Those who buy into President Obama’s idea of subsidizing a “green economy” into existence ought to read this excerpt from a Bloomberg Businessweek interview with Sebastian Piñera, president of Chile.
According to Deutsche Bank (DB), Chile’s the world’s first solar power producer to be subsidy-free. How did you do that?
Chile was very poor in terms of old sources of energy—gas, oil, coal. But we’re extremely rich in the future sources of clean, renewable energy. For instance, we have the deserts with the highest solar variance in the world. And they’re on a plateau, so there’s no dust. Therefore the capacity to produce solar energy is incredible. It’s becoming competitive. We’re not doing what the Spaniards did. They subsidized everyone, then they couldn’t afford it.
Piñera also appears to understand the importance of innovation and entrepreneurship — rather than government planning — in boosting his nation’s economy.
