apeiron said:
Epic fail Glenn

.
You somehow seem to have cited a leading peak oiler. (Remember this? http://dieoff.org/page140.pdf)
Perhaps you did not read down to the conclusion (you certainly misread the graphs)...
Their data was sound, which is what I was citing. Their conclusions were not. Did you notice that paragraph was written in 1997? For the past 13 years, proved reserves have in fact gone up (most recently by 0.7% in 2009, according to BP).
This directly contradicts the claim that production demand was greater in '97 than new discoveries. Their predictions are directly contradicted by observed evidence, as has always been the case for "peak oil" theorists.
I am reminded of a famous bet entered into by an economist and, I believe, a geologist. The names of the principals escapes me. The economist told the geologist to pick a basket of 10 commodities of his choice; the economist cared not what was chosen. The price of that basket would then be tracked over a period of ten years. If the average price of that basket was greater at the end of the bet than at the time it was placed, the economist would lose to the geologist. If the reverse was true, the geologist would lose to the economist.
Can you guess what happened? At the end of the bet term, the real price of the basket was not only lower, but the price of
every commodity selected was also lower. The geologist lost absolutely.
Solarbuzz prices specifically exclude:
True, but the impact of other subsidies, which represent a significantly larger share of the net subsidy than simple customer cash rebates at time of purchase, are already built into the quoted costs used by solarbuzz.
Including rebates, retail solar subsidies approach 60% in some jurisdictions.
Er, no. The efficiency of carnot cycle boiler plants are approaching their thermodynamic limits, have been for some time. More can and is being done in traditional heat cycle plants with rejected waste heat - combined cycle plants, and more efficient turbine blades. Though these gains are significant over the total scale of the grid, the efficiency gains themselves are small - unlike those seen in PV. More importantly, the cost of fuels for these plants (nuclear aside for the moment) is only going up, even if coal and gas reserves are plentiful at the moment.
I am not an engineer, so it is difficult for me to argue with this. My concern is simply this: it is understood in economics that capital investment produces increased output, regardless of industry. A capital investment in solar will produce increased productive output. Similarly, a capital investment in coal plants will produce increased productive output.
I cannot predict and in fact do not care which investment will produce greater production gains. However, if it is the case that an investment in solar power will produce a greater return that a like kind investment in a competing technology,
the public subsidy should not be necesarry. The subsidy is necesarry only to the extent that, in the absence of the public funds, there would not be an equal or greater investment of private funds. If private investors will not invest in a given business model, it is because they rationally expect to achieve a greater return through some competing, alternative investment.
Ergo, I can simply assume that because the solar subsidies exist and are lavish, it is because solar is politically rather than economically favored.
Fossil and nuclear have received much, much more government subsidies in total. We see figures of dollars per Watt produced showing renewables receiving more than fossil/nuclear, but I don't find that metric, by itself, useful.
Are we talking over program life times? This may or may not be the case, but it is certainly the case that so-called conventional energy sources are
today negatively subsidized. That is, the amount of any government assistance to these industries is less than (substantially less than) the cost of taxes, fees, fines, and royalties.
I am also skeptical of the claim that the startup of these industries required lavish government interventions. These industries are established and dominant because they are cheap and plentiful, a fact which attracted massive initial private investment. It simply was not necesarry that the government support the oil, gas, and coal industry; it has always been the most economically viable means of fixed and portable energy production.
They have an agenda to keep us on fossil as long as possible (maximizing the profits of the oild- and gas companies) and hand us over into the monopoly of nuclear power.
Nuclear power will become the favourite targets of terrorists. But windmills will never be a target for terrorists.
This is conspiratorial; who is "they", and why do they care where you get your electricity?
"You" as in the consumer might benefit from rooftop solar if you state happens to have good incentives
My point exactly. In the absence of such incentives, no rational person would install solar panels, today.
Huh? Last I checked a lot of the government money in solar is going into private industry and manufacturing. I guess I'm not understanding your point
My point is that, because government is motivated by political rather than economic ends (that is, government is not concerned with achieving the maximum possible return on its investment dollars), those subsidy dollars would achieve a
greater effect if invested privately in more efficient, competing alternatives. Government investment produces jobs and production output, of course. The question you should be asking is, would an identical investment in another industry have produced
more jobs than the government plan? There are always opportunity costs. Markets are assumed to produce gains of maximal possible efficiency, given current conditions. There are no such assumptions for governments.