The numbers don't support your conjecture! The over capcity is not due to lack of demand, its do to crazy production capacity increases in China. The solar energy industry hasn't stopped growing. It may slow in the US (it hasn't yet!) due to cheap natural gas, but most of the world doesn't have that luxury (or our prices!). Furthermore, natural gas is the perfect companion to solar energy It's cleaner, cheaper and more efficient than other fossil fuels. And a huge installed natural gas base is perfect for a large solar grid: the gas does load following on solar and base load. Economical and clean! Everyone is happy. :) And natural gas infrastructure is the perfect segway into a syn-gas economy ... artificial natural gas from solar or biomass.

There are no direct subsidies. Only provincial tax and energy breaks that look identical to what all municipalities (including Ca, Az, Co, Ma) do to entice development. China Development Bank has given loan-guarantees and project financing to many players ... with terms that look terrible in comparison to what our Dept. of Energy offered First Solar, Solandra, etc. What no one wants to admit is that most of the financing for this Chinese push came from private markets in US and HK. AKA Capitalism, is a destructive bitch!

False equivalency, there absolutely is no comparison. The evidence is in the direction of the county, which has been shifting right ever since LBJ. The idiot of the right wing is a plurality or maybe even a majority of the party. A group that routinely denies the scientific method in favor of super natural explanations and are extremely well represented in government. I'd like to see any evidence that the radical (science denying ) left has similar influence in their party or representation in government. I'd be looking for anti-wifi, anti-vaccine, or anti-GMO to dominate the debate (on the scale of AGW, evolution) and have 50-200 member congressional delegation of self-avowed socialists calling for an end to capitalism. Instead I see a few fringe moderate-socialists, a large majority of capitalist/fiscally conservative social liberals, and republican-democrats. Here's BHO, "the radical leftist:" http://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2012 . Of course, I'm open to evidence that political compass is communist propaganda and in fact there is true "leftist" representation in government and the dramatic 40 yr shift toward the right wing is a hallucination.

I doubt there are "a lot" (whatever that means) of any non-technical group that could even articulate acceptable scientific procedure. I am open to evidence supporting your claim before I write it off as a self-selection bias among a small, technically minded libertarian minority.

haha, that guy needs to settle down a bit!

If solar energy isn't thriving, what is? The solar industry has blown away expectations for several years running... Even the massive over capacity and German/Italian incentive cuts haven't slowed it down. In fact, we're in the midst of a shift from western-RPS based demand to BRIC/developing country demand. That ought to tell you something about the cost of solar energy. The annualized growth is ~30%-40%. The global solar industry is growing at 10-15X the US economy... The fastest growing industry of its size ($50b + ) on earth. The US was ~7% of the 28GW global installs last year, growing 109% from 2010. Any hiccup with fracking (e.g. regulations, LNG exports, etc) and solar takes the lead everywhere. Module + BOS costs are at grid parity. Installation costs still tip the scales, but they will die as the industry matures (really? We're paying electricians 400-600% the cost of the equipment to mount on residential roofs? absurd...I could very successfully argue at this point that these guys are just eating all the incentives, at least in the US) and large firms dominate installation/leasing or utility scale arrays dominate. IMO, there will be utility scale PV projects installed at $2/Wp by 2013, neglecting incentives. Calculate LCOE on that over 30 yr... The big firms are still not even completely vertically integrated yet, but they will be soon... from polysilicon to project.. From modules they can grab 1 cent of profit off each vertical and they gross $60 million per GW (which is what they are doing now, and basically breaking even or slightly losing money due to OPX and debt payments) or they can do the project and grab $280 million per GW at $ 3 installs or $180 million per GW at $2 installs at a margin of 7 - 9 %. Or heck, they pay just start installing plants themselves. Not to mention China Development Bank has something like 40 billion in project financing available, which few firms have used at all...

Due to historically low natural gas is cheaper than coal right now. So is solar in the right climate :)

Can you show me your evidence of dumping or "excessive subsidies"? I see net gross margins on Suntech, Trina, Yingli, Canadian solar, JA Solar, China Sun, Jinko Solar and the dozen other companies I follow for Q2,Q3, and Q4. Meanwhile I see older German, American, Chinese, and Taiwanese liquidating products as part of bankruptcy because none of the 'old firms' can compete with the new cost structures established by these firms... Isn't this what is suppose to happen?

According to documents filed with the SEC, the publicly traded Chinese firms I follow (~70% of production) have net gross margins for the entire period in question. Granted, they are still running at operating losses for a myriad of other reasons..So either these firms are fraudulent (a pretty serious allegation, far worse than dumping or this is all protectionist garbage) Yet, the majority of opinions on this forum are based on this easily falsifiable U.S. financial media reporting. The evidence of positive gross margins is publicly available via the SEC... Where is the critical thinking here people? Isn't the burden of proof on those who make the accusations? Instead, the firms behind these allegations remain anonymous and fail to provide any evidence. I'd also like to see evidence that Chinese subsides are larger than U.S. subsidies... The big public firm behind this, SolarWorld, is well connected politically and couldn't compete with China even with a 50% tariff ...