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Comment by cubano | Hacker News Reader

It's interesting how no one is discussing how the governments massive subsidy of the solar and wind power industries are completely distorting the market for these "prices", so studies like these are pretty much nonsense.

Of course price/KW will drop massively if the entire thing is being propped up by taxpayer dollars and not the actual need to be profitable.

I guess I just need to resign myself to the idea that so many misguided people now believe that government can print and spend money on everything and that will always work forever.

But it won't.

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"Oil, coal and gas received more than four times the $120 billion paid out in incentives for renewables including wind, solar and biofuels"

source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-11-12/fossil-fue...

However, those subsidies are not paid in the same geographical and political regions at all.

Sun and wind subsidies are paid out in places like EU countries, especially Germany, where they distort the market. Gasoline on the other hand is taxed highly.

Oil, coal and gas get subsidies in places like Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Iran or Malaysia, where they distort the market.

That Venezuela distorts its markets in some way does not really make it a good idea to distort the market in Germany (or USA) in another way.

Fossil fuels have unpriced externalities even in places like Germany. And what you call market distortion re renewables in Germany is more appropriately called investment. The proof is the global solar industry that that country singlehandedly kickstarted with it's subsidies. A similar story with wind energy and Denmark.

Which government are you talking about? You realize this article is not about the United States?

> Of course price/KW will drop massively if the entire thing is being propped up by taxpayer dollars and not the actual need to be profitable.

If saving the world was free, the private sector would have done it already. It's not, so it needs to be subsidized.

I'm not against subsidizing solar as it is politically expedient, but a more direct and cost-efficient way to help the environment would be to tax carbon emissions and let the market figure out how to save the world.

But the cost of subsidies are spread out across all taxpayers, while carbon taxes mostly affect polluters, who will lobby against it.

I think you're right, but one option is politically easier than the other.

For other energy sources what % of the prices at each level rely on some sort of government subsidy?

THe article says that in Dubai there are no subsidies

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