Double whammy, we could say? This is a lesson for any positive change: ethics only brings you so far, but find the economical way to do it and the change will work by itself.
Finding the economical way to do it costs a lot of money. The economies of scale that solar needed to reach before it became the low cost option were built on enormous subsidies from Germany, China and others.
Then let's also add the state-owned coal/fossil companies kept artificially afloat, producers tax expenditures, publicly funded rail transport or handling infrastructure or water systems, subsidized coal electricity prices... then indeed we can discuss apples to apples.
Add in the cost of all the wars in the Middle East as well.
can't help but wonder if the aggregate of the solar PV subsidies made in the last 25 years are higher or lower than the aggregate of energy price subsidies made when the Ukraine and/or Iran wars made fossil fuel prices spike...
Anyone got verifiable references?
True, but ethics got us to the point where solar was economical. It's never just been about ethics, it's been about getting it to this point where it's cheaper.
Only in an environment where we continue to let a handful greedy people at the top control everything for the other 8B of us...