• 1057 Days Ago
• 03/23/2009

Loans and grants

Loaning, granting, or whatever the flavor of the day term is, money has always been dolled out for research.  Especially when the end result can have a military and strategic application.  This one may even put a few people back to work.  And who knows, the DOE may be looking down the road, thinking oil politics and energy independence. 

• 1057 Days Ago
• 03/23/2009

Million, not Billion

I think it is $535 million. May be it is just a typo or may be I am wrong.

• 1056 Days Ago
• 03/24/2009

Govt notoriously bad at picking winners; Ethanol from corn - never ending subsidies

Governments (politicians) are notoriously poor at picking winners.

What's worse, once a group has its snout in the taxpayers pocket, they are extraordinarily difficult to terminate.  They develop lobbying efforts to maintain their perk(s).

Just look at the ongoing absurdity of Ethanol from Corn.
Higher food prices
Higher gasoline prices
Higher taxes / deficits
Lower MPG
Ethanol into gasoline mandates
Tariffs on Ethanol imports

Economically indefensible.

Yet, it goes on.
Corn state Senators.

• 1055 Days Ago
• 03/25/2009

Alternative approach

Instead of funding the solar plant with grant money, the feds should have built their own poly-sil plant and manufactured high quality ingots that could be wholesaled out to solar cell manufacturers. That way they can flood the market with the raw components for cell manufacturing. If a solar cell firm decided to build their own, it's done at their expense and risk - not the taxpayers. In the meantime, the ingots could be stored and sold later of there are no takers or any new business which wants ot get into the solar cell field could buy these from the US to keep startup costs cheap till such time they're self sufficient.

Finally - there should also be some type of recycling service established up front so old solar systems can be recycled and new ingot materials collected for refurbishment.

• 1055 Days Ago
• 03/25/2009

Govt. not good at choosing

All governments have a terrible record at choosing winners.  Solar technology will be no different.

I recommend we give the money to home owners who install solar solutions in the next two years.  To start the discussion how about a tax refund of $4 per installed, demonstrated, peak watt output installed and attached to the grid in the next 24 months claimable on your income tax with a proof of performance from an independent energy auditor or payment from the utility that accepts the electricity.

One advantage of this approach is you would get all tax payers talking about the alternatives.  Another is that these home owners would employ construction workers installing all this stuff.

• 1055 Days Ago
• 03/25/2009

Go Steve Chu

If Dr. Steve Chu is picking the winners, they probably really will be winners. First I've heard of this company though.

Amazing that the Bush Gang managed to delay this from 2005, staving off competition with beloved Peabody Coal.

Apparently the law that you have to flunk math to be a reporter even applies to MIT-TR. If you're having trouble with Millions vs Billions, spend some time playing quiz games at Gadzillion.org.
Hint: A million is $0.003 per American. A billion is $3.33 per American. So this investment amounts to about $1.50 per American- small change for a technology that very likely will make your electricity cheaper, and substantially reduce the cost of adapting to climate change.

This will have more impact than hiring a few people- it will very likely start producing energy supply cheaper than coal-- and that get a trillion dollar market rolling. But the main savings, if we make renewables cheaper than coal, is in cities. We have lots of coastal cities left after New Orleans, but they are all at risk, and will be very expensive to replace. You don't get much infrastructure for $500 million...