It’s hard to fault a company or an individual who makes use of some sort of government-provided financial incentive to produce “alternative energy” such as solar power. After all, who doesn’t like “free money” from the government?
But a recent Times Free Press article on “going green” highlighted the impracticality of solar power production.
Truck ‘N Trailers USA in Chattanooga used federal and state grants to install solar panels and reduce the company’s power costs.
“It would have been unaffordable without the grants,” Tom Moore, president of the company, told the newspaper.
We do not begrudge the company its energy cost savings. But the “savings” are not “savings” at all to U.S. taxpayers. Taxpayers footed the bill for much of the solar project.
If solar power were truly cost-effective, companies would not need the government to subsidize the expense of producing it. When government does subsidize that type of expense, energy costs have not really been eliminated; they have only been shuffled onto taxpayers.
That’s not a wise policy when our federal government is already $14 trillion in debt.