Re: theWatt Podcast 77

No worries, I was just confused because I don't believe many of things I think you read into my comments. I would like to note that I also do not have a problem with ExxonMobil's massive profits because the price of gas being high is the only way to reduce demand growth and if the price was forced lower by policy, there would likely be shortages due to the price/demand mechanism. I would prefer those profits be used by the government to invest in renewable energy, but there was no political will to raise the gas tax when prices were cheap so now we have high prices and the revenues go to fund anti-science crap-machines that make any claim they can to discredit climate science. Awesome.

I think it makes sense for the government to offer rebates on things that provide positive externalities. Free markets provide too few positive externalities and too many negative externalities. I believe a fundamental role of gov is to fix that. In this case, people who put PV on their houses are doing good. We cannot only credit wind because it is the most efficient because we need many different technologies to help. I like PV because it reduces the need for more transmission lines.

All the talk on theWatt about transmission lines and better corridors because it is more efficient seem to have not included the costs of building and maintaining these massive lines and the opportunity cost of using that land and money for other purposes. PV may be too expensive, but tens of billions for new high voltage lines seems expensive to me also.