Anonymous Troll,
I have full access to papers published in Energy through my university. Feel free to post a link to the peer-reviewed paper and I'll have a look at it.

I'd rather PV and all other forms of power generation, including nuclear, which garners massive subsidies wherever it is used, were allowed to stand on their own. The Solar City model of free installation followed by repayment through sale of electricity generated over an extended timeframe is entirely sensible.

Wherever subsidies are used they distort the market, which was one of the points made in that unreviewed piece you referenced. Of course, that was why the authors chose to compare on energy inputs and outputs, since their own industry fails as soon as the economic costs of subsidy are considered.

I don't seek to be entertaining, Anonymazed, I'll leave that for those like yourself with nothing useful to contribute.

Hi Craig,

Well, like Edison and his attempts at a workable light bulb filament, I'm sort of asking the same question in different ways. I hope I don't have to ask it two thousand times :)

So, if, as you say, it's possible that there is no net reduction in CO2 from the total, all-up, production of RE technology, say solar panels and wind-farms, then one is entitled to ask, somewhat baffled, what is the point ? Combine that with huge subsidies to RE producers and the question becomes more urgent.

After all, where do those subsidies come from ? Government revenue. Where does government revenue come from ? To a large extent, tax-payers, and ultimately, from gross national product. Much of that product is actual production of goods and services, which presumably often use non-renewable fuel sources to generate any product. So, much of the subsidy to RE producers is generated from non-RE-based production.

Perhaps if the subsidy was removed, RE would have a cleaner bill of health. But could it survive without subsidies ?

In other words, could RE production survive without non-RE production and its tax generation ?

Surely someone has done the economic calculations on all of this ? Perhaps Henry Ergas ?

Just wondering - one does a lot of it when one is slightly insane :)

Joe

Joe, I don't say it is possible there is no net reduction, I say I don't know the exact amount of the reduction, but that the reduction exists is not in doubt. That is the third time I've said that, I hope it is clear now.

Could RE survive without subsidies? Yes, the cost of solar PV now is around the cost of new coal power and it is going rapidly down as production plant costs are amortised and as both efficiencies of scale of production and efficiencies of power conversion go up

Luciferase,
If only Panasonic, Origin, AGL etc, etc, etc had someone as wise as you to show them the error of their ways, those poor deluded fools...

http://www.afr.com/business/energy/electricity/australia-primed-as-heartland-for-batterystorage-revolution-20150529-ghba6h

"Yet lithium-ion battery costs have fallen 94 per cent since 1991, while the energy packed into them per kilogram has increased. Bernstein sees usage costs continuing to fall by 20 per cent a year, cannibalising competing technologies for the next decade.

Belur won't talk dollar costs yet for Enphase's 1.2kWh battery, which comes with built-in inverter and software to communicate with the grid. But he insists that all up, the "plug and play" system will be competitive with Powerwall. Australia will be its global launchpad.

Meanwhile, Panasonic, a battery supplier for Powerwall and one of the "big three" lithium ion players alongside Samsung SDI and LG Chem, will launch next week an alliance with Australian electricity retailers targeting home storage.

Yet to be seen is how these suppliers align with local retailers. AGL Energy launched recently a 6kWh lithium-ion battery and is due to make larger sizes available later in 2015. Origin Energy is understood to be bringing forward its battery launch plans, potentially to the third quarter, while EnergyAustralia is in talks with Enphase on its battery, to add to their solar panel alliance."

Loathe as I am to respond, but... they're not remotely deluded. Make hay while the sun shines is the motto, and the sun shines brightly while subsidy levels remain sky high. Prices are down while subsidies are still way up world over, both for producers and consumers.

It's insanity, to the point I'm almost tempted to buy a system myself rather than look such a gift-horse (the tax-payer) in the mouth.

Sadly, none of it will make much impact on carbon abatement, even if there is some penetration into the energy mix, before sanity again prevails. It's a sad waste of time and money that should be spent on the true solution to AGW.

AH, well done Luciferase, as usual you're showing the world the way.

Don't you go giving into the evils of temptation from those mendacious fools spruiking their pie-in-the-sky solar scams! You're much too clever for that...