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Comment by Someone1234 | Hacker News Reader

Subsidized renewables or at full cost?

Full cost. The investment firm Lazard puts out an annual report on the LCOE (levelized cost of electricity, e.g. subsidies removed), and this past year wind was cheaper than natural gas[1].

[1]: https://www.lazard.com/media/450337/lazard-levelized-cost-of...

That is absolute nonsense. It excludes intermittency and integration costs. Just from skimming it almost every variable chosen is favorable to renewables and the worst possible case for fossil fuels.

The notion that solar is cheaper than coal as a peak power source in a developing nation like india with significantly higher costs of capital is laughable.

Hmmm, I feel like your sources of information are years out of date. Care to elaborate on your sources?

First, intermittency and integration costs are a huge straw man because they aren't a problem until you get well over 50% penetration of non-dispatchable generation (e.g. renewables)[1]. For the first 50% of the transition, solar or wind by themselves are way way cheaper[2], and by the time batteries are needed at scale, they will be cheap enough to make dispatchable renewables cost competitive[3].

Second, India is currently building way more solar than coal[4]. Also, they are expecting solar + storage to be cheaper than coal within 8 years[5]. So your assertions about India are way out of date.

I'm a bit worried why you still believe the renewable intermittency is a problem or why coal is cheaper. Your "laughable" confidence is likely to lead to you completely missing out on the profits from deploying renewables and storage. Oh well, I guess more money for me then.

[1]: https://users.ece.cmu.edu/~smithv/docs/renewables_sgc_2013.p...

[2]: https://about.bnef.com/blog/tumbling-costs-wind-solar-batter...

[3]: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-09/how-the-w...

[4]: https://cleantechnica.com/2018/08/13/62-of-capacity-added-in...

[5]: http://www.climatechangenews.com/2018/02/23/coal-india-repor...

And subsidized fossil fuels?

Good point. They should compare like with like and neither with subsidies otherwise you're just measuring which has the biggest government discount by proxy.

How can you meaningfully separate subsidies from full costs?

For example if governments fight wars to keep oil supplies running do we count that as a subsidy? Is diplomacy to keep a gas pipeline open a subsidy? Is building roads to transport fossil fuels a subsidy? What about building national grids to transport renewable electricity?

No fuel system on earth operates without infrastructure subsidised by the government.

In the case of the national grid, here in the US with _very_ few exceptions, the price of electricity includes the cost of generation and the transmission grid. These are not socialized through the tax system.

The exceptions include the Federal power marketing agencies [1] charged with marketing power from the hydro dams built during the Great Depression. While their initial cost was born by the country, their ongoing operation and maintenance costs are recouped from Transmission Access Charges.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Area_Power_Administrat...

I agree, but entirely ignoring subsidies also won't inform you when renewables have reached the magical point when they become the "obvious" thing to do regardless of global climate change. When they become cheaper than oil/gas without a penny of government discount, then no matter how you slice it renewables have "won." Game over. They will be the future.

Environmental benefits, unfortunately, haven't been enough for them to win. The financial battle is really the thing that will tip the scales.

If we talk subsidies, we also need to talk taxes on fossil fuels as well.

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