We constantly hear how solar and wind energy is already cheaper than fossil fuels. A few months ago, Bloomberg Business declared that ”wind power is now the cheapest electricity to produce in both Germany and the U.K., even without government subsidies.”
If renewable energy is cheaper than dirty fossil fuels, why isn’t everyone adopting them? Are we so irrationally addicted to polluting energy sources that we won’t even embrace cheaper and cleaner alternatives?
Well, as you might have guessed, it turns out that wind and solar energy isn’t cheaper than fossil fuels in the real world. Quite the opposite.
A new report from the same Bloomberg now warns that if subsidies are phased out by 2020 in the U.K, the renewable industry will dry up and drop off a cliff. But if they’re already cheaper now, why on earth would it matter if we stop paying even more for wind after 2020?
With formidable doublespeak, Greenpeace tries to square this circle by saying that renewables are both competitive and need subsidies for many years after 2020: “Wind and solar energy are at the point of becoming really competitive with fossil fuels, but failure to support them for another few years will result in huge losses of potential jobs.”
That is a claim we’ve heard many times since the 1970s - just a few more years of subsidies, and we’ll be off. In 1976 Lovins told us that “a largely or wholly solar economy can be constructed in the United States with straightforward soft technologies that are now demonstrated and now economic or nearly economic.” And it still isn't.
mo
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/wind...-fuels-bjorn-lomborg?trk=pulse_spock-articles
If renewable energy is cheaper than dirty fossil fuels, why isn’t everyone adopting them? Are we so irrationally addicted to polluting energy sources that we won’t even embrace cheaper and cleaner alternatives?
Well, as you might have guessed, it turns out that wind and solar energy isn’t cheaper than fossil fuels in the real world. Quite the opposite.
A new report from the same Bloomberg now warns that if subsidies are phased out by 2020 in the U.K, the renewable industry will dry up and drop off a cliff. But if they’re already cheaper now, why on earth would it matter if we stop paying even more for wind after 2020?
With formidable doublespeak, Greenpeace tries to square this circle by saying that renewables are both competitive and need subsidies for many years after 2020: “Wind and solar energy are at the point of becoming really competitive with fossil fuels, but failure to support them for another few years will result in huge losses of potential jobs.”
That is a claim we’ve heard many times since the 1970s - just a few more years of subsidies, and we’ll be off. In 1976 Lovins told us that “a largely or wholly solar economy can be constructed in the United States with straightforward soft technologies that are now demonstrated and now economic or nearly economic.” And it still isn't.
mo
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/wind...-fuels-bjorn-lomborg?trk=pulse_spock-articles