[icebraining]

I simply pointed out that by using prices that include taxes and incentives, this report artificially exaggerated the costs of coal and understated the true costs of solar/wind. They aren't really even close to being competitive in real terms, but this report falsely implies that they are.

How do you define "real" terms? Sure it's not the price that would emerge if those taxes/incentives didn't exist, but market prices are always adjusted to the current particularities, it's never an absolute value. For example, if it was technically and legally possible to identify all the health and property damages caused by coal pollution and force the coal producers to compensate affected people, the market price of coal would have to be higher than what you call "real" cost, but would that be any less real?

[downandout]

>How do you define "real" terms?

The actual cost of production without artificial factors like taxes and incentives being included.

[fauigerzigerk]

Regulating or taxing emissions is simply a form of collective demand for clean air, a scarce resource. I don't see how it is any more artificial than demand for land that drives up the prices for coal mines or the demand for labor that determines salaries of coal miners.

In other words, producing energy by burning coal consumes clean air. Clean air is owned by the public and the public is charging for its use.

[m_eiman]

You should also include external costs to your cost of producing coal power; then is what the CO2 taxes are an attempt to do.

That someone else is forced to pay to handle the effects of your pollution doesn't mean that this cost shouldn't be considered part of the cost of coal generated electricity.

[forgetsusername]

I don't think downandout is confused with the purpose of taxes, nor do I see it disagreeing with them.

The point I think (and to which I agree) is that real costs matter because anything can be "competitive" with enough subsidization. And subsidization doesn't make things cheaper in the real sense, it simply realigns incentives.

As is, renewables are heavily subsidized, fossil fuels are taxed heavily, and there's still a gap. It's trivial to close that gap through tax policy. So then the question becomes, what is the correct level of subsidization? I'm not sure, but I don't think the answer is "more, more, more". Because eventually you will eliminate the industry that is paying the taxes to offset the subsidized one. When it's no longer economically feasible to pay those heavy subsidies, that's when you'll see why the real cost of production matters.

[joosters]

But excluding factors like the health/pollution costs? So, not a fair comparison with things like wind/solar then.