Funny Larry, it was windmills, as "unreliable" as you wish them to be, that actually made settling this part of the country, Kansas, Nebraska,etc... even feasible. There'd be no farming whatsoever out this way if "broken down windmills" hadn't pumped irrigation and feed water to farmers all over the western half of the US. Hell, Holland would be a sunken swamp without those "broken down" windmills. As far as subsidies, that's such a worn out argument it's ridiculous. Without Uncle Sam, there would be NO:
-national rail network that actually helped turn this country into the industrial giant it is(or was)
-telephone network
-electrical distribution infrastructure
-major oil industry
-national interstate network
-nuclear power plants, had it not been for Uncle Sam and the Navy, nuclear power would still be a lab experiment with no practical applications
-internet
and so on ad nauseum.
Larry, new technologies take seed money. While some companies get government grants, such as my current employer, we have more than matched that seed money in private funding. Tesla Motors is a green boondoggle, and it's doing QUITE well. They are achieving almost 300 miles on an all electric vehicle, and are rolling out a passenger sedan that is drop dead sexy and comes close to 300 miles on a charge. They don't seem to have much problem selling those boondoggles, and if I had that much money, I can guarantee you I'd park one in my driveway (the Lotus based version) Yes, there are losers in the field like Solyndra, and they take a lot of money down with them. So what. There are losers in the private sector every day, some of those losers are well-established and have taken a LOT more money with them when they lost. Perhaps AIG, JP Morgan ($9 BILLION AND COUNTING), Enron, Goldman Sachs all come to mind. It's the nature of business, some thrive, some die. But funny, for all your talk of boondoggles, there isn't a major auto manufacturer right now that ISN'T bringing an electric car to the market. The Chinese are even looking at importing our motors into their market to serve the Chinese market (assuming they haven't stolen it already!) Yeah, the EV market is rough right now, so is the economy, but despite that, car companies are marching forward with EV's regardless. And thankfully, the gov't has stepped in to help, since banks weren't all that bullish on lending after 2008 and the Crash. Even for companies seeking loans for established ideas and technologies the money wasn't there, let alone new markets. And billions are being dumped by private investors and major technology manufacturers into battery technology for EV's,(and other markets) amounts of money that DWARF government investment.
We can argue all day about this, I'm sure, but will never see eye to eye, so I guess we'll just have to wait and see which version of history proves right....
