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Comment by TheLogothete | Hacker News Reader

So his quote is

"I think a new coal plant would give you costlier power than a solar plant"

He thinks a NEW plant would give you costlier energy. Secondly, aren't the solar projects subsidized in a BIG way? I have seen many smart people say that solar is a sham. They say it's just an opportunist's play. Entrepreneurs want to get on the government's tit and the politicians are happy to portray themselves as environmentally friendly in front of the increasingly global warming wary voters.

If anyone can argue against that, please speak up. I haven't seen anything other than wishful thinking and naive people patting themselves on the back because someone got their hands on tax money.

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FTFA:

Capital costs [for solar] have fallen 60% in the past four years and could drop a further 40% reports Deutsche Bank

Solar energy prices hit a new record low in January with the auction of 420 megawatts in Rajasthan at 4.34 rupees a kilowatt-hour. In comparison coal tariffs range between 3-5 rupees/kWh.

You do the math.

I can't do the math because there are no baselines. Talking about capex reduction in percentages doesn't tell me the overall picture. You also talk about energy prices, but are those prices subsidized?

All the talk about solar energy is making unfair comparisons and people are eating it up because it aligns with their wishful thinking. Just take as an example this article. The minister said that solar energy might be cheaper compared to energy from NEW coal plants. But everyone in here heard something else.

No, not at all. see my comment here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11520789

Solar and wind is for the majority not subsidized in India.

What you are referring to is the Min of New and Renewable Energy offering a VGF "viability gap funding" for certain very large projects termed UMPPs (Ultra Mega Power Plants) of 1000-4000MW. These are few and take-up has been poor due to the execution complexities.

India is adding 15-20k MW of Solar and 10k MW of Wind per year - the vast majority of which is completely unsubsidized. State electricity distributors tender for plants, and private developers bid a tariff they feel will support their ROI.

Apart from the US and its PTC structure, most of the huge capacity additions happening in wind and solar in Europe, Asia, Africa, China and India are happening from pure private unsubsidized auctions for power.

>Apart from the US and its PTC structure, most of the huge capacity additions happening in wind and solar in Europe, Asia, Africa, China and India are happening from pure private unsubsidized auctions for power.

I don't want to enter into debates about the rest of the comment, but this is demonstratebly false in Europe from my experience as a EU citizen keeping an eye on funding programs and public discourse.

A quick google search says that the 2012 EC report on energy subsidies concluded close to 15 billion euros in subsidies for solar alone. The report DOES NOT include tax credits and DOES NOT include preferential lending support.

In addition, German citizen's bills have skyrocketed to the 2nd place (behind Denmark) because of solar power. German business refuses to eat up the solar power as part of a package because it will make them uncompetitive. This sentiment echoes around Europe, so I suggest you check your facts.

I don't even want to START on Chinese equipment manufacturers, many of whom face bankruptcy after the government dialed back on subsidies.

In all honesty, your opinion seems completely false based on the evidence I've seen.

> federal subsidies have provided wind and solar developers with as much as $24 billion from 2008 to 2014, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

-- http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-05/say-goodby...

Absolutely ridiculous. Can you imagine if we spent $4BN annually on nuclear energy and public outreach on how it isn't dangerous?

Yet another case where leftists would rather feel good than do good.

We did. We do.

> We did. We do.

What a completely useless response. Why even bother commenting? Four words?

Since you can't be bothered to come up with a source, see pages 3-10 of the following document from the Congressional Budget Office. [1]

Renewables get the large majority of the cash, and nuclear isn't even close.

[1]: http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/...

You're ruining the narrative.

Well it's going to cost over $150 Billion to clean up the Hanford Nuclear Site, so shouldn't that be considered as government support of nuclear power?

To be honest, that's a very fair point and figuratively speaking, a kill-shot. I might be right that solar subsidies are never going to pay off, but at least we can be sure it's not going to suddenly fail, foot us with a bill for the clean-up, and poison innocent people.

I don't think India subsidises solar power.

A quick google search says you are wrong. Can you back your thinking with some facts?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jawaharlal_Nehru_National_Sola...

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