[crdoconnor]

>The report says that coal costs $75 per megawatt hour, while land-based wind costs $83 and solar comes in at a whopping $122. That's far from "almost competitive".

$83 is close enough to $75 that tweaks to tax policy can now be used to make renewable energy investment over fossil fuel virtually a no brainer decision without adversely affecting overall energy production that much.

Indeed, that's pretty much what Germany has done.

>Also note that these are not costs of production, these are what people wind up paying for it. That means that the coal numbers include extensive taxes, while the solar and wind numbers include extensive tax discounts and incentives.

I won't speculate as to why you didn't note that fossil fuel subsidies are also included.

[downandout]

>$83 is close enough to $75 that tweaks to tax policy can now be used to make renewable energy investment over fossil fuel virtually a no brainer decision

The tweaks to tax policy you're referring to have already happened, and they still haven't made wind and solar competitive. Taxes and incentives being included are the only reason that the numbers quoted in this extremely misleading report are even remotely close to each other (although an 11% difference in a multi-trillion dollar industry is hardly insignificant).

[crdoconnor]

>The tweaks to tax policy you're referring to have already happened, and they still haven't made wind and solar competitive

They already did in the UK and Germany as the article points out.

The political weight of utilities and the oil/natgas industry is significantly higher in the US which is probably why the US hasn't followed in Germany/UK's footsteps. Too many Senate re-election campaign funds being paid for by Kochs, etc.

[forgetsusername]

>"too many Senate re-election campaign funds being paid for by Kochs, etc."

Or maybe, just maybe, decision makers realize that this stuff doesn't have to be, nor should be, implemented overnight?

Renewable energy innovation is occurring at an incredibly fast rate. The economy is a complex thing. Adoption will happen without distorting markets with overwrought subsisidies and burning money trying to accelerate it further.

[crdoconnor]

> Adoption will happen without distorting markets with overwrought subsisidies and burning money trying to accelerate it further.

So you think that instead of introducing counter distortions to protect the environment we should just keep the distortions that are damaging it that we already have?

[Shivetya]

We need to carefully balance tax breaks for renewable energy solutions so that they do not stifle innovation. The key is to make buying renewable energy enough to entice consumers; both families and business; while at the same time not slowing the progress of innovation because the handouts are too profitable to give up.

[ZeroGravitas]

Most economists agree that the sane policy is to tax the production of Greenhouse Gases and other pollutants. This prices in the externalities correctly for coal, gas and oil and then the free market does the rest by providing alternative electricity sources with less pollution, people and companies being less wasteful and more efficient, and new markets and products becoming viable (e.g. battery storage on the grid).

As part of that, all the existing subsidies given to fossil fuels should be removed, because subsidising and taxing them at the same time is silly.

(Some kind of measures should be take to return some of this tax money to the poor, as they pay proportionately more of their money on tax, and have the least ability to change their behaviour in the short term)

If this is done then renewables can thrive without any subsidy because they are already, in an economic literate reality, the better choice in large numbers of situations, and as their uptake grows this range will increase.

Why is this not done? Look at all the people in this thread who don't understand what an externality is and think taxes are evil. Hilariously, this has mostly just meant that the changes are still being implemented, but in a far more "big government" manner, with lots of rules, regulations and central control and money going to special interests.

[JoeAltmaier]

Tax breaks so often get sucked up by the supplier, so the consumer sees none of it. Prices will jack up until, even with a consumer tax break, its almost exactly the same deal as conventional energy. Anything else is leaving money on the table, which no rational supplier will do.

Means, if tax breaks are not uniform (state by state for instance) then they server to impede new markets.

Law of unintended consequences.

[brrt]

I admire your optimism :-) but I'm not 100% sure that is true. If there wasn't a political drive behind this, wouldn't it have been easier to burn coal for the next 100 years?

[talmand]

There are lots of examples of innovations changing entire industries without a political drive being behind it. The day someone discovers a clean energy method that is easily cheaper than fossil fuels will be able to cash in because the market will switch to it quite handily, regardless of politics. The only political drive I really worry over with things like this is cronyism that prevents innovations in an effort to maintain status quo.

[ZeroGravitas]

This is already happening. Rooftop solar is disturbing monopoly utilities who are trying to stop it from disrupting them by slapping charges on customers who use it, or refusing to allow them to connect.

In the UK, a government with ties to fossil fuel industry (where the money is centralised and easy to syphon into bribes and kickbacks) is sabotaging wind power in favour of fracking.

Abbot in Australia etc.

The technology is already there, it's all about the politics now.

[Xixi]

Germany main source of energy is still, by far, coal (lignite to be precise), and it's not going down yet. The expansion of renewable energy, which is very real, is being done at the expense of nuclear energy.

I wish they would be doing it the other way around: closing coal power plants before the nuclear ones. But Germany has lignite, and doesn't have much of a nuclear industry, so economically it makes much more sense that way...

EDIT: typo

[crdoconnor]

AFAIK since 2013 they've almost totally stopped building new coal plants. They've removed subsidies on mining, too which has led to pit closures.

If it's not going down already, I imagine it will be going down within the next couple of years.

[Xixi]

Sure, it will eventually decline. But when you see the sharp decline in electricity produced from nuclear power plants, it feels like a missed opportunity to lower CO2 emissions faster.

I'm only looking at this from a greenhouse gases point of view. Maybe German nuclear power plants are particularly unsafe and it's better to wind them down quickly? I doubt it, which is why I lean towards an economical (more so than financial) decision.

[the_why_of_y]

Nuclear energy generally depends on the political will for the state to (in effect) take on the cost of insurance for the most serious accidents, since it is impossible for the energy producing companies to buy such insurance. It looks like in Germany that political will is no longer there.