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Non-rechargable batteries costs more electricity than they'll ever produce in their lifespan, and producing them makes sense.

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That's different. Those are used in places where having a cord to a power source is impossible or impractical, so we accept the trade-off.

But if my assumption is true, you might burn a bunch of coal to make these windows, and then never offset that energy use (because the windows break/stop working after X years).

Local generation is worth paying a premium for if it allows transmission infrastructure to be avoided.

half of green tech can be thrown out under this kind of scrutiny. there are so many shell games to gobble tax money that ultimately originates in the great wealth fountain that is fossil fuels

the blinders people put on talking about this stuff are incredible

True, but it doesn't necessarily mean that the incentives are a bad thing. The incentives do promote activity in the "green tech" space, much of which is waste, or even fraud, but maybe some of it will turn out to be useful.

It would be great if the structure of the incentives could be adjusted to reduce waste and fraud, but accepting that there will be some level of abuse may be the price of encouraging progress.

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