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A comment on Solar now ‘cheaper than grid electricity’ in every Chinese city. Parent comment

Re:Solar now ‘cheaper than grid electricity’ in every Chines... by addicted on Tuesday August 13, 2019 @07:52AM (#20684833)
When you consider that governments spend trillions of dollars a year subsidizing fossil fuels (this is not an exaggeration), maybe that’s why it hasn’t been taken up despite it being cheaper? And because like any new technologies there are additional factors, such as fear of different and new, and entrenched interests pushing against the new efforts.

https://www.vox.com/2019/5/17/18624740/fossil-fuel-subsidies...

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Re:Solar now ‘cheaper than grid electricity’ in every Chines... by navigatesol on Tuesday August 13, 2019 @10:16AM (#20686029)
>When you consider that governments spend trillions of dollars a year subsidizing fossil fuels (this is not an exaggeration)

It is an exaggeration, and it's mostly on the consumption side, not production. Why does the OECD come up with $150-$200BB a year in subsidies? Why is the IEA estimate ~$400BB?:

https://www.carbonbrief.org/explainer-the-challenge-of-defin...

The IMF report says a whopping $4.6TT of the $5.2TT are "externalities". I think we all agree externalities exist, but externalities are not subsidies, nor are they easy to price.

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Re:Solar now ‘cheaper than grid electricity’ in every Chines... by roenxi on Tuesday August 13, 2019 @12:24PM (#20687298)
And not only are externalities not subsidies, but looking at what appears to be the original paper [0] it seems that fuels for on-road use area big focus.

Obviously, on-road fuel is not currently competing with solar panels.

[0] https://www.imf.org/~/media/Files/Publications/WP/2019/WPIEA...

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Re:Solar now ‘cheaper than grid electricity’ in every Chines... by the_why_of_y on Tuesday August 13, 2019 @04:45PM (#20690043)
Externalities that aren't priced in are distorting markets and the price mechanism in the same way as subsidies. Estimation certainly looks tricky, but I'd hope they at least get the order of magnitude right.
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