The Solar Swindle

Solar electricity is growing, promoted, and most importantly, heavily subsidized. The promoters of solar electricity claim that it is close to being competitive with conventional sources of electricity. That is a fantasy.

Solar electricity is expensive and impractical. If it weren't for government subsidies, some explicit and some disguised, the solar industry would collapse. The many claims of competitiveness are always based on ignoring subsidies provided to politically correct renewable power, ignoring the costs associated with unreliability, and ignoring the cost of backup fossil fuel plants.

An example of a hidden subsidy is the California Renewable Portfolio Standard that mandates utilities to obtain 33% of their energy from so-called renewable sources by 2020. This mandate forces utilities to contract for expensive sources of energy, such as solar. The cost is passed on to the utility customers with the connivance of the government. Although the motivation behind the California scheme is to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, politically incorrect sources of CO2-free electricity, such as nuclear and large-scale hydroelectric, can't be counted as renewable.

People whose knowledge of electricity production ends at their wall outlet are dictating national energy policy. Magical thinking by hopelessly ignorant political activists permeates the alternative energy universe.

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