringing up Solyndra; with that notable exception, the fed's investments in renewables turned a decent profit. It's actually a problem, in hindsight: the program was supposed to take risks on innovative ideas and companies that would be difficult to find via traditional channels, but Solyndra had such a chilling effect that the DOE stopped taking those risks.

[socrates1998]

You ignored my main point, which is that coal is also subsidized because we don't accurately price in all the pollution.

Solar would have been explored much sooner if we factored in the pollution.

[jpgvm]

Uhh:

> not because it's inherently cleaner than coal

Is patently false.

It took capital to get there but solar -is- inherently cheaper than coal. That is -exactly- why it's being deployed at scale now.

[geoduck14]

>Solar power doesn't pollute Nope. The heavy metals used in solar powers are pretty awful. Perhaps they don't have the same impact as CO2, but we don't have a decent solution for what to do with the trash from old solar panels.

[socrates1998]

Yes, I didn't bring that up because I feel like Solar's manufacturing pollution isn't comparable to coal's ongoing and inherently massive pollution.

Coal pollutes both in destruction of the physical land (strip mining) and in ongoing pollution from huge amounts of carbon emissions.

Solar needs to be a responsible in how they get the materials (mining) and dispose of broken or outdated panels.

[pfdietz]

Which heavy metals are those? Be specific.

[IfOnlyYouKnew]

I tend to agree with your point about coal, but fail to see what you're trying to say.

Maybe the non-taxation of fossil fuels' externalities is akin to subsidies. Then that becomes the reason why solar power needed subsidies, but it doesn't change the fact of their existence.

I also doubt raising prices for fossil fuels would have had the same effect on research into alternatives. Solar power is now cheaper than coal, even at the low costs of coal you decry. Given enough time, solar power research will yield tremendous returns, and would have done so under any imaginable tax/subsidy regime for coal and/or solar power.

But markets aren't always capable of reaping such rewards. Not because they are evil, but there was a lot of uncertainty and extremely long timelines involved that those institutions just aren't set up for.

Politics, however, are. And it worked. Score one for that dirty concept.

[kyrra]

Manufacturing isn't free.

https://spectrum.ieee.org/green-tech/solar/solar-energy-isnt...

> Making solar cells requires a lot of energy. Fortunately, because these cells generate electricity, they pay back the original investment of energy; most do so after just two years of operation, and some companies report payback times as short as six months.

While the above article is from 2014, it likely still applies today. I would be interested to know how much manufacturing processes have changed since then.

The other big thing the article points out is the toxic chemicals and toxic process used to produce solar panels.

[floatrock]

Energy requirements of various technologies is commonly measured with a simple ratio called ERoEI -- Energy Returned on Energy Invested.

Basically, any energy source can be thought of as an "energy multiplier" -- it takes some amount of energy to free the resource (manufacture it, mine it, etc.), then it produces some amount of energy output over its lifetime. So by looking at energy-out / energy-in, you get a sense of your bang for your buck.

Looking at the latest figures on wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_return_on_investment#Ap... :

- Conventional oil wells are 18-43:1 (I've heard saudi oil wells -- the easiest to drill -- are in the range of 60:1)

- Shale is 1.5:1 (say you what you will about the shale revolution, but from an energy output point of view, it's literally scraping the bottom of the barrel)

- Oil sands are 5:1

- Wind is 20-30:1

- Solar is 9-34:1

As with any lifetime/embedded cost analysis, there's lots of variability dependent on your assumptions, manufacturing conditions, and operating conditions. There's nuances in energy types, like wind turbines produce electricity but require tons of diesel trucks and concrete to assemble.

But we can roughly say that in terms of energy requirements, solar is more efficient than shale or oil sands, but it tops out at the lower to mid range of conventional oil.

[ReactiveJelly]

So a model based on pollution taxes would have worked better - We could tax the manufacturing plants, and the coal plants, and have a bake-off to see which is cleaner - Burning coal for power, or burning coal to run factories for PV panels.

But it would have been less popular, because at least in the USA we don't have a good welfare system to balance out the indirect tax on poor people, who have to spend more of their income on electricity, gasoline, other pollutants.

[tom-_-]

The negative externalities of coal aren't adequately captured by taxes, sure...but what does that have to do with government subsidizing solar? Clearly they have.

[sagarm]

The government subsidy is a point of criticism for "free-market" proponents. It's fair to point out that fossil fuels, and especially coal, have long benefitted from being able to externalize pollution costs. This is not consistent with an efficient market, since the extra costs of coal are borne by everyone regardless of whether they benefit.

[andi999]

So only rich people can heat their apartment in winter?

[iso1631]

Take revenue from carbon tax and distribute it as UBI. This gives everyone the money to pay the average carbon use, and encourages carbon use to reduce on both the supply and demand side.

[ForHackernews]

Have you just arrived here as a time-traveller from Victorian London?

I have fabulous news! Forsooth, in this, the Year of Our Lord, Two Thousand and Score, Plus One, it has come to pass that mankind hath, by workings most subtle, made manifest many wondrous heating apparatuses that requireth neither coal nor coke, nor indeed train oil.