Hemispherical solar cells could significantly improve sunlight absorption

[gamerk2]

Free market capitalism is the GREATEST system ever devised for a society. Freedom from oppressive government is the GREATEST gift to man.

Except for a growing number across the world, no, it isn't. Especially the American variant of Capitalism, where almost all basic necessities are more expensive then the rest of the world, healthcare being the most notable (but not only) example.

Also, I note the false equivalence of Capitalism and Freedom.

 

[gamerk2]

A company with a viable product doesn't need government funding. That's the entire point: this government funding invariably flows to those firms whose products aren't viable, and thus they're unable to convince the venture capital markets they're worth investing in.

Counter-point: Both SpaceX and Tesla needed government funding during the recession. GM need an outright bailout. I think these all qualify as "viable products".

Taking a product to market in entrenched industries requires BILLIONS, if not hundreds of billions. And startups do not have that funding, and even loans from banks only goes so far. It takes years of sustained losses for market economics to take effect to drive down production costs and gain enough market penetration to become viable.

I'm sorry, but this just isn't true at all. While plenty of beer-swilling journalists have claimed this, it's based on the fallacy that all kilowatt-hours are created equal. The most difficult task a power utility faces isn't generating the power, it's matching supply with demand in real time, second-by-second. Wind and solar aren't controllable: they are always either producing too little or too much -- and one is just as bad as the other.

When it's 72F outside and your solar array is producing ten times what you need to power two light bulbs and an electric toothbrush -- what is that extra power worth? And in the middle of the night when its 10 degrees below freezing, how much would you pay for even one kW-hr, as your solar array is producing zero?

Which is why Wind/Solar are being backed up by battery backup, which store the excess production to cover down periods.

Germany has found out the economic realities of this the hard way. Their push for wind and solar took them from the cheapest electricity in Europe to one of the most expensive. Every wind and solar farm they have is coupled with natural gas turbines (emitting far more CO2 than the baseline nuclear plants they replaced), and even still their grid is only able to operate by selling vast quantities of power to their neighbors when they have overages, then buying back non-renewable power when the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine. A nice strategy -- but one that only works as long as you have neighbors (like Poland) who themselves don't rely on renewable power.

To be fair: Germany decommissioning it's nuclear infrastructure had more to do with Fukushima then any push toward renewables. And safe nuclear would be viable for baseline production, if anyone can ever get a plant off the ground without running into several billion dollars in debt; if only there were some entity out there who could cover the costs...

 

[opckieran]

Counter-point: Both SpaceX and Tesla needed government funding during the recession. GM need an outright bailout. I think these all qualify as "viable products".

Taking a product to market in entrenched industries requires BILLIONS, if not hundreds of billions. And startups do not have that funding, and even loans from banks only goes so far. It takes years of sustained losses for market economics to take effect to drive down production costs and gain enough market penetration to become viable.

Which is why Wind/Solar are being backed up by battery backup, which store the excess production to cover down periods.

To be fair: Germany decommissioning it's nuclear infrastructure had more to do with Fukushima then any push toward renewables. And safe nuclear would be viable for baseline production, if anyone can ever get a plant off the ground without running into several billion dollars in debt; if only there were some entity out there who could cover the costs...

The Space Industry as well as the Automotive sector are among the most tightly regulated industries and/or government-intertwined businesses already, so much so that I would argue that they are almost if not entirely government-run.

As for Nuclear (energy is yet another highly regulated industry), I think people tend to overreact to nuclear. As a stable source of power, it’s one of the safest power sources in the world when run correctly, has damaged the environment far less than any power source which predated it, and produces a practically microscopic level of waste/emissions compared to those fuels. As a non-renewable, it’s one of our best options. And new generations of plants are coming out (such as molten salt reactors which ditch water cooling entirely!) which have dialed up the safety by at least an order of magnitude.

To be clear this isn’t necessarily an indictment of regulations, it’s just speaking to clarity: if the government interferes past a certain point, you simply cannot call it a free market anymore.

 

[Endymio]

Especially the American variant of Capitalism, where almost all basic necessities are more expensive then the rest of the world, healthcare being the most notable (but not only) example.

From where does this absurdity come? Food, housing, energy: all are cheaper in the US than most of Europe. The sole exception is healthcare -- and comparing US healthcare to the European variant is comparing apples to prunes.

Counter-point: Both SpaceX and Tesla needed government funding during the recession. GM need an outright bailout.

False. SpaceX received NASA contracts to perform tasks; not subsidies. GM received a bailout it did not "need" -- had GM gone through a Chap 11 reorg instead, it would have remained in operation still producing cars. The bailout was a gift from Obama to his union backers; it allowed the union contracts to remain untouched, while the secured investors "took a haircut" instead.

I think these all qualify as "viable products".

Taking a product to market in entrenched industries requires BILLIONS, if not hundreds of billions. And startups do not have that funding

Would you like a list of some of the hundreds of startups which have received billions in funding?

Which is why Wind/Solar are being backed up by battery backup, which store the excess production to cover down periods.

Sorry, but "battery backups" large enough to power even a single city overnight, much less an entire grid simply don't exist. And once you add in the exorbitant costs of such systems, wind and solar's true cost appears: several times that of conventional sources.

safe nuclear would be viable for baseline production, if anyone can ever get a plant off the ground without running into several billion dollars in debt

I won't speak for Germany, but in the US, the debt overruns from nuclear power are due to environmentalist lawsuits, which delay the construction time from 4-5 years up to two or three decades.

I note the false equivalence of Capitalism and Freedom.

Capitalism is economic freedom. Forcing one person to work to give money to another is slavery, plain and simple.

 

[erickmendes]

Capitalism is economic freedom. Forcing one person to work to give money to another is slavery, plain and simple.

... so capitalism is slavery with economic freedom?

 

[Endymio]

... so capitalism is slavery with economic freedom?

Capitalism forces no one to work. Hunger, thirst, or the desire for shiny new cellphones may force you to work. But that's not capitalism's fault; that's the world we live in, capitalism or no.

Capitalism merely states that, if you work, what you produce is your own property. And you're free to keep that property, or trade or sell it to others under any terms you both agree upon.

To paraphrase Churchill, it's the worst possible system -- except for everything else we've ever tried.

 

[erickmendes]

Capitalism forces no one to work. Hunger, thirst, or the desire for shiny new cellphones may force you to work. But that's not capitalism's fault; that's the world we live in, capitalism or no.

Capitalism merely states that, if you work, what you produce is your own property. And you're free to keep that property, or trade or sell it to others under any terms you both agree upon.

To paraphrase Churchill, it's the worst possible system -- except for everything else we've ever tried.

Basic need exist no matter the social/economic system, ok. Any social/economic system will require you to comply to each, so we are all slave no matter the system. As Rousseau states, the "social contract" is how we live in society, we give up some of our freedom (complying to rules, laws...) to be part of it.

In the case of capitalism you don't own what you produce, you sell your working hours (life time) to someone else for money, while the other make profit from it. And most of the people can't buy what they produce because they don't earn enough, that's called work alienation.

So there's no other mean on capitalism to exist but to work for some else make profit, so your are in the end forced to work. The other option is to live from the nature... and almost certain to die young. That's just also what happens in capitalism, if you can't work (because whatever reasons, lack of opportunity, disability, whatever), you are free to die.

There are other social/economic systems but capitalism as a global system won't let any of them try to have success.

 

[Endymio]

Any social/economic system will require you to comply to each, so we are all slave no matter the system.

There are so many puerile misconceptions in this statement that I don't know if it's profitable to continue. If you're alone on a desert island, you may be a slave to your own hunger and thirst, but you're enslaved to no other man. That doesn't change in an urban context: you must exert yourself to fill your needs and wants.

However, when you are forced -- literally, at gunpoint-- to work half or more of your life to fill the wants and needs of others, you're a slave in the true, literal sense of the word.

If you disagree, I strongly suggest you check out the consumer paradises of North Korea, Cuba, or a former Soviet Republic (one of which I grew up in myself.)