Plunging costs make solar, wind and battery storage cheaper than coal

Re:Plunging costs make solar, wind and battery storage cheap... by maoistinquisitr on Monday January 29, 2018 @01:11PM (#16259354)

If you can highlight a plant that is not a "tax farm" I would be interested to read about it.

"we get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. That's the only reason to build them. They don't make sense without the tax credit." --Warren Buffet

This illustrates the reality of every "renewable" facility I've heard of to date. If the business case has changed just now, that's great and I look forward to the future. But most of what I've seen has been very silly industry propaganda.

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Re:Plunging costs make solar, wind and battery storage cheap... by bufferoverflow on Monday January 29, 2018 @01:24PM (#16259461)

Some areas have produced cheaper energy without subsidies as far as 2014. See pages 2-4. It's way better now, since the solar prices went down so much.

https://www.deutschebank.nl/nl/docs/Solar_-_2014_Outlook_Let...

And to answer your question about non-tax-farm, I don't know. If the government gives a subsidy, why wouldn't you take it even if you're profitable without it?

Subsidies alone don't prove that the solar farms are not profitable.

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Re:Plunging costs make solar, wind and battery storage cheap... by politician on Monday January 29, 2018 @01:20PM (#16259430)

Is the 40GW of production in China a "tax farm"? Your argument that "solar is a gimmick because tax subsidies" seems flawed when international counterexamples are considered.

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Re:Plunging costs make solar, wind and battery storage cheap... by maoistinquisitr on Monday January 29, 2018 @01:29PM (#16259489)

> Is the 40GW of production in China a "tax farm"?

According to everything I can find online the answer is a clear Yes?

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Re:Plunging costs make solar, wind and battery storage cheap... by phil248 on Monday January 29, 2018 @09:43PM (#16262504)

What you call a "tax farm" is traditionally called industrial policy, and it has an exceptionally good track record.

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Re:Plunging costs make solar, wind and battery storage cheap... by phil248 on Monday January 29, 2018 @09:40PM (#16262493)

It's almost as if initial government investment has allowed the technology to advance to the point that it no longer requires subsidy to be cost effective. Kind of like every other major industrial and technological breakthrough over the last 100 years.

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