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Comment by rconti | Hacker News Reader

Is USA government policy actively antagonistic towards this specific technology? Or just doesn't have specific support/incentives for this specific kind of technology?

Is there any reason the market doesn't/can't support buying these panels here? Or are there weird tariffs against it?

IS there not already a boom in solar PV installation in the USA?

It looks like we're far from a watts-per-capita leader (15th in the world?), although we are ahead of China, for now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_by_country

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The Republican party in the united states is so anti-green energy, they removed solar panels from the white house in the 80s, shortly after they were installed, just because they didn't like them. They also blamed wind turbines for the extreme grid failure in Texas last year, and it is a current talking point that "wind and solar can't ever work" and that wind turbines kill so many birds that we can't possibly ever use them large scale. They have pitched a fit any time the government attempts to hand a small subsidy out for green energy.

Meanwhile the Democrats have wonderful Manchin, who stops you from doing ANYTHING to help the country unless you include some stupid kickback to like five coal barons in west virginia, despite the entire coal industry employing fewer people than plenty of industries we don't give handouts to. Coal is dying a perfectly reasonable death because it's just not cost competitive with anything, even though we ignore the most expensive part of it, the pollution. Despite that, west virginia keeps a stranglehold on the nations energy policy because 60k absurdly entitled adults are convinced that what their daddy did for a job that killed him in his 60s should be a career forever with no changes and they shouldn't have to adapt in any way to the modern world that DOESN'T want to poison them. When hilary clinton said the country would pay for them to learn new skills and get new careers, they responded by pretty heavily voting for the guy that said they could just go back to digging dirty rocks out of the ground. The entire state is somehow (it's propaganda, literally, from local coal companies) convinced that the modern world is impossible without coal, as if it is still the 1800s, ignoring that most of the world hates coal, always hated using coal, and has always switched to less grimy fuel sources as soon as it became cost competitive, which it is.

And don't give me any of this "wah wah don't bring partisan politics into this" because green energy policy is 100% partisan, with no reason, in the united states, and ignoring that, or trying to "both sides same" this issue is simply delusional.

IMO, the US federal government should drop a trillion dollars on a federal run solar power company, who's only mandate is to buy as much damn solar generation as possible, and sell it to local consumers as cheaply as possible, and "but it might be cloudy some days" problems should be solved by buying 10x as much solar as "needed".

Texas is one of the reddest states yet produces significantly more wind+solar power than liberal California. Government policy is far less important than economic realities. People are self-absorbed and think their political opinions are important. The real world works more like a cowboy hat wearing power company executive saying, "Holy shucks, this solar/wind installation is going to save us more on NatGas than it costs to install. Get 'er done."

A (state) government policy that makes building anything at all hard will result in less of anything (including solar and wind farms) built, compared to a (state) government policy that's somehow less onerous.

Hence the difference between California and Texas.

How liberal is California though?

People vote for the Democrats, sure, but do the Democrats do things to help the poor or the rich there?

Or is a liberal vote one to give nimbys the power to nimby?

Just because it gets distorted, not that it changes the message.

The solar panels installed on the White House during the Carter years were a solar hot water heater, not a photovoltaic system.

Here is part of his speech from the dedication ceremony in 1979: "In the year 2000 this solar water heater behind me, which is being dedicated today, will still be here supplying cheap, efficient energy…. A generation from now, this solar heater can either be a curiosity, a museum piece, an example of a road not taken or it can be just a small part of one of the greatest and most exciting adventures ever undertaken by the American people."

Details are not readily available without clearance, but the roof of the White House is a limited commodity and there was probably an antimissile system installed there after the solar panels. They might have needed the space.

Here in 2022 we can see which road was chosen. We didn't get to 20% renewables by 2000, but we are up to 12%, so making progress, if somewhat more slowly.

The oil and gas lobby in the US is staggeringly powerful. Many US regulatory bodies (like FERC) have been captured by industry for years. It has been very difficult to do anything that might negatively impact the oil and gas industry.

So not so much anti-solar as anti-anything-threatening-fossil-fuels.