Originally Posted by u-Bob

good post.

We used to have the same type of subsidies over here as well. They canceled the whole system last year.

3 of my neighbors now have subsidized solar panels on their roofs. By the time they'll have earned their investment back, it will be almost time to replace their solar panels. And mark my words, that's when the fun will begin. Those panels contain heavy metals and other poisonous materials. I wouldn't be surprised if by then some well meaning green politician proposes a special safety tax for anyone disposing off anything that contains those heavy metals.

For several years we've had this system of subsidies and the end result is: a lot of home with solar panels that are incredibly inefficient and not suited to be used in this part of the world.

Under free market conditions, the way to convince potential clients to buy your solar panels, is to make sure they're actually efficient. By subsidizing an inefficient technology, politicians have not made the technology more efficient. They have given manufacturers of inefficient solar panels an incentive to keep producing those inefficient products.

In a free market, producers of solar panels would have 2 choices: improve the quality (efficiency) of their product to make it more appealing to potential customers or quit wasting resources and find something else to do.