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Comment by oldgradstudent | Hacker News Reader

Great, we can stop all incentives for renewable energy now that it is the cheapest way to generate energy.

More seriously, where's the catch?

We can definitely stop incentivize renewables when operators of fossil fuel plants pay for their externalities (including consequences of climate change).

Spoiler: that's impossible because they would immediately go bankrupt.

No need to get into climate change. The externality of pollution alone is much greater than any subsidy. Natural gas wouldn’t go bankrupt and it’s necessary to have natural gas peaker plants when you have renewables.

In this report they state that the cost of fossil fuels is 2.9 trillion in the US alone (this number is higher than the IRENA report and some other analyses). https://energyandcleanair.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/...

But we should look at each fuel individually. According to one study, air pollution costs of coal are 32 cents/kWh, 13 cents/kWh for oil, and 2 cents/kWh for natural gas. Other studies have come up with lower amounts. https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/hidden-costs-fossil-fuels

The catch is that other forms of energy are also greatly incentivised. Arguably even more than renewables (sorry can't be bothered to find a source).

I live in a European country, and the first reaction by most governments here to rising gas prises was to subsidise gas [insert captain Picard facepalm here].

Setting prices in advance can still be good sense as it could be used to guarantee prices lower than wholesale prices when oil becomes expensive.

We still need to build quicker and build more. This just demonstrates which forms of power would make effective use of taxpayer subsidies.

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