Deregulated energy markets accelerate solar adoption

> The current energy deregulation in the EU involves forcing utilities to trade electricity in a spot market, that treats the on-demand production of conventional power plants and the random and unpredictable production of solar and wind, as if it's completely equivalent.

The California case also forced utilities to trade electricity in a spot market. These markets always seem oriented towards purchasing power rather than capacity, which strikes me as odd. Power companies need committed capacity, because they need to have reserves of power. Sure, buying electricity that no one else is using makes sense, but because demand is comparatively inelastic, it's just crazy to have that be how companies ensure they have sufficient capacity.

I thought the article did a good job answering your questions.

> TVA benefits from existing capex in large nuclear and hydro plants, enjoys low rates, and has little incentive to change.

So apparently TVA has already invested in large nuclear and hydro and doesn't need more power. It's not about to build more solar so that it can shut down its nuclear or hydro plants. No business will cannibalize itself like this. It will have to a different economic entity.

> Regulated utilities can also sign PPAs, but the lengthy and complex regulatory approvals make the process so cumbersome that few investors or developers actually pursue this option.

Regulated entities can theoretically do this, but they are cumbersome so they don't.

The article also mentions the tragedy of the 2021 crisis, along with the 2020 blackouts in California; the article says it's a matter of extreme weather, not the failure of a specific type of energy market.

A free energy market is great and all until citizens start to expect that the government is responsible for a stable and economical reasonable grid, and who will elect politicians to that fact. At that point the cost of the grid is carried by the government, not through market forces, and companies are not slow to adapt their investments into the parts that are highly profitable while leaving the cost centers to the government.

The energy crisis that happened in EU demonstrated to me that citizens are not willing to have a free market for the energy grid. When a single month cost as much as a whole year, and companies are unable to fulfill contracts or have to shut down, then their anger is not directed at the commercial companies in charge of solar, wind or other type of energy plants. It is directed towards the government for failing to provide basic function of society, which apparently include a reasonable priced electricity.

I think you are misguided because of a true belief in "the system". The problem is systems often fail to handle bad-faith actors who intentionally abuse them. Absent a higher system, we lack good means to address this. But the system is not a moral good and we don't owe it to anyone or anything to maintain arbitrary rules when our enemies are using them to hamstring us and threaten our citizens, liberties, and way of life.

beijing has a consistent policy of subsidizing and dumping to gain dominance of key industries. metals, energy, etc. they are surely aware of the security implications of this. it seems to be their response to the mutually assured destruction of nuclear weapons: since those are no longer usable, create a new asymmetric situation where china can install herself as international dictator without or in addition to military force.

We can't afford not to respond. If we are unwilling to go to war, we'd have to concede to being china's bitch, which is a worse option than war.

Importing solar panels with no means to repair, replace, and resupply would absolutely make things worse; it'd increase dependence on a technology over which we lack control.

This isn't "imperialist" rhetoric, I'm quite plainly speaking in terms of maintaining our own autonomy and independence, not in terms of coercing others.

I don't think you can credit technology from foreign grad students at American universities or companies to those foreign countries. Doubly so since said chinese grad students have a long track record of facilitating the IP theft we're discussing.

Withdrawing would not free other countries to do so; the core difference here is china is a bad actor who exploits and steals IP. not to mention we could get away with this because we have a military of a certain size; smaller countries probably could not.

Regardless of whether we produce domestically, there's no particular reason why we can't work with other cheap nations within our sphere of influence (probably latam) to handle production.

I didn't read "allied/subordinate" to mean "allied = subordinate," but rather to mean differentiate between "willing alliances" and "unwilling or begrudgingly accepted alliances."

Alternatively, one could interpret "subordinate" to be one of the COFA[1] nations, for example (not saying I read it that way, but if this were a debate class and I was assigned to make the argument that these states are subordinates of the US, I probably could).

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_of_Free_Association