I always enjoy a good barb thrown toward wind and solar energy, especially when it comes from a former Secretary of Energy. Don't get me wrong--wind and solar are part of a coherent energy solution for our country. Part if it, mind you. But there is an increasingly vocal and missionary segment of the population who believe wind and solar can scale up sufficiently to become something more than geographically oriented niche providers of power. It just ain't so.
One quibble I have with the authors though, is that pot-shot they take at the federal subsidies necessary to make wind and solar viable. I'm convinced that purely free-market conditions will NOT solve this problem. As long as people hit their light switches and there is power available, they don't care where it comes from. It will take considerable government investment in infrastructure to upgrade the nation's electrical grid and to provide that grid with clean, renewable, reliable, and constant electrical power.
I see your quibble and raise you a quibble.
ReplyDelete"made financially feasible through substantial subsidies".
I'm not so sure that it was a "pot shot" as it was a statement of fact that, btw, is in agreement with what you wrote. That the free market forces by themselves were never going to drive these technologies to be "financially feasible".