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Politics : The Trump Presidency -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: neolib who wrote (67150)	4/16/2018 5:34:18 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 357960

The cost subsidies were used to drive scale, and that is an EXCELLENT use of government or collective behavior. No generally it isn't. Its a better justification than a number of other ones that are thrown up for government control of or influence on economic decisions but still not a very good one. We have now gotten to the point where PV is in fact cost competitive WITHOUT the subsidies. In theory yes. In practice places that essentially require a lot of alternative electricity production have higher electricity costs. And if it is competitive without the subsidies where is the big move to get rid of them (and of purchase requirements and sometimes heavy taxation of the fossil fuels etc.) And to the extent we've moved in that direction, its been at a serious costs. Those resources could have been used to provide other benefits. As Bastiat would say you have to consider the unseen as well as the seen.