Incorrect, these are not assumptions they are facts and they are rife with accuracy.

Fixed costs do not lower the production cost with increased volume unless a company is being managed poorly to begin with. Fixed costs are not necessarily fixed with expansion anyway. You will have to increase those at some scale with increased production that's a fact of life.

The economics of putting solar on a house absolutely equates to an array. If the technology that is in use will not allow for a single solar panel to be cost effective simply slapping up 1000 more is not going to have enough of an effect to make it profitable.

Your choice of using computers as an example is aa very poorly thought out model. Early models of computers were profitable, expensive to the consumer but profitable to the manufacturer. There was also no false market forces pushing the computer industry such as government subsidies.

Solar right now is inneficient. No scale or amount of subsidies is going to change that. You must have profitability before things like this can work.

Here's an interesting comany:

SolarCity Inc. and Citi on Tuesday announced a new fund to finance $40 million in residential solar projects this year.

This is the first investment New York-based Citi (NYSE:C) has made in residential solar power. San Mateo-based SolarCity focuses on solar power system design, financing, installation, monitoring and related services.

SolarCity said it has more than 10,000 projects completed or underway in the U.S. and has raised project financing to fund more than $700 million in solar installations. The company expanded to Maryland and the District of Columbia in January and said it plans to expand solar leasing to a range of new states in 2011.

“Citi has a long and deep history of leadership and engagement on environmental issues. It is good business practice for us to help consumers adopt renewable energy and to facilitate affordable energy-efficiency solutions. We applaud homeowner efforts to save and generate clean energy in a financially responsible manner,” said Jason Cavaliere, a director in the Alternative Energy Finance Group at Citi.

Read more: Citi, SolarCity collaborate on $40M solar fund | Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal

Citi, SolarCity collaborate on $40M solar fund | Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal

Solar power, wind turbines and other green technology will never work on a large scale like powering a city. With that said, I don't find anything wrong with using either or both on an individual basis on ones home or business. On a large scale however these industries would have to be subsidized by tax dollars and would raise the cost of energy.

Just another observation from me......

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Courtesy of Swissman

A gun in the hands of a free man frightens and angers the autocrat, not because he fears the power of the gun, but, rather, the spirit of the man who holds it.

ANONYMOUS

That analogy is too vague. As such it's not really useful. Let's get a little more specific.

Consider the internet boom. Some did well. Many lost their shirts.

So how do you recognize a decent investment. Consider Google. At what point is it a good investment, and how much are you willing to invest?

* A guy comes to you, and says he has an idea for software that can conduct searches of the internet.

* He shows you a working model.

* He puts it into production.

* There are technical problems. Also will it even catch on? How will you monetize it?

How much money are you willing to put into it at that point?

But then...

* The bugs are worked out. It starts to catch on with users. Google creates a working economic model. It's not making a lot of money, but it's making some, and you can see where it can make a lot more. It's making progressively more each month. It gets more popular each month. It may dominate the market. It looks like there's a good chance it will.

OK, but now consider this to make the comparison a little more like say wind energy. Suppose Google could only reach a limited amount of users, and that was a problem for the economic model. Suppose it could only be delivered at certain times a day. Suppose the investment required in the buggy technology was so outrageously large you couldn't see how you could possibly ever make a profit unless they at least worked those technical bugs out. This is where wind energy stands right now as a business model.

Now that could change for wind. For example they say they might be able to create new batteries. Right now the energy from wind is intermittent, and you can't store the excess during good periods with any kind of efficiency. If you could, you might have something worth selling. If you can't, you can't make money. There are many other problems with wind, but just consider this one for now. Forget about government subsidies for now. You're a potential investor, and you can see how wind can make money if you get the new batteries. Without it, you're just pouring money down a hole. What do you do? Do you go into debt to invest heavily in wind in spite of the technical problem, or do you put a few bucks which you just have lying around, and you can afford to lose if you're wrong into the research for a new battery on the possibility your potential profit would be massive if the bugs are worked out?

If everyone used them it would make big changes in the overall need. Why would they take away the tax break if not for some other interests involvement. Things like that don't happen in a vacuum.

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Truth, Justice and the American way

And consider this. Suppose I'm not an investor. Suppose I'm just a guy with a job in the energy sector. The Spanish study tells me the way things stand at present for every 1 job created, 2 are lost. If you're in charge of that, at what point am I ready to cheer you on?

But the question is would this be undertaken without gov't subsidies?? If the only way for these people to be profitable in this venture is for the gov't to help them out, then the point of self-sustaining green jobs being a myth is further supported by this story.

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Our nation has not always lived up to its ideals, yet those ideals have never ceased to guide us. They expose our flaws, and lead us to mend them. We are the beneficiaries of the work of the generations before us and it is each generation's responsibility to continue that work. - Laura Bush

Leftists and very small children don't seem to be able to understand that the Government isn't there to "fix" the economy, anymore than a tick is there to fix your dog.~Oftencold

I work with a lady who had a windmill installed on her property. She got it cheap because the company that sold it to her wanted to do a video about the installation of their product and wanted to use her's as the subject. Even with the % they knocked off the price of the windmill, she's looking at a 30 year ROI on a windmill with a 20 year life and that's NOT including repair costs.

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Our nation has not always lived up to its ideals, yet those ideals have never ceased to guide us. They expose our flaws, and lead us to mend them. We are the beneficiaries of the work of the generations before us and it is each generation's responsibility to continue that work. - Laura Bush

Leftists and very small children don't seem to be able to understand that the Government isn't there to "fix" the economy, anymore than a tick is there to fix your dog.~Oftencold

Geeez you spend a lot of effort ragging anything but gas, oil and coal. You can heat and cool your home and heat your water without being on the grid. That is huge. Solar lighting works well and with the introduction of LED lighting it can replace the grid for lights as well. Then add tidel and hydro. Wind and solar electric and you are on your way. You can post all the negative stories you want but the stuff works

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Truth, Justice and the American way

His Point is ROI............you can spend 100k to go "green" or you can spend 50k on normal electrical grid services over the usable life of said green products. IT all boils down to cost to istall..........Average joe cannot afford the istallation of a geothermal system.. In fact UP FRONT costs are a big driving factor in construction. I haz 15 years in Commercial HVAC experience to back this. LEED building is all the rage untill they see what each point costs..........