[teemur]

Don't forget Germany. If you look at the amount of PV built in Germany early this century and make some admittedly strong assumptions about learning curve, one could argue the Energiewende, then usually called failure, singlehandedly accelerated PV development by decades. I don't recall Germany ever credited on that.

[nielsole]

I still wonder the same about the EU and LED lighting. Prohibiting traditional bulbs was highly controversial at the time

[dylan604]

if we didn't transition through the horrible days of CFLs first. since we did, that's a big knock against

[wongarsu]

If cheap LED light bulbs had been around we wouldn't have need legislation in the first place. Both Germany's solar subsidies and the EU prohibiting (high power) incandescent light bulbs were cases where existing alternatives were bad (solar was way too expensive to be practical, non-incandescent light bulbs sucked), but legislation intentionally created demand for them anyways in hopes that with demand there would be research and scaling effects that create better cheaper products. In both cases it worked, even if the transition was a bit painful in both cases.

[Steve10538]

Don't knock CFLs. We still have the very first 2 we brought back in 1985, 13W Philips Prismatics. Been in continuous use, both outdoors under a portico. Still going strong.

[dredmorbius]

Efficiency- and longevity-wise, pretty good.

They're fragile as heck, though, and contain mercury (albeit a small quantity in a relatively less-harmful form). Breakage needs to be handled appropriately, and disposal is as hazardous waste.

LEDs are more efficient, offer better (and often more flexible) light quality, are damndably rugged, and have far less toxic material load. Given the balance, I'd be swapping out CFLs (and have been).

[antonymoose]

I remember some old tidbit about the American westward expansion, most railroad projects failed and went bankrupt and were sold for pennies on the dollar to the ultimate owners.

Something sad about that, really.

[hylaride]

A lot of them got built with per-mile subsidies and cashed out via shoddy construction. The ones that focused on long-term financial sustainability more often did fine, but it is a lesson in perverse incentives (though some would argue that afterwards cheap overbuilt lines facilitated much faster and more extensive westward expansion of people).

[yread]

> shoddy construction

Just today there was a newsletter from Construction Physics about Strap Rail. Literally wooden rails with a iron plate strapped on top put in the mud. Only in the US, 10 times cheaper. But more expensive to maintain and gone in years instead of decades for normal iron rails though.

[limagnolia]

By building the initial rails cheaply, they could then bring in equipment and supplies over those rails to rebuild the railroad to a much better quality, and at a lower cost than if they had to bring that equipment and supplies in without the rails in the first instance.

That doesn't mean they always actually invested the money to rebuild properly... but it was sound engineering theory.

Of course, there were other financial shenanigans too- see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cr%C3%A9dit_Mobilier_scandal

[dylan604]

move fast, break things is never a good long term plan

[twoodfin]

The lesson, which we learned in the dot-com era and will likely learn again in the AI era, is that the benefits of step-change new infrastructure technology do not accrue in the long run to the infrastructure builders—the technology only creates the step-change if it finds its way to being a commodity!—but diffuses throughout the new, ultimately much larger, more productive economy as a whole.

[csours]

See also the dark fiber build out before the telecom collapse of ~2001

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecoms_crash

[aworks]

Leland Stanford made out ok, AFAIK

[uecker]

It has been called a "gift to the world". https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/14/science/earth/sun-and-win...

But since then there was an endless stream of negative press especially in English speaking countries against German energy policies, so not much of this positive comments are still remembered.

[schmorptron]

It's probably because germany decided to sorta give up on it and all of the production and further research moved to china?

[blubber]

That's not true. I think China is grateful to them for selling them their PV industry for a Wurstbrot.

[Phelinofist]

Yeah and then we let it die