A textbook example on how NOT to do alternative energy: 29% guaranteed payoffs for solar project

[c1ue]

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...gy-environment

Note the vast amount of subsidies: $1.431 billion dollars
The project costs $1.6 billion to build plus another $1.192 billion to operate, vs. $925 million in anticipated normal market price revenues.

Note also that the 'normal market price' is also a misnomer: I'd bet money the price paid is retail not wholesale.

$969 million of the subsidies are either tax writeoffs, or accelerated deduction, or loan guarantees - the remaining $462 million is paid by all the retail electricity customers of this development via higher bills.

Or put another way: nearly 90 cents of subsidies is given out for every $1 of investment in this project, yielding a 29% guaranteed return on investment.

What a friggin' deal.

Oh yes, and the buyer for this boondoggle project's output? PG & E.

[lektrode]

Re: A textbook example on how NOT to do alternative energy: 29% guaranteed payoffs for solar project

gotta luv em, the corporate/crony capitalists = why i think it sucks to the point of criminal conspiracy/negligence of the political class that the utilities are able to use these subsidies, PAID FOR BY THE PUBLIC/taxpayers, to then charge us back for their 'increased costs' of complying with .gov mandated switch-over to alternative source generation, while they essentially get 'free' electricity from the PV?

they doin same s__t out here... the latest outrage being that if there's 15% of demand being met in ones neighborhood by PV, one has to pay for a 'interconnection study' potentially costing thousands, before one can install PV, on ones OWN house? http://www.hawaiinewsnetwork.com/wan...y-be-required/
while the state is mandating 40% of demand be met by alternative source, the utility gets to charge us to tell us whether _their_ system can handle the increased supply???

only in the liberal-dem-beltway whirled-class screwball vision of utopia does it make any sense whatsoever...

orwell would be proud, eh?

tho i still think putting the subsidies directly into the hands of the consumer to own the PV directly on their own roofs starts to make sense - but subsidizing corporate utility profits?

then again, maybe we should buy stock in PG&E and use the profit on the trade (or dividends) to buy the PV and DIS-connect from the grid altogether...