alt Hacker NewsThe elimination of green energy incentives is going to have a big negative effect on the economy. Those billions of dollars not only were going to new businesses and jobs, but they were joined with loans from banks and commitments from customers with the expectation that the government would be funding the remainder. This means private industry and banks will be shouldering the loss of hundreds of billions of dollars, which, as any astute person should know by now, later gets shouldered by the average citizen in rate hikes, stock market plunges, increased inflation, etc. There goes your job and 401k and here comes more expensive products.
Aside from the direct negative effects: we lose even more to foreign countries who now have even more runway to gain expertise in green energy and sell to everyone else investing in it. Nobody but the 3rd world is increasing investments in coal/oil and there's no money we could make there anyway. So there goes any money we could've made on energy internationally.
Either this country is intentionally being tanked, or we're in the stupidest timeline.
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Any green energy project that isn't nuclear is a waste of money and resources. Nuclear is now being pursued in earnest by the tech industry itself. There's no problem here.
What evidence is there of governments being more successful at picking winners than the market?
Governments should stay out of the winner-picking business, which they do with money from the public purse, and allow individuals and enterprise to use their own money to have a go at picking winners themselves.
If industry and banks find investment in any particular field unpalatable without Government incentive, then those investments were unpalatable to start with.
Industry and banks will find something better to do with their money.
The largest competitor to US renewables, would be China. They have been rolling back their subsidies for years. [1]
China, India, Russia, Turkey, Japan, South Korea, and Indonesia (off the top of my head, and a quick google to add a few I missed [2]) have all increased investments into coal since 2020.
The renewable industry in the US was wrought with companies seizing as many renewable credits and subsidies as they can, while providing as little as possible to show for them. If this moves the industry as a whole to focus on projects that are not just marginal at best, we should start to see better traction on projects that actually matter.
We have long been told that renewables are cheaper in every way that matters, so let's see the economics of that play out.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/china-roll-back-clea...
[2] https://ember-energy.org/latest-updates/wind-and-solar-repla...