Economist Channel

Another duet of headlines with an interesting lesson, both from the Wall Street Journal:

Solar power death wish

Suniva Inc., a bankrupt solar-panel maker, and German-owned SolarWorld Americas have petitioned the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) to impose tariffs on foreign-made crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells. 

Solar cells in the U.S. sell for around 27 cents a watt. The petitioners want to add a new duty of 40 cents a watt. They also want a floor price for imported panels of 78 cents a watt versus the market price of 37 cents. 

they’re resorting to Section 201 of the Trade Act of 1974 because they don’t need to show they are victims of dumping or foreign government subsidies. They only need to show that imports have harmed them

California Democrats Target Tesla

The United Automobile Workers are struggling for a presence in Tesla’s Fremont plant, and organized labor has called in a political favor. 

Since 2010 California has offered a $2,500 rebate to encourage consumers to buy electric vehicles. But last week, at unions’ behest, Democrats introduced an amendment to cap-and-trade spending legislation that would require participating manufacturers to get a sign-off from the state labor secretary verifying that they are “fair and responsible in their treatment of workers.” 

The legislation, which passed Friday, is a direct shot at Tesla. The Clean Vehicle Rebate Project has amounted to a $82.5 million subsidy for the company

Both moves ought to pose a liberal conundrum. If you want carbon reduction, you want cheap solar cells, so that more people will buy them. The planet does not care where the solar cells are produced. If you want electric cars, you want cheap electric cars so that more people will buy them.

But those who falsely sold green energy as a job producer, a boon to the economy; not a costly alternative to fossil fuels, a cost that must be borne to save the planet, now face this conundrum.

The deeper lesson here is the corrosive nature of subsidies and protection. Once the government starts subsidizing solar cells and electric cars, there is a quite natural force demanding access to the subsidies. Why should the owners of the Tesla company get largesse from the taxpayers, and not their workers too?

Solar cells are just the latest embodiment of the infant industry fallacy -- that protection from competition will allow an industry to grow and become competitive.  Instead, they become infantile industries, expert and getting protections and subsidies not producing cheap solar cells.

The infrastructure paradox is similar. We need infrastructure. Yet federal contracting requirements, requirements for union workers and union wages, and everything else attracted to federal money being handed out, drive costs up to astronomical levels.

For energy, this is an abject lesson in the wisdom of a simple carbon (and methane) tax in place of all the subsidies and winner-and-loser-picking our government does. (Let's not fight about whether to do it. The point is if we want to restrict fossil fuels and subsidize a move to non-carbon energy, this is how to do it.) Subsidies and protection invite demands for subsidies and protection, not clean energy.