So we should cut off subsidies agreed on 10 years ago during renewables learning curve to make it even? The renewable subsidies existing for new builds today are miniscule in Europe, which is where we are making the decisions based on.
How many Hinkley Point Cs costing ~€0.15/kWh to the consumers, very similar to energy crisis prices, should we fund just so you can stop complaining about past history for renewables?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_...
To put down to facts, Europe paid 172 billions in 2021 on energy subsidies. This is 54% increase since 2015. 76 billions went to renewables. Between 2019 and 2020 the amount going to renewables increased by 7%, while between 2020 and 2021 it decreased by 3%. The second largest recipient of subsidies was fossil fuel energy with 50 billions. Subsidies for nuclear has remain mostly stable since 2015, sitting at around 4 billions, but with Germany closing several plants last year it has now increased to 7 billions. (The report do not consider R&D to be subsidies, so ITER is not included).
We should not try to make things "even". We should cut fossil fuel subsidies and decommission the fossil fuel plants that operate as reserve energy. The cost of high variability in the grid should not be carried through tax money. Market forces can't be applied correctly when taxes are being funneled to fix a problem caused by using high variability energy production.
Subsidies to renewables are slowly being reduced. It is no longer a given that grid connections will be given out for free and paid by taxes. Both nuclear and renewables should also carry their own weight and not have price guaranties. Companies that need those should have the cost baked into the energy price.
A solution that is acknowledged by the European report but often overlooked is energy usage reduction and increased efficiencies.
The report for those wanted to read it: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELE...
Lets also remove the Price–Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act [2] with equivalents across the world so the nuclear industry has to bear the true insurance cost.
[1]: https://www.lazard.com/research-insights/levelized-cost-of-e...
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price%E2%80%93Anderson_Nuclear...
How expensive is a resounding "No" by insurers?
I would not be completely against demanding that all commercial activity in the energy sector must cover every negative effect on society and the environment. It would in effect ban all fossil fuel, nuclear, and hydro. Would be a fair price to pay for getting rid of fossil fuels.
According to the IEA: "EU electricity consumers are expected to save an estimated EUR 100 billion during 2021-2023 thanks to additional electricity generation from newly installed solar PV and wind capacity"
https://www.iea.org/reports/renewable-energy-market-update-j...
Nuclear get subsidies in term of research, building, deconstruction, waste storage and price guaranties. Around 70% goes to the single fusion research project called ITER (international research, non-military).
Hydro receives an increasing amount of subsidies for repair and modernization. Dam repair and flooding protection is expensive and with climate change there is even bigger need for fixing Europe old hydro power dams. They are also in general non-compliant with the European environmental regulations (several species are going extinct), but that is not a subsidies issues directly. Fixing the dams so they allow for fish to pass is however a subsidies issue, but as far the budget to fix that has yet to be allocated and the costs are estimated to be exceedingly high.
And last we have fossil fuel subsidies. A large portion of the "reserve energy" plan in eu in order to address increased gird variability is based on keeping a large number of fossil fuel plants on stand-by, paid through subsidies. Then there is subsidies on extracting the fuel itself, subsidies on trading fuel, and subsidies on storage of the fuel, and transportation of the fuel. This is not accounting for the environmental cost from burning fossil fuels, which some see as a form of subsidies.
Subsidies-like part not included are insurance against nuclear accidents, insurance against floods from dam failures, and insurance against forest fires. It is also not accounting for land usage nor damage to wildlife.