However, the subsidies could be viewed as a way to get the renewable industry started as quickly as possible. When fully developed I would hope that the subsidies would be removed.
Nuclear fuel is probably still the best answer. We have had very few problems with the sun's use of nuclear. So it is possible. If the west had not been so intent on making bombs we might not have gone down the uranium route. There are much safer elements that might offer a solution. They might work on a smaller scale, too, so instead of a few gigantic powerstations there could be many smaller ones. This would increase the resiliency of the system and reduce the effects of terrorism, for instance.
The nuclear option therefore gives constant supply (not intermittent like wind and solar), energy independence, low cost, such low use of fuel that it is effectively sustainable and no CO2 emissions. It also has the capability of being even safer than today from a radiation standpoint.
There is an interesting recent comment from Bjorn Lomborg. He claims that the conversion from coal to fracked gas in the US has reduced CO2 emissions by more than all the world's solar and wind energy combined.
We can install wind and solar and we can reduce emissions. The former is not the only way to achieve the latter.
Yes, the carbon tax does reflect that the cost of fossil fuels is artificially low because the costs of pollution is socialized. A tax is meant to make the cost more obvious so consumers can consider the costs when making choices. It is a free market solution. The free market ASSUMES no externalities, and perfect knowledge so consumers can make good choices. It may also be the case that infant industries are heavily subsidized to get them established if the industry is important nationally. The fossil fuel industry had subsidies and special tax cuts to help them get started, as did phone and electric companies.
In an infant industry, prices can decrease as demand increases because as demand increases the producer can get economies of scale. Some of the savings may be passed to the consumer if the producer is competing against an established competitor. You see this everyday in practice - the more you buy, the cheaper it can get up to a point. However, you are correct that in an industry that is mature and competing, there is typically an inverse relationship between price and demand.
I don't think it has anything to do with the cost of "clean energy". What it's saying is that some of the costs of fossil fuels are hidden. Let's say that global warming from fossil fuel usage costs an extra trillion dollars per year--that could be from more intense and costly hurricanes, new water projects needed to deal with drought, displacement from sea level rise, crop failure, whatever--shouldn't those costs be borne by the people responsible for supplying and using those fossil fuels?
If "clean energy" has similar associated costs, then similar taxes should be imposed on it. The same thing goes for nuclear energy, which probably would never have made economic sense if it were made to cover the full costs of the industry.
EDIT: It's interesting that those that deny or downplay AGW can't see a carbon tax as being a tax on carbon--they have to invent alternative explanations for what it is, such as seeing it as a subsidy for renewable energy.
graphicconception has an interesting answer, although one that is highly misleading. When bringing up the sun in reference to nuclear power, he ignores three important things: (1) the sun's energy source is primarily fusion, not fission; (2) the sun uses gravitational confinement, something that is not possible on Earth, and (3) the sun is 93,000,000 miles away from Earth. I'm not sure how we're supposed to accomplish ANY of those things with nuclear power here. He also fails to mention how complex the engineering is associated with nuclear power. Southern California Edison essentially destroyed their two nuclear power plants at San Onofre by attempting to take engineering shortcuts, and TEPCO's Fukushima power plants were not designed to withstand an almost inevitable tsunami, and cleanup costs will be enormous--many tens (or possibly hundreds) of billions of dollars.
This idea is central to past debated in the United States about subsidizing new industries in one way or another. There are famous examples of efforts that turned out well and not so well; the most immediate example that springs to mind is rail transport, which drove the economy in the United States to new heights over the objections of quite a few people. A less successful effort was the canal system, it's profitability blunted in part by the development of the railroads, but still a significant step forward in opening up trade between Cities and ports. Another example of subsidies was (and still is) roads and turnpikes.
Infrastructure does tend to require up front investments, and in the case of developing a new national infrastructure in the U.S. those costs are generally well beyond the ability of a single company-or a coalition of them-being able to finance. In addition, there are issues of compatibility between the various industries, not to mention competition, which often demands the mediation of governing bodies.
Finally, there is the matter of collectively owned natural resources. Here in the United States we sometimes bemoan the poor conditions mass populations of other countries suffer under while their governments-or an elite few-in power profit grotesquely from the exploitation of natural resources that everyone should receive some benefit from as citizens of the country. Some Middle Eastern oil producing countries are prime examples of this which conservatives and liberals alike look at with distaste and say, never here; never will a tyrannical government in collusion with an elite few run our political and economic system, enriching themselves while the masses suffer. Yet, when it comes to our own natural resources and our own system, we sometimes-philosophically, at least, other than token payments or concessons-give up the concept of collective ownership of resources when mining or drilling rights are sold or bartered away. And we turn our gaze away when huge profits are made by selling those very resources back to the general population...or overlook environmental consequences, the costs of which are all too often foisted off on citizens of our own country.
Certainly, those who profit from the conversion of natural resources into useful products deserve to profit from that, but the peripheral costs including evnvironmental, which have so often been borne by consumers and taxpayers over and above the profit margins built into the costs of the products they consume, need to be accounted for as well.
Is a carbon tax the solution? That I cannot say, but obviously it is a form of subsidy and the development of alternative energy sources, still in its infancy, is certainly in keeping with other new technology that was decried and blocked in the early stages of its development in the past.
EDIT: I intended to postulate that I see the carbon tax as an indirect subsidy because it goes to reducing carbon footprints and that involves various investments to do so, which may be paid out by government contracts to industry, tax credits, etc. etc. I should have been more clear and direct in that respect; One issue that I see is earmarks and pork barrel projects that so often divert tax money from its intended purposes, a real concern for both conservatives and liberals alike. I should also note that I am not as well acquainted with the carbon tax plan and who is authoring it as I should be. I appreciate your question bringing that oversight to my attention, I will do a little 'research' (googling) and see what I can learn.
Electricity is a clean form of energy. CO2 is not dirty. When did global warming start to follow CO2 levels and not the direct opposite?
Have the Vostock ice cores been kicked into the political long grass again? When will the scientific community get some integrity and come in from the cold?
Okay. It's cheaper to dump your used motor oil out back of your house, so it'll run down into your neighbor's yard, or into the stream.
As clean energy demand increases, it's cost decreases. Once there is sufficient demand, then it'll be cheaper than fossil fuel.
The opposition to fracking has to do with poisons getting into drinking, and agricultural irrigation water, not to general opposition to fossil fuel.
More an admission that the price of fossil fuels does not include it's true costs to society and the environment.
If they were really about clean energy and efficiency, why would they oppose fracking? In fact they are only about destroying our energy industry at any cost.
Yes it is and those I talked to never said other wise.
A stated goal is to drive the cost of energy from non-preferred sources high enough so people will be forced to find alternatives.
I give them credit for understanding that necessity is the mother of invention, but the pain they are willing to cause in unconscionable.
having more climate related disasters is not cheap either. Either way you pay.
While this may sound like a good plan, wouldn't this just ensure that the cleaner forms of energy never have to become cost efficient. Given that China is creating a coal power plant every week, how are we ever going to convince these types of countries to spend more money, inhibit their own economies in order to reduce their CO2 output, if we blantantly disregard the need to make clean energy cost competitive?
