Answer by Mike Barnard:
Summary: Remove hidden subsidies on other forms of electricity generation and provide accurate accounting and costing for negative externalities. Under accurate, level-playing field accounting, renewables are much less expensive than alternatives and would be built out much more rapidly. There would still be a place for significant hydro and nuclear for base load, coal would disappear and natural gas would be used much more sparingly. The US Production Tax Credit (PTC) and the various Feed-in-Tariff (FIT) programs attempt to level the playing field without unwinding decades of entrenched mechanisms that tilt the market heavily in favour of traditional forms of generation.
- Eliminate hidden subsidies for fossil fuels and fossil fuel generation.
In the United States, credible estimates of annual fossil fuel subsidies range from $10 billion to $52 billion annually.[1]
[5]
[9]
- Eliminate hidden subsidies and support for nuclear power.
[2]
- Require coal generation to pay more or all of its negative externalities of 17.8 cents / KWh:
[3]
- Quantify and require natural gas generation to pay some or all of the negative externalities of fracking, GHGs (50 times higher than wind or nuclear although much better than coal) and pollution, presumed to be lower than coal but still in the range of 5-10 cents per KWh. [4]
[6]
[8]
Removing these hidden subsidies which society is paying makes the costs of wind — currently at 5-8 cents per KWh in decent sites and expected to be at grid parity by 2014 — and solar seem like a bargain.
References:
[1] http://priceofoil.org/fossil-fue…
[2] http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/doc…
[3] http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/s…
[4] http://oilprice.com/Energy/Natur…
[5] http://cleantechnica.com/2011/10…
[6] http://www.naturalgas.org/enviro…
[7] How effective are wind turbines compared to other sources of energy?
[8] http://en.openei.org/apps/LCA/
[9] http://www.nytexaminer.com/2012/…
Ricardo Teamor Blog 