Nothing has been more subsidized than nuclear energy. It’s entire existence is predicated on public R&D.
You seem to be implying that solar cells weren’t. I don’t believe that is true. Photovoltaics were brought about by US the government for satellites. (PV was initially discovered privately, but so was nuclear.) Solar was considered a notorious money loser to the point where it was only deployed for spaceflight. It was only after 60 years of public R&D that private commercial solar became variable in the 2010s.
We still don’t have a good solution for nuclear waste, so that gets stashed on public lands
This I’ll concede. In fact, in the US, it’s worse than “public lands”: it’s often indigenous reservations, so land the US doesn’t even own and sacred sites.
I’ll note that despite this being indeed a very big issue, nuclear land use is still two orders of magnitude less than solar for equivalent energy generation.
Virtually all of its generators are public projects. […] Solar/Wind, by contrast, get dogshit subsidies both relative to nuclear and fossil fuels.
Not true at all. In FY 2016 alone, US subsidies were just 415 million to nuclear, compared to 3036 million for solar (https://www.eia.gov/analysis/requests/subsidy/pdf/subsidy.pdf Tables A3, A4). That’s nearly an order of magnitude. Nuclear is operated by companies just as solar is.
Solar only became the knockout winner it is today after 70 years of intense research. Nuclear only got 40. I am simply saying we should give it the fair chance before you can say that there really is no potential.
You seem to be implying that solar cells weren’t. I don’t believe that is true
Tell it to Bell Labs. Tell it to the the Solar Energy Industries Association. Idk why Americans couldn’t get on the ball publicly. But solar was squarely in the private domain for generations.
Photovoltaics were brought about by US the government for satellites.
They were brought about by the industrialization of satellites, certainly. But the R&D was all heavily privatized by and for the private telecommunications sector.
When the US began rolling out large scale solar power plants in earnest, Walmart became the nation’s largest installer and purchaser. No state or federal department came close to it.
The largest investors in new build construction are NRG Energy and Google. Even the state regulated utilities lag behind.
Solar only became the knockout winner it is today after 70 years of intense research.
Largely overseas and financed by foreign governments or private firms. The US efforts at subsidizing solar are regularly stymied and gutted by conservative governments.
You seem to be implying that solar cells weren’t. I don’t believe that is true. Photovoltaics were brought about by US the government for satellites. (PV was initially discovered privately, but so was nuclear.) Solar was considered a notorious money loser to the point where it was only deployed for spaceflight. It was only after 60 years of public R&D that private commercial solar became variable in the 2010s.
This I’ll concede. In fact, in the US, it’s worse than “public lands”: it’s often indigenous reservations, so land the US doesn’t even own and sacred sites.
I’ll note that despite this being indeed a very big issue, nuclear land use is still two orders of magnitude less than solar for equivalent energy generation.
Not true at all. In FY 2016 alone, US subsidies were just 415 million to nuclear, compared to 3036 million for solar (https://www.eia.gov/analysis/requests/subsidy/pdf/subsidy.pdf Tables A3, A4). That’s nearly an order of magnitude. Nuclear is operated by companies just as solar is.
Solar only became the knockout winner it is today after 70 years of intense research. Nuclear only got 40. I am simply saying we should give it the fair chance before you can say that there really is no potential.
Tell it to Bell Labs. Tell it to the the Solar Energy Industries Association. Idk why Americans couldn’t get on the ball publicly. But solar was squarely in the private domain for generations.
They were brought about by the industrialization of satellites, certainly. But the R&D was all heavily privatized by and for the private telecommunications sector.
When the US began rolling out large scale solar power plants in earnest, Walmart became the nation’s largest installer and purchaser. No state or federal department came close to it.
The largest investors in new build construction are NRG Energy and Google. Even the state regulated utilities lag behind.
Largely overseas and financed by foreign governments or private firms. The US efforts at subsidizing solar are regularly stymied and gutted by conservative governments.