Wind and Solar Are NOT Cheaper than Coal and Oil

[Ptarmigan]

Wind and Solar Are NOT Cheaper than Coal and Oil
https://mises.org/wire/wind-and-solar-are-not-cheaper-coal-and-oil

n his recent address, President Joe Biden claimed that “wind and solar are already significantly cheaper than coal and oil.” This is flat-out wrong. There are many arguments that can be made for Biden’s claim. However, not only can they all be refuted, but they have all already been refuted.

Alex Epstein, in his book Fossil Future: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas—Not Less, explains that two facts are ignored when pretending that wind and solar are cheaper. The first is that

solar and wind exist in large quantities exclusively in places where they are given massive government preferences. When you look at where solar and wind are used, you will invariably find subsidies—that is, the government forcing taxpayers to give money to solar and wind companies. Often, governments actually mandate a certain percentage of solar and wind by law.

These “significantly cheaper” sources only manage to be so when we’re paying indirectly for subsidies to make them cheaper. On top of that, this fact merely discusses the ways in which the prices of energy are otherwise distorted through various laws and incentives. The United States Department of Energy lists 1,854 different laws and incentives currently on the books. There are so many various government interruptions in the market that when I first attempted to download the dataset to look at the laws currently in place, it crashed my computer. Energy is one of the most highly regulated markets in existence, all to create the appearance that wind and solar energy are cheaper than fossil fuels.

Wind and solar are not cheaper and have to be subsidized by the government.

[SVPete]

Cost comparisons are closest to being valid if subsidies are stripped away and the costs of each are calculated from extraction/mining through exhaust or getting worn materials into recycling or landfills.

[Old n Grumpy]

Another factor is how much land solar and wind take up compared to a fossil fuel plant and the amount of energy produced per acre.