How excellent, we are saved, stop the subsidies!

The climate change problem always was weaning industrial society off fossil fuels. Do that and - as the IPCC itself points out - we’re done. So, this is excellent news:

More than nine in 10 renewable power projects globally are now cheaper than fossil fuel alternatives. Solar power is about 41% cheaper than the lowest-cost fossil fuel alternative, and onshore wind generation is less than half the price of fossil fuels, according to a report from the International Renewable Energy Agency.

So, we’re done then. All new energy installations will wholly naturally be renewables given their cost benefit. As the current fossil powered infrastructure comes up for renewal and rebuild it will be replaced with those renewables. We’re done, we’ve saved the world.

So, clearly and obviously, given that we’re already done we can stop the subsidies, the laws, the insistences and the planning. Problem’s already solved.

Great, eh?

Hmm, what’s that? The subsidies, the laws, the plans and the insistences must continue? But then that’s an insistence that renewables are not, in fact, cheaper. Yes, yes, we know this is politics but even there trying to have it both ways is something frowned upon.

So, which is it? Renewables are cheaper and do not require either forcing or subsidy or renewables are not cheaper and do require forcing and subsidy?

Tim Worstall