But with the level of compensation people think energy producers should pay to offset their "negative externalities" -- if governments forced them to pay it, the price of energy would rise by a huge amount, disrupting the economy, and making the previous calculation of the externalities meaningless.

Even the renewables would then need more subsidies, to pay for increased manufacturing costs and the fuel for the trucks that repair their transmission lines.

Point is its obviously misleading to say that fossil fuels are more heavily subsidied than renewables. People who hear that will assume that fossil fuel companies are being given taxpaper money, as the renewable companies are, when that is not the case. I don't think lumping together "companies that receive free money" and "companies we think should be fined" is an honest way to frame the situation.