If this wasn't the case, the German government wouldn't need the huge expensive system of subsidies for PV.
By all means spend lots of money to encourage production of more expensive electricity, but don't pretend it's cheaper.
France has been playing catchup in this area and they were proposing subsidies that would reduce each year to better match reductions the cost basis of PV. They were predicting ~20 years for solar to reach grid parity.
A more interesting debate is whether governments should be interfering in free market forces to push some technologies over others.
Maybe I was diverting the conversation, I was just pointing out that those who installed PV panels in Belgium got a very nice yield on their investment. I haven't run the numbers with the latest payouts and panel costs (PV panel cost has come down significantly already over the last few years) so I don't know the state of the art. I was interested in comparing subsidy schemes with other countries.
(as an extra data point, the Netherlands provides only a fixed subsidy for PV panels, and there's a fairly low ceiling to the total that can be paid out a year; based on a first come, first serve system. The period to recuperate the investment is about 20 years, which is quite long; in Belgium one can earn back the investment in about 6 years and everything after that is pure profit).
Your 6-year payback seems a bit optimistic but I last looked into this stuff 8 months ago and things may have changed.
Actually I tried to make a product out of this. The website is still up on http://www.solar-profit.info/. It's in Dutch but the screenshots speak for themselves. I never sold a single copy, for one because my market is about 500 customers big, and second because I didn't manage to explain the concept of time value of money to my leads (installation companies for PV panels).
So yeah that's the answer to your comment. Payback period everybody understands, and that's the only thing it has going for it, but unfortunately it's such a big advantage that you still need to use it if you want to convince some markets.
Even for a conventional energy production it is important to have competition. But the big energy producers are getting monopolies for their regions. In France it is even worse: there is EDF and not much else.
Next, the nuclear reactors are not using their heat in any useful way in France or Germany. They are mostly used to heat up the rivers. Which at the same time limits how many reactors one can put at a river. They need lots of water for cooling.
--- Areva has been criticised both in Niger and the west for a neocolonial relationship with the former French colony, having obtained monopoly rights to mine uranium for nearly forty years, while Niger remains (as of 2006) the least developed country in the world.[16] There has been specualtion that Areva was the primary vehicle (and motivation) for French government involvement in the Nigerien government's poor history of democracy and human rights since the late 1960s. Areva argues that it is a good steward of the environment and a partner in development with the Nigerien people. The company stresses that most workers it directly employs in Niger are locals, and that the revenue generated by these mines is the single largest foreign exchange source for Niger.[17] When the population of Niger was exposed to a serious famine in 2005, Areva donated 130,000 euros in June 2005 to the food crisis coordination group of Niger, and 120,000 euros in July in the form of two planes loaded with food and organized by Bernard Kouchner's Réussir NGO. Nigerien critics point out that this aid amounted to 0.05% of Areva's annual profits of 428 million euros.[18]. In January 2008, a Swiss human rights group awarded Areva's Niger operations their "2008 Public Eye Global Award" for the "worst company in the world", citing charges of radioactive pollution, poor working conditions, and the deaths of a number of workers.[19] The Tuareg based rebel group fighting in the Arlit area has echoed these charges. ---
And don't forget 'the hidden cost of PV' - massive pollution in China, bad working conditions, damage to workers' health.
Right, just as Superfund cleanup and cancer treatment is free to the US taxpayer.
"If the reserves were in a developed country they would be mined as cheaply and more safely."
What prevents Areva from doing that in Niger?
Wait, who do you think has paid for the research. Ever heard of ARPA or DARPA? The whole computer technology came out of military applications paid by the tax payer. Ever heard of the origins of what we know as Internet, the ARPAnet?
Google for 'secret history of silicon valley' and view the movie.
The only example I can vaguely remember was the funding in France for everyone to get some sort of modem-connected device. I don't believe this advanced computing hardware at all, and didn't place France in the lead of the computing technology race.
It's still in use and generating revenues 28 years after introduction.