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Blog

Home Blog Solar power's
going to be great: which is why we shouldn't be subsidising it
today

Solar power's going to be great: which is why we
shouldn't be subsidising it today

Written by Tim Worstall | Saturday 17 August
2013

I'm a firm believer that all of this climate change thing is going to be
solved by the application of human ingenuity. You might call me a Simonite on
that point.I'm also absolutely certain that solar power is going to play a large
part in that solution. There's just so damn much of it available that it would
be near mad insane of us not to use it. At which point my insistence that we
should not be subsidising the installation of current solar power is going to
seem most odd. However, I refer you to Mike
Munger:

In 20 years, solar will be useful, and used. But it's a
mistake to spend our money now on an immature and still not well-engineered
solar generation system.

I'd argue on the 20 years: it's going to be much sooner than that. Solar
power depends upon a variant of Moore's Law (in part, at least, and then further
on the efficiency with which silicon metal can be made, something increasing by
leaps and bounds as well) and it's getting more efficient faster than most
realise. Or more productive perhaps, to bring the falling price of it into
play.

The usual argument at this point is that since solar will become efficient at
some point in hte near future then we've got to subsidise the installation of it
right now. Which is absurd of course: that it will be grid comparable in general
(rather than just in specific locations, as now) in the near future is exactly
why we shouldn't be offering any subsidiy at all for installation of the
current, not efficient, generation. And the closer that near future is the
stronger the argument against subsidy. If the next generation of solar,
available in, say, 2015, will be cheaper than coal (a claim some make although
I'm not sure it will be that quick) then why one Earth would we waste money
installing not efficient solar in 2014?

Save the money and install the efficient stuff in 2015. This is true whatever
your timescale for solar becoming efficient is. The more anyone insists that it
will become efficient the more they ought to be arguing against the subsidy of
the installation of the current generation of inefficient solar.

Subsidy for development, for R&D work, that's different, with a different
set of arguments. But subsidy for the current installation, for 25 years of
subsidy through feed in tariffs, when we're all also arguing that unsubsidised
efficient kit will be available in 2 or 5 years, is simply ridiculous. Wait and
install the good stuff instead of littering the countryside with the current bad
kit.

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Tim Worstall

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