The usual anti-solar talking point that it is much too expensive is wrong in lots of different ways. It is also a rather irritating lack of gratefulness when coming from non-Germans.

For example, Mark Lynas yesterday tweeted the latest dumb shallow Spiegel article with exactly that talking point to his followers. Here is his Tweet:

German solar subsidies exceed 100bn euros – zero electricity for weeks (cloudy, dark), 3% overall for year: (Link to Spiegel article)

First off, I note that “3% overall” doesn’t sound like much, but the 18 TWh generated in 2011 would power the Maldives easily more than ten times over, assuming that Lynas’ estimate of 542 MWh electricity needed is correct. (I am wrong here, see update below).

Even if this Spiegel article was a fair assessment of the costs instead of a misleading propaganda piece, I don’t understand why Mark Lynas should worry about German rate payers financing the more costly part of the solar learning curve. Largely because of the German feed-in tariff, solar has seen massive price reductions over the last ten years, which have been extremely fast lately.

Someone has to pay for that. If Germany goes ahead and shoulders a lot of that burden, why should non-Germans object?

He gets the benefit of extremely reduced solar costs for his project of decarbonizing the Maldives before anyone there has to pay anything. I hear that solar is rated as “crucial” in the latest plan.

Shouldn’t the Germans deserve a big thank you for their effort, which will be vital in getting rid of fossil fuel? Hasn’t Lynas ever heard of that little global warming problem, which might be somewhat more serious than reducing German rate payers’ burden by a relatively trivial amount?

I think he has heard of that. And I think he should thank Germany for investing big in the solution instead of trying to stand in the way.

Update: Lynas kindly replies with this Tweet:

@Kf_Lenz No, most manufacturing cost reductions come from China I think. Also 18 TWh should be GWh in your blog?

18 TWh for solar in Germany 2011 is correct, though 18.52 TWh would be a more exact figure. See for example the reference in this recent post here.

But the 552 MWh for the Maldives is wrong. It must be 552 GWh. Thank you to Mark Lynas for pointing out my mistake.

While it is true that manufacturing cost reductions came from China, that country wouldn’t have a solar panel industry in the first place without the German market. See Daniel Yergin’s “The Quest” on page 580. He quotes Suntech founder Shi Zhengrong with this statement:

“I was very lucky,” he said. “In 2004 Germany created the world market.”

I think it was not only Shi who was lucky, but the whole world, which might just barely be able to harvest the vast solar resources in time to help with that global warming problem.

Spiegel has published a dumb shallow anti-solar article by one of its journalists and an interview with a leading solar feed-in opponent in the CDU (the ruling party).

The journalist is very smart. He has noticed that there is less sun in Germany’s winter.

He also trots out the old talking point of solar being much too expensive.

I am looking forward to when solar becomes the cheapest generation option in less than a decade so that this talking point favoring fossil fuel and making global climate change worse will finally be retired for good.

News flash: The feed-in tariffs were introduced for solar because it was – and is still – expensive in the first place. And much of the problems are due to the fact that they have been too successful in bringing prices down. Solar panel prices dropped by 50% last year. The reductions in feed-in tariffs had trouble to keep up with that pace, which means some happy owners of solar installations in Germany who will collect a very attractive and secure income from their investments.

And even if the horrible number of 200 Euro per year for the average consumer the Spiegel journalist predicts was true (it isn’t, since at the most only about half of that is for solar), that would still be only about 17 Euro per month and household. You want to bitch about that completely trivial cost and risk killing everyone on the planet by Venus Syndrome (runaway global warming)? Don’t count on me supporting that.

The CDU politician is also worried about cost. He wants to “protect the consumer”. News flash: By a large margin, most of the owners of solar installations are consumers. In contrast to coal and nuclear power plants, which are only operated by large utilities.

The anti-solar coalition engaged in a last ditch effort to kill solar energy and save the fossil fuel industry has some powerful members, including the Spiegel magazine and the German Minister of Economy (whose party has now support of only 2%, or about half of the market share of solar in electricity consumption). I can’t wait for the next election which will boot this guy out of office.

If they succeed, ironically, that will drive down prices for solar panels even more. Basic law of economics. Remove a large chunk of demand and you will see prices drop. With feed-in tariffs now kicking in in Japan and China, some other countries’ consumers will then share some of the burden of financing the solar learning curve.

It is very likely too late for the German anti-solar coalition to save their fossil fuel friends at the big utilities.