[schiffern]

Inevitably the solution to the anti-profitability of running (essentially) a gas power plant in reverse is government subsidies. Amazing how otherwise "efficient market" folks can forget market wisdom the moment big change is needed in big industries.

The touted advantage is that instead of market-driven electrification of multiple sectors you only need one big silver bullet technology, however these are futile systems that actually reduce the total amount of energy available to society (vs electrification which does the opposite). And since the pricing signals are messed up by subsidies you can't invest in the economically optimal amount of energy efficiency. This is precisely the opposite of the sort of activity we might want to subsidize.

Handmer has some great writing on space subjects, but on this we're going to disagree.