WetEV
Well-known member
GRA said:The people who can afford expensive new tech don't need the subsidies, so any money given to them could be far better used by those who do.
The point to subsiding new technologies is not that the users "need" the subsidies, but that the subsidies are given to modify behavior.
If behavior in the aggregate isn't modified, then the subsidies are wasted. "Need" isn't part of this. Modification of behavior happens at the margin, with the people setting on the fence.
Users that will take up new technologies are likely higher income, as there are risks in new technologies, and higher income people can afford to take more risks. Lower income people are less likely to take up new technology, as they can't afford the risks, not all of which are financial.
Users of a new technology are not all the same. Not all purchases of a new technology are the same for the same user. It is the aggregate impact that matters, not the individual cases.
Consider the LED bulb.
A prize of $10 million was paid to a billion dollar corporation to start production. The L-prize. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L_Prize
Notice the target of the subsidy wasn't the potential buyers. While there was likely a market, getting production started was a risk.
The first L-prize winning LED bulbs sold out rapidly at $50-$60 each. This was not lower income people trying to save on both electric power and bulb replacements. This was either status seekers, environmentally active happy to save the vast majority of energy used on lighting, or people with hard to change bulbs hoping the 100,000 hour projected life was accurate.
Changing a bulb that requires a ladder costs time (=money) and doing it once a month for the incandescent would get old. CFL bulbs are better, just more than once a year. The 100,000 hour LED is once every 11 years. Break even on just the bulb is probably around $40 for the LED bulb. Installation is the big difference. The energy savings is around $40 per year vs incandescent, and only $4 per year vs CFL.
Break even time vs CFL was years, but LED bulbs are better light than CFL. The better off will pay more for better light and less replacement hassle. The poor need rapid financial breakeven. When LED bulbs started to show up in dollar stores, the poor started to buy them.
The new technology bulbs evolved rapidly, increasing in efficiency, light output and reducing in cost to manufacture and thus selling price.
So suppose you don't want to subsidize billion dollar corporations, how would you speed the start of adoption of LED bulbs by selling them to the poor? Who would produce them and why?
(I've prebolded this for GRA.)