After reading Claim 11, starting on page 29, where the authors state that:
>unsubsidized solar energy is now generally cheaper than fossil fuels; and
> solar energy compares favorably in terms of levelized cost (total lifetime energy production / total lifetime cost)
The authors build this argument over three pages, including several charts, citing a Lazard paper that prices solar at $60/Mwh vs gas combined cycle at $70/MWh. But only in the last paragraph do they concede that when you include the cost of intermittency (firming), solar is only cheaper than gas peaking plant cost ($168/MWh).
As someone who lives in New York City and is drowning in inflated energy bills, lacking any engineering explanation why my residential electricity $/MWh is triple that of Beijing, I am sick and tired of phony academic papers such as this that begin with a conclusion and work backward to fabricate extremely misleading arguments.
I don’t care how my energy is generated. I strongly prefer it comes from sources that pollute less. But that preference is miles behind the priority for cheaper energy.
Bullshit research like this, written by attorneys, including arguments like claim 11 which tries to hide the fact that solar only produces energy during daylight, annd does not account for storage/firming costs are not helping move our national energy dialog forward.