[martinald]

I think the biggest 'externality' subsidy of renewables is exactly your point 3.

It's all well and good saying you can produce solar + wind en masse for 3c/kWh (even without govt incentives), but if you need to have a gas plant running extremely inefficiently to pick up the shortfall, I'm not sure you can say it is 3c/kWh.

I'm very pro renewables but think it is increasingly getting missed. You often see charts that solar/wind is significantly cheaper than nuclear, but never taking into account this.

[pfdietz]

A simple cycle gas turbine power plant is 5% of the capital cost of a nuclear power plant. So even if you have to cover your entire renewable system with 100% CT backup, you still aren't paying as much as nuclear.