Economist Debate on Solar Power

The Economist often runs debates on their website, and their current one will be of interest to the KP community: Can solar energy save the world?

The debate is structured in a traditional manner, with a moderator and a proposer and a responder. Guest posts accompany the debate, and readers are invited to comment on each stage of the debate. The two debaters are Richard Swanson, founder of SunPower, and Benny Peiser of the Global Warming Policy Foundation. Geoff Carr, the Economist’s science editor, is moderating the debate.

One common theme among the debaters, the moderator, and the commenters is the distortions introduced due to decades of energy being politicized, which means (among other things) that the complicated web of subsidies across all fuel sources is hard to disentangle. Given the thorough and valuable discussion that Mike’s provided of his recent analysis of wind power cost estimates, this solar debate is a good complement to that discussion.

1 thought on “Economist Debate on Solar Power”

  1. “Can solar energy save the world?”
    From what?

    How about a more meaningful question like: “Can Solar Electricity provide economically useful amounts of electric energy to Americans?”

    The answer is no.

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