[IpV8]

I'd hardly say that the free market is the savior, The innovation in renewables was the result of heavy government spending in R&D grants to universities, subsidies on renewable tech, and cap and trade on emissions. Lets hope that the free market can take the baton after government intervention pushed down the initial price barriers.

[gridlockd]

A free market could've done all of this faster and more efficiently if governments were capable to commensurately price externalities like climate change.

They clearly aren't, so this whole prediction that hydrocarbons are on their way out will turn out false. Any serious amount of political unrest brings gas subsidies out of the political toolbox. Even if climate change happens exactly as predicted, it will not stop hydrocarbon use. If anything, a downtrend in living standards will cause even more hydrocarbon use, as it is cheaper and more primitive technology.

[noir_lord]

You aren't looking it through the lens of "all business good/all government bad" enough.

When in reality the picture is "somethings the market does well, some things absolutely should not have a profit motive - the picture is complex" which frankly these days wouldn't fit on the side of a bus so no-one this side of the pond would pay any attention.

[dnautics]

and conversely, continued hydrocarbon dominance was the result of heavy government subsidy for the industry. It's truly impossible to know if renewables would have happened faster or slower in a free market.

[beat]

Mostly nonsense. The improvements we've seen over the past decade have been improvements in manufacturing and other process, not subsidy. It truly is cheaper now, and will get cheaper still. The free market has had the baton for the past decade, at least. The main impediment is mostly the time scale of power plant projects, and the cost of intermediate storage (which has also plummeted).

And of course, this doesn't take into account our direct and indirect subsidies to the fossil fuel industry - you know, like what we spend on a military presence in the Middle East.

[AlexandrB]

> Mostly nonsense.

Citation needed. Even a market darling like Tesla benefited greatly from government subsidies on “green” technologies.

[beat]

Tesla has more than doubled in size every year since it was founded. It has grown faster than Amazon did. That's not subsidy, because subsidy is bound politically and could not keep up with that sort of growth. No, that's what being the best-bet winner for a trillion dollar market looks like.