Because I have serious interest in the history of American aerospace.
Let me explain.
In a burst of pure genius, the airplane was invented by two Americans. This was a private self-financed venture. The Wright brothers were businessmen and looked to make a killing in airplanes.
Yet by 1916, the American aircraft industry was almost hopelessly behind the French and Germans. Of course, much of this could be attributed to military spending but the fact is that both governments had jumped in with both feet almost as soon as it was clear that the airplane actually was possible.
Why is this important?
Simple. Building airplanes is simply much too complicated to turn an immediate profit. It requires years of expensive engineering and research. It requires patient capital. It requires a working atmosphere where making ANY return on investment is regarded as foolish. It requires cost-plus contracts because when inventing something new, anyone who tells you how long it will take or how much it will cost is, at best, a storyteller (liar is more accurate.)
What does this have to do with a solar economy?
We do not have a solar economy for a very simple reason. We don't know how to do it. And unlike the promises of the "50 easy ways to save the world" types, building a solar economy will be VERY, VERY difficult, not to mention VERY, VERY, VERY expensive.
The idea that such a project can be financed through the private sector is beyond insane. A typical bond trader buying and selling the same financial instrument within a few minutes pretty much eliminates the possibility of "patient" capital.
But what about our hero Jerome?? Doesn't he prove that bankers are finally getting on board with investments in windpower?
Yes he does. But keep in mind two important things here.
The so-called "markets" are ONLY designed to finance the solar conversion AFTER all the research and development is already DONE. But since we do not know how to build a solar economy, the KEY economic question is how we finance this R and D.
Until this question is answered, the solar economy simply will not be built.
I wrote a whole book on this subject. Find out more at: http://www.elegant-technology.com/DFbase.html "Remember the I35W bridge--who needs terrorists when there are Republicans"
It's a good thing there wasn't any IP on the first plane... Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères
As for IP on the first plane. There was. In fact, one of the things that so crippled early American aviation was the long, bitter, and expensive patent fight between the Wrights and Glenn Curtiss. "Remember the I35W bridge--who needs terrorists when there are Republicans"
It's only very recent that wind power has become almost price competitive on a stand alone basis - and it's been made possible by the effects of scale created by early subsidies to get the industry going. Those governments that did it first got to keep the manufacturing capacity. The same is happening with solar. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
