This will change under the policies of the current U.S. administration.

Pretty unlikely. Solar is built on cheap land with low demand, and if the land isn't sold then the power is free so why wouldn't you sell it? No matter how high the taxes are, free money is free money. Aside from making it totally illegal it is very hard to reduce the incentive to sell power.

On top of that the subsidies for solar installations are mostly frontloaded, since the costs are frontloaded. Annual tax breaks are transferrable, so they get sold at the beginning of the project to offset investment cost, lowering interest payments. Even removing tax breaks would not make existing installations less profitable.

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nkoren an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Yes, it would be absolutely irrational and indefensible to block people from building solar farms where there is a straightforward commercial case for doing so. Unfortunately, "irrational and indefensible" is exactly what this administration is: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/10/trump-offici...

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ishtanbul an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I work in the industry. Removing the tax breaks is having a material impact because we look at after tax cash flow. Next year installations are going to reduce meaningfully.

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FrustratedMonky an hour ago | parent [-]

The articles about Solar cost reaching parity with Fossil. Is that before or after taxes?

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bluGill an hour ago | parent [-]

Taxes are far too complex to figure that our. In the case of other there are a lot of different players and most do things other than oil and so it isn't possible to figure out what tax/subsidy is from oil.

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FrustratedMonky 40 minutes ago | parent [-]

Was wondering if anybody just took raw manufacturing/operating costs, and energy output, and compared. Removing all taxes and subsidies from the equation. If we are going to say Solar is now cheaper, I'd think it would have to be without subsidies.

	▲	pjc50 32 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Accounting is a big issue for renewables because almost all the cost is upfront. You pay a capital cost for X years (say, 30) of electricity. Maintenance is a much smaller fraction of the cost. Therefore the question of profitability depends on all sorts of non-power things: amortization, interest rates, how the tax-deductibility of a capital investment is handled, what future electricity costs are, and so on.
	▲	pcl 16 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		How do you suggest fossil fuel subsidies should be positioned in the equation?

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BolexNOLA 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

You are right it makes sense but that hasn’t stopped them from gutting all sorts of sensible programs both energy-related and otherwise regardless of the stage of investment/development. Have we forgotten about Musk and his mob already?

This administration is openly touting “beautiful clean coal” (doesn’t exist) for powering servers. Renewables are yet another front where people are divided based on politics. It has little to do with efficacy or practicality. I still have family members convinced that offshore wind power is mass-killing whales because of Carlson.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/04/rein...

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joshstrange an hour ago | parent [-]

> I still have family members convinced that offshore wind power is mass-killing whales because of Carlson

And if they are anything like the people I've talked to, they never once cared about whales (or any sea life) before this. Same with the "wind turbines kills birds" or even "trans women are ruining women's sports". Ahh yes, a whole list of things you've never cared about, made fun of, or derided in the past but now suddenly care about because of some talking head. It's exhausting.

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BolexNOLA 39 minutes ago | parent [-]

Too true. Until they realized they could use it to bully the trans community the only time they talked about the likes of the WNBA was in service of a punchline for a bad joke.

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joshstrange 36 minutes ago | parent [-]

This exactly. People who I have seen make jokes at the WNBA's expense suddenly caring about the sanctity of the sport... I often wonder if they see the cognitive dissonance, probably not.

	▲	fringol 25 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Most of the actual work to stop males from competing in women's sports, through evidence-guided changes in policy, has been driven by female athletes who are directly affected by this, feminists and feminist allies, scientists that study sex differences, and experts in the philosophy of sport. That it's become such a well-known topic of contention is because sports are a spectator event and there have been some very high-profile instances of this unfairness towards female athletes.

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UltraSane 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Federal funding for solar farms will stop but private funding will continue because solar electricity is the the cheapest source right now.

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criley2 an hour ago | parent | next [-]

It's more than just funding. There's a lot of regulatory hurdles and desire to use federal lands that will also be killed.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/10/trump-offici...

>The following month, the president said his administration would not approve solar or wind power projects. “We will not approve wind or farmer destroying Solar,” he posted on Truth Social. “The days of stupidity are over in the USA!!!”

Realisitically, solar is dead in America and China is the undisputed worlds #1 solar superpower. The US might hook up a few little projects here or there, but functionally the US is in full retreat on solar, cedeing the industry and technology to China.

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UltraSane an hour ago | parent [-]

The federal government doesn't have to approve solar farms built on private land. Solar is far from dead in the US and there is tons of private land solar farms can and will be built on.

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criley2 an hour ago | parent [-]

Most the best land for solar farms in the west half of the US is controlled by the federal government. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1f/Ma...

For example, there basically will not be large scale solar in Nevada, Utah, Arizona, etc under this administration. You know, some of the highest value spots.

	▲	bluGill an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Nevada, Utah and Arizona are all low population states with little power demand. While power can be shipped that needs power lines and other complexity. There is a lot of solar potential there, but the lack of demand means they are not highest value.
	▲	sigwinch 32 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I’m not sure land is the controlling factor. Look at current fuel mix: the upper Midwest is mostly coal, with all its disadvantages. How was it possible for Iowa, South Dakota, and Kansas to choose wind?

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ben_w 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Unless it gets outlawed, which I suspect is something Trump might do or attempt as part of his campaign in favour of fossil fuels and/or to own the libs/China.

I'm also not clear how cheaply the US could make its own PV in the event of arbitrary trade war (let alone hot war) between the USA and China.

(The good news there is that even in such a situation, everyone else in the world can continue to electrify with the panels, inverters, and batteries that the USA doesn't buy, but the linked article obviously isn't about that).

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cactusplant7374 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I am still receiving advertisements from solar companies that want to put panels on farm land. They pay around $3-$4k an acre

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binarymax 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Per month or year? And what region?

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tecleandor 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Like monthly? Yearly?

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ben_w 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I'm not the person you're replying to, but if I read the following link correctly, the USA average price to purchase is only $5.5k/acre, and any part of the US cheaper than or including the average price in Nebraska (ranked 17th at $3,884/acre) could well be trading food farmland for solar farm land at that price:

https://acretrader.com/resources/farmland-values/farmland-pr...

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Zigurd 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

In Nebraska, you're talking about food for cattle. The profit per acre is low and so the price is low.

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ben_w an hour ago | parent [-]

1. The Nebraska price is the 17th highest on that list. Nevada and Montana are both below $1k/acre. I've seen Nevada in person, I can guess why the small amount of possibly-arable land I saw there might be cheap, never been to Montana but the Google street view photos told me the same story.

2. If the profit per acre is low, surely this just means they don't have a better use for the land?

3. Even if you assume they're all idiots who could make more profit if they thought harder about better uses for their land, I'm not clear why the reason for the land being what it is, is supposed to matter?

	▲	Zigurd 11 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		The point I was trying to get across is that, because animal feed is an inefficient way of making people food, it's a little tendentious to say that we're trading food for energy.

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tecleandor an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Well thanks. Now I reviewed what I had in mind for the size of an acre, and it's way smaller than I though (I don't know why I was thinking it was way bigger than an hectare). Also, I always forget the size differences of unused land between continental Europe and the US. :D

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dgacmu 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

This is for a 20 or 30 year lease. One time payment. 4k is on the high side.

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IAmBroom 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You dropped this: /s

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rsynnott 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I mean, ultimately, ol' minihands won't be there forever.