[drcross]

You may be putting the cart before the horse. Wouldnt pumping out tons of anything create forcing functions for efficiency, as in, exactly what happened but on a longer timeframe?

[llm_trw]

Building external combustion cars in the 1880s might have given Britain an economic edge over the US in the period, but the market would have still collapsed when internal combustion matured enough. And being a specialist in one technology usually means you're not able to move to a different one when it becomes obsolete.

[robertlagrant]

I don't think that's the case. Pumping them out might well mean free money, which means there's no incentive to do better.

[seadan83]

Industries which receive subsidies today and still have incentives "to do better" are counter-examples to your statement.

" Pumping them out might well mean free money"

The article talks about this, Wrights law. The "pumping them out" leads to economies of scale and production efficiency in of itself.

[sophacles]

Of course there is. The subsidy would be on watts output, not on number if panels. Therefore any way to make the panels cheaper to produce and/or more efficient brings more revenue and more profit margin.