Republicans Are Determined To Stop Renewable Energy

Of coarse I knew, one builder freaken bragged about it when we looked at buying an "Energy Star" home. But they wanted to charge 10 prices for the added features, so we bought a standard home without, and constructed and added the feature ourselves.

I don't need government to be environmentally responsible and thrifty.

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My point was a riposte to your claim that solar companies have achieved viability. To find out if any man can walk on his own two legs, you have to remove the walking crutch first.

 

The government has no business investing in research. It's not listed in Article I, Section 8.

 

My point is, that the company seeking the government subsidy did NOT get the Sale. The Hardware store that sold me the components got the sale, and no subsidy was involved.

Hence, solar power does sell, and make a profit, and a savings for the consumer.

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You alone don't make these companies sink or swim. They exist and thrive because they're supported artificially by taxpayer subsidies. The only way to prove that wrong is to remove the subsidies.

 

The hardware store is doing a fine business. To my knowledge, they don't receive any subsidies. They do provide free pamphlets on how to build and install the solar heaters... though subsidies are never mentioned.

 

You're changing the context of the conversation. We're not talking about your hardware store, we're talking about solar companies whose product is subsidized. You were probably eligible for tax credits but didn't claim it because you didn't look into it. I also recognize that you made a large purchase and made an emotional connection with the company you purchased from. I get that. I still stay in contact with the man who sold me my Ford truck. But if you can see this from the abstract you know I'm right. These companies are propped up in ways that most businesses aren't and so they can't possibly be considered "viable".

 

They do get a subsidy--a share of the profits from selling it. The buyers who install them can get a federal subsidy, in terms of an alternative energy tax credit.

Solar is getting very close to where it can survive in certain parts of the country without any subsidy. I predict the next roof on my house (15 yrs away or so) will at least partly be solar shingles (on the south and west sides).

An aside: it looks like China is subsidizing our solar panels:
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2012/0...nels-US-finds.-Are-tariffs-the-right-response

 

You're insisting that I speak only to your narrow context of renewable energy.

You made a blanket statement that renewable energy, in this case solar, NEVER is financially viable without subsidies. I challenged that statement with a simple, personal experience example.

You seem unable to accept that fact that sometimes it works. Being blindly against solar is as foolish as being Blindly for Solar.

Done Right, Solar works!

And I specifically do NOT want Government sticking its damn nose into my solar system.

The next thing you know, I'll be required to hire a Union Installer, have pre and post inspections with fees, and yearly tax for the benefits of the "Government Design".

I am NOT a freaken Liberal with dreams of Environmental Dictatorship.

I am a Practical home owner who likes efficiency and low cost.

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OMG how much simpler can I make this? Solar companies sell a product that's subsidized therefore it can't be certain they are "viable" that is able to survive and compete by the same standards as all other companies. You think that buying solar panels and refusing to take a tax credit refutes that. This is simple logic and I'm accustomed to only Leftists not being able to apply rational thinking skills.

Let's put this another way. I think damn near NOBODY does what you did, buy solar panels without taking the tax credit. Get with your accountant and claim that credit; pride is stupid when it makes you leave money on the table. So because 99%+ people who buy solar DON'T do what you did, it can be said that solar companies rely on artificial propping up by tax credits to make their product work.

And I hope you don't have a family to support, leaving money on the table like that. I take ever tax credit and advantage I possibly can because I got a wife and 4 kids.

 

Once you start taking that kind of "Blood Money", they've got you. I am not foolish enough to even start down that path.

I do have a family to support, and have so far managed to do so without resorting to giving the Liberals a Handle to Yank.

It has not been easy or pleasant. But worth the effort!

I've actually built and sold a couple of my design solar panels to friends, and helped one get it installed. Helped some friends, made a few bucks. No big deal.

You have realize, the whole big government mess is about to collapse.

Some of the Liberals think they'll be able to turn that in to a "Revolution" to their idealistic socialist Utopia.

Most of U.S. know it will just be a really nasty patch of road, and on the far side, Liberals will be hard to find.

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Taxcutter says:
Agree 100%

 

Taxcutter says:
That means they keep their coal plants in wasteful "spinning reserve" status all day.

 

It proves that renewable energy is a threat to oil companies. So much for exercising free market ideas. And the right doesn't want to regulate folks. Yea right!

 

And if we followed your model we would have no internet, no interstate highway system, no polio vaccine, no nuclear power plants, etc.

All of those things received subsidies from the government before they were economically viable. Government subsidies lowered the per unit costs and allowed innovation from experimenting with existent systems that allowed them to later be commercially viable.

 

Actually it does considering that energy is a national defense issue.

 

1. You assume that the private sector could not accomplish these endeavors without government
2. You conflate duties of government, such as building roads, with other functions that government has no business in, such as deciding which industries succeed with artificial propping.
3. You err in pushing the Leftist myth that government created the internet. The DOD wasn't the first to create computer networks over phone lines and the DOD wasn't the driving force that made the internet what it is today. The private sector is.

So you're just.....wrong. Just..wrong.

 

Their brains never seem to register with that reality.

 

If it hadn't been for government, the internet would have never been created. You must go back to its origination to understand that what the private sector accomplished would have never been a reality if not for the government; http://www.slate.com/articles/techn...innovation_came_from_private_enterprise_.html

 

The government was the first group to build a computer network that covered an entire country. If we had to wait for the private sector to do it without the government infrastructure investment (IE subsidy) we'd still have university and occasional city intranets and no global net like we do now.

 

The Arpanet was not the first internet and certainly didn't spawn what we have today because of the restrictions placed on it. Even your post shows you have no idea what you're talking about. The internet became possible because of computers and phone lines that went across the country. The DOD didn't make that happen, and in fact people were communicating across telephone networks long before Arpanet came about in 1964. The IP Protocol system was created by Vinton Cerf and the hyperlink network by Tim Berners-Lee, private individuals who had seen the government built the foundational links but didn't know how to make it work. Unable to wait for government, they created the backbone of what we call the internet today. What was before a series of isolated networks, contrary to your false claim that it covered the entire country, became a nation wide network because of the private sector who found a way to connect all those networks together. As far as where the internet truly came to be, it wasn't the Pentagon, it was Xerox PARC lab in Silicon Valley.

I could go further into detail, but I think I've already laid waste to your argument that the private sector couldn't have created the internet without government.

 

They continue to live in denial on this subject. You are right. The government was "THE" very first to think of a worldwide network. Without that forward progression and thinking we might not ever have had the internet. That is the foundation to it's beginning. Did you notice how Saint slipped that little comment in about the government building the fundamental links? Lol! He just admitted the government got it off the ground first, thinking we wouldn't notice. That was cute.

 

You assume that. No one will ever know. Just because to govt built the ARPANET does not mean IT would not have occurred without it. We have seen how govt mucks up IT with the Obamacare roll-out. Or how the NSA sat on the Heartbleed bug.

 

How exactly are you going to lecture anyone on "assuming" anything?

Got that evidence for the existence of "nothing" yet?

 

Government didn't connect the networks, the private sector did.