World Energy Hits a Turning Point: Solar That's Cheaper Than Wind

Re:World Energy Hits a Turning Point: Solar That's Cheaper T... by lmm on Friday December 16, 2016 @06:25AM (#13192504)

We should tax carbon emissions but we shouldn't subsidize storage. Anyone who developrs efficient storage will be able to make money on the energy markets directly (buy low and sell high). Let solar+storage compete on a level playing field with zero-carbon sources that can offer baseline power without requiring storage (hydro, nuclear, geothermal...)

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Re:World Energy Hits a Turning Point: Solar That's Cheaper T... by crdoconnor on Friday December 16, 2016 @10:32AM (#13193907)

Many governments (state and local) are in a position where taxing carbon isn't a possibility but subsidizing low-carbon forms of generation is.

They should not be handicapped.

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Re:World Energy Hits a Turning Point: Solar That's Cheaper T... by lmm on Friday December 16, 2016 @10:41AM (#13193971)

They shouldn't be subsidizing one form of low-carbon generation but not another. That will distort the market and lead to buying subsidized forms that are more expensive overall.

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Re:World Energy Hits a Turning Point: Solar That's Cheaper T... by crazy2be on Friday December 16, 2016 @03:13PM (#13196358)

I agree in principle, but given the huge proportion of energy which comes from fossil fuels, a carbon tax would have to be huge (and hence unpopular) if it were to match the market competitiveness of subsidies.

That is, to subsidize solar 33% (our current subsidy in the US), you would have to make a carbon tax equivalent to 50% of the current price of fossil fuels, or about $1.50/gal. This is obviously politically untenable in the United States.

The happy medium is probably to do a bit of both, and work toward the middle. Smart, targeted subsidies for carbon-neutral sources, and small, gradually increasing carbon taxes.

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Re:World Energy Hits a Turning Point: Solar That's Cheaper T... by DennisP on Friday December 16, 2016 @07:13PM (#13198108)

You can get away with a higher carbon tax if you return the money to the population.

In fact, there's a fair amount of popular support for basic income. Meanwhile a leading idea for carbon pricing is a flat fee per ton with the money returned to the population, equal amount per capita, which essentially is a small basic income funded by the carbon tax.

British Columbia has a revenue-neutral carbon tax (in their case by reducing payroll taxes accordingly) and reportedly it's popular. The opposition party ran against it and lost.

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Re:World Energy Hits a Turning Point: Solar That's Cheaper T... by SamPhillips on Friday December 16, 2016 @08:02PM (#13198365)

Washington State rejected one, unfortunately, one significant downside of the state solution is that some demand can just easily shift to another location. I wonder if there's a scheme where on state will pass it but only have it come into affect if neighboring states do as well.

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Re:World Energy Hits a Turning Point: Solar That's Cheaper T... by DennisP on Friday December 16, 2016 @10:51PM (#13199076)

A few states' actions wouldn't help much anyway. The real benefit of state carbon pricing was that the fossil industry was starting to come around on a national carbon price, because they'd rather deal with that than a bunch of different state systems.

Between the WA defeat and Trump win, that's probably pushed back a few years.

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