[thebmax]

I see your points and agree a carbon tax is the most market friendly way to account for environmental externalities. However, my main point is that wind and solar are NOT economically viable despite what Elon and every other silicon valley expert seems to believe. Even with carbon taxes priced in they can't match the price of natural gas and coal. The reason is that they are not reliable sources of energy and with both of them you need batteries of some other type of storage to smooth out production. This essentially doubles the costs. Everything you read about the 'cost' of solar and wind doesn't take into account storage or the overbuild required to have backup power for cloudy days. The type of grid that uses 100% solar/wind would be a completely unreliable grid and cost considerable more for everyone. Solar and wind aren't being adopted because they are worse for consumers, not because some cabal of special interests are keeping them out.

In fact the opposite is true. The only reason solar is being adopted at all in almost every region in the world is because of government subsidies.

(Source: I build solar and wind farms for a living).