What I don't get is why policy makers doesn't see this as an opportunity for economic growth. Just start taxing emission and invest heavily in green technology and we could be on our way to start a new industrial revolution!
Why not reduce taxes for corporations building green tech? And provide R&D credit to pay the salaries of engineers working on the problem? Reduce capital gains taxes on investments in green tech? Make it easier for really smart immigrants to come to the US to work on the problem? Create a commission who's job is to review and simplify/eliminate/modernize regulations to reduce barriers to entry in the marketplace? etc.
There are lots of ways to incentivize industry to solve this problem instead of adding more taxes and hoping the government works as a good VC.
The Canadian government tried (and is trying) the angel investor/VC thing here and it hasn't worked at all well. They do stuff like matching investments of other angels or giving loans to entrepreneurs. I'd much rather they made it easier for me to start and run a company by reducing the stuff they are already doing instead of doing more things... like pretending they are private investors. For example, they recently announced a Startup Founder Visa which I think is a great idea and a step in the right direction: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/business/start-up/
The problem isn't the perception of government backed businesses being 'wrong' for profiteering (or competing with industry?). Most people would be happy if the government made successful organizations that had a real impact (NASA in the 1960s). But successful large-scale government projects are rare today. Any gov tech gains in the past couple of decades were usually a minor side-effect of other massive investments (see: wars, intelligence gathering).
Modern nation states are simply not known for being good speculative investors nor good at running projects efficiently or cost effectively. Even when it's via private industry collaboration. But they are good at being politicians (ie, creating tax policy, managing regulations, etc). So my view is that they should focus on that and let industry be good at building technology.
I don't think the problem is government, the problem is funding - companies with limited funding would do an equally bad job of tech as a government department
Also bear in mind that assessing the 'cost of solar' is a toy problem as long as solar can't supply baseload power requirements.
The cost of solar will continue to crater; it is not a matter of "if" we will run entirely on solar, but only "when" at this point.
Also, Hawaii gets its electricity from oil and gas shipped in by tanker and residents pay $.30/kWh; the utility there managed to negotiate $.15/kWh from SolarCity, which is almost certainly below their cost of production right now; they couldn't meet the utility's original tender and reapplied several times. I'm guessing that SolarCity is betting that over the life of their 20 year (!!!) contract they can bring their costs down and eventually turn a profit. I wonder about that bet, though, given that SolarCity isn't in great financial shape.
Anyways, I'm very much in favor of subsidized and incentivized solar power; what grates on me are people who assume that there's a great deal of unrealized value in clean technologies ("new industrial revolution!"). Converting to clean technologies will destroy value because oil and gas, especially when untaxed, are cheaper and easier to exploit. But of course we must convert because, well, 400ppm.
Cumulative global installed solar photovoltaic capacity will surpass 310 GW this year, compared with just 40 GW at the end of 2010. Polysilicon module prices continue to plummet; even if storage costs have not caught up, we can continue to drive out fossil fuel generation with more solar and wind, not to mention shifting loads to renewable generation hours whenever possible.
Having nuclear power plants running all night when no-one needs the power is sub-optimal. That's why many nations built hydro storage and offered financial inducements for people to use power at night. Because the numbers wouldn't work for nuclear if it wasn't used at max capacity the whole time, producing a static amount, yet demand rises and falls both daily and with the seasons.
Doing the same thing, decades later, for solar is hardly rocket science, the only difference is the power correlates very well with air-con loads on both a short and long term scale which makes it a no-brainer for many locations around the world.
Resistance to it just redirects efforts into exactly the kind of thing you are railing against.
Most carbon tax proposals a) have stopped using the word tax as people have a visceral, but non-logical reaction to it, b) are designed to be revenue neutral, since raising money is not the point, but changing behaviour, and so cut other taxes so that it balances out.
By reducing taxes for green tech companies the focus is on acellerating the time when it can become widely available for consumers and consumers can purchase it without large economic trade-off. As a result the coal industry, which is already in steady decline, with continue to go in that direction. Oil will get squeezed.
Only at that point would it make sense to punish consumption of the harmful energy. But doing so now is just wishful thinking and harming the already strugglign middle class.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-electricity-pl...
Cancelling 1000MW contract in that light doesnt seem so horrible.
At least on the hydro front, it's a difficult comparison. Quebec even more so - they have a lot of hydro opportunity.
France generates 85% from Nuclear, so effectively 'emissions free', but of course that comes with other complications.
I believe that Nuclear will be the way forward. Renewables are just not getting 'good enough fast enough' in a pragmatic way ... if we spent as much researching Nuclear I'll bet we'd have much safer choices by now. And most 'new reactors' are very safe. In particular CANDU reactors designed by Canada - and even they are decades old.
The reason Nuclear reactors are 'so expensive' to build has more to do with liability than anything. 'Insurance' is the expense - plus - there are very few entities capable of doing it and they have a 'military industrial complex' type oligarchy on it (i.e. it doesn't matter what the next-gen US fighter jet does, it will cost zillions - because he economic structure is there to make sure it costs that much).
A 'truly progressive' country should be investing in this as an option, the upside is just too good: enough Uranium to last centuries, with effectively no CO2.
There are thousands of companies trying. The inherent problem is that solar and wind are generally crap ways to make it work.
If you live near the equator, and don't regularly have access to electricity, and need a panel to power your TV for a few hours a day - then that's 'impact' but in the West it's really, really hard to make work.
Not saying it won't work, just be aware of what you are suggesting.