Corporations like to have central choke points where they can squat and imbed their fangs, and governments, which are owned by the corporate sector, follow suit.
This makes even more sense when you accept that 'free markets' really means 'Wall Street, the City, and the money markets' and not the more usual abstract textbook idea.
So truly efficient schemes, which combine micro- with macro-generation with off-grid living, are difficult for 'the markets' to accept, because they can't vampirise off them in the usual ways.
Don't forget that Wall Street is the only socialist paradize on earth - i.e. the only industry where the workers (erm, the managing directors, at least) grab most of the value added of the deals they make instead of their employers... In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
The baseline stops being profitability and starts being growth.
In the real world it should be nonsensical to sell the stock of a company that produces millions in clear profit. According to the Street it's not enough, unless profits increase steadily. And if you have a bad year when they don't - watch out for the knives.
I don't suppose there's any reason why it wouldn't be possible to earn a billion by licensing hundreds of millions of small-scale microgeneration projects, instead of concentrating only on large ones.
In practical terms local, distributed generation, backed by a solid grid, will always be more reliable than a handful of big-ticket mega-deal projects.
If I can run off-grid I don't much care if Russia won't sell me gas because it doesn't matter to me. Multiply that by the millions in the EU and you have huge earnings potential, with decent follow-up potential in on-going maintenance and spares sales.
Actually Wall Street is now in a second derivative game. It's not earnings, or earnings increase, but how the earnings compare with "expectations". Since the experts decide what to expect they set the goal posts. Then when earnings figures are released the price varies because of the "surprise".
There have already been some indications that the predictions are being used by insiders to trade before the news comes out. If the experts were really experts and they were consistently "surprised" wouldn't they either lose their job or at least their credibility?
By the way many firms now issue monthly (or in the case of retail, sometimes weekly) figures. This provides so much more opportunity for gambling. The US lotteries have been increasing their frequency as well. I think the Keno game in New York starts every five minutes. Policies not Politics ---- Daily Landscape
No, it just plain wouldn't. The behaviour of dynamic systems is complicated and nearly impossible to predict, let alone control. Try to design an electronic circuit with just a few components and a feedback mechanism if you don't believe me. After that experience you'll never again talk about circuits with millions of components as being reliable.
