That's not quite the accusation and while you will likely disagree with the observation, I'd hope for a more fair representation of it.
For those of us across the political aisle (so to speak), the issue with the NYT is that they slant away from conclusions or present a muddled set of facts to discourage reaching a clear conclusion when it would contradict what would be a commonly accepted truth on the left. Or to frame it differently, when there is a narrative violation, the conclusion becomes whispered or is turned upside down. But when there is no narrative violation, then all is clear.
Just as one (justifiably!) rolls one's eyes at a certain network's claim of "Fair and balanced", some of us also roll our eyes at the old grey lady and her "newspaper of record" aura. Not as often, but it is a problem for the NYT too.
This seems like something a futures market should be able to cover?
Ie there are consumers that need reliable power, and there are reliable power sources. They should be able to come to an agreement, despite cheap but unreliable spot sources in the market?
The trouble is that you can’t just plug a “reliable power plant” in or off the grid. It takes hours (that’s “quick” here) or days to power on/off.
You need batteries to cope (e.g. hydro power plants) and there’s not enough of them now.
A quick Google search for 'electricity futures' reveals quite a few hits. So this is already a thing.
Please cite your credible source saying that wind energy is currently profitable in practice without subsidies in more than a tiny fraction of areas on earth.
Wind energy is not viable everywhere, but in places with no NIMBY concerns, lots of rural land, and lots of wind, wind energy is perfect. Much of the US plains (especially the closer you get to the Rockies) fits this category for instance. Iowa, not exactly a mecca of environmentalism, is 35% powered by wind now; this is estimated to rise to 40% by 2020. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_Iowa)
A quick google for "unsubsidized wind power profitability" turned up a bunch of interesting things, though I didn't delve too deeply into any of them.
Am I (along with the rest of the world, who would be dancing in the streets, dedicating trillions of dollars to deploying wind towers in every corner of the earth at this very moment, and writing thousands of credible articles about how the world’s energy problems have been solved if this were true) missing something?
Edit: the green folks are coming in and downvoting these comments like crazy. Could one of you please justify your downvote by replying with a link to a credible article that shows wind energy to be profitable without subsidies in non-exceptional places? I think everyone would love to see it, including myself! Google doesn’t seem to know about this very special, world-changing article. Perhaps it is protected with an overly aggressive robots.txt.
[1] https://www.dallasnews.com/business/energy/2017/10/13/texas-...
Economically competitive wind power would be an earth shattering development. If it exists, there would be articles about it everywhere. Everyone on HN would be getting jobs at wind farm startups, and trillions of investment would be pouring in. Venture capitalists would be walking the streets to find wind farm entrepreneurs that have hidden their contact info because of the overwhelming number of term sheets being thrown at them. Bakeries throughout the Valley would be offering turbine-shaped gluten-free cupcakes to VC’s, who would include them with their hand-delivered term sheets in hopes that theirs gets a little bit of extra attention from picky entrepreneurs.
I want it to exist too, I just see no evidence that it does.
Renewable energy has a lot less external costs, i.e. negative effects such as global warming, pollution, etc. On a national or global scale, these costs should be accounted for in any study comparing economical competitiveness. Just looking at the balance sheets of energy companies and their costs vs. income is a bit short-sighted.
If it’s unprofitable it needs to be subsidised. That’s not bad per se. But you can’t run around arguing it’s profitable when it doesn’t appear to be.
"We therefore note that wind is now cost competitive with new coal-based generation capacity."
“Over the past 12 months, across key wind states, except Karnataka, the wind tariff has been raised
...
Generation Based Incentive (GBI) restored: In its FY2014 (April 2013-March 2014) budget the GoI reintroduced GBI for wind power.
...
During the past 12 months, we have seen various states announcing their wind and/or solar installation targets (refer to table 3).
...
The GoI has committed to providing low interest- bearing funds from the National Clean Energy Fund (NCEF) for five years to the Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (IREDA), the nodal agency providing debt finance to renewable projects in India.“
[1] https://natgrp.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/india-renewables-...
[1] http://www.faz.net/aktuell/wirtschaft/technikwissenschaften-...
I know this isn't a satisfying answer, but hopefully the changes in the EU will provide a real-life example before too long.
> Wind has been profitable for years and years even without government handouts
which does not match with
> Unfortunately, I can't give you my source, as it's from a friend who worked at one of the turbine manufacturers
I'd say you wouldn't have to rely on an unnamable source if it were profitable for years.
As I understand it, the real problem is two-fold. Firstly, wind isn't reliable, and if you have too much wind power feeding into your electrical grid but don't have enough storage, the entire grid becomes unreliable. Secondly, wind turbines cost about the same whether they're producing power or not, meaning that they're always feeding power into the grid if the market price is above zero. This takes money away from more reliable power sources - coal, gas, hydro, storage - and can drive them out of business.
That's a more complicated problem than "NYT is a left-wing conspiracy", and it's harder to solve.