Some enjoy the advantages of whites/males having more than a fair share of power. Equality would make them compete against everyone.

Some just have personalities that make them wary of change. For them, change is scary and not an adventure.

And then there are the corporate interests, the fossil fuel industries, who have everything to lose when we quit using their products.

They talk about a “free market”, but they don’t believe in a free market. They believe in a market that is structured to assist them. And they look at things which even out the market, but take away their advantages, as harming the free market that exists only in their heads. They refuse to acknowledge the market advantages they enjoy.

So we’ve got one group who is fighting for their own fortunes who have recruited the ‘wary of change’ by feeding them a lot of FUD about what change is and could bring.

Question: Why are free market ideologists only critical about support for renewable energy and not about support for fossil fuels?

Answer: They are not really free market ideologists, but defenders of the status quo.

It won’t be long before the majority of people will be generating their own electricity through solar. But also, cheap clean solar energy can provide real solutions for some of the poorest people in the world.

In Kenya, many people are now able to afford solar power systems that are big enough to provide lights and mobile phone charging for individual rural households.

For people who otherwise depend on candles or kerosene lamps for light at night, the benefits are substantial – reducing fire risks, carbon emissions, indoor air pollution and respiratory diseases, while stimulating micro-enterprises and improving school results.

I work for an international development charity called Practical Action, and we are using solar power in drought-stricken areas of Kenya to provide safe, clean water using a solar powered water pump. You can find out more about this project here: http://bit.ly/10fEiJK

The future of solar is certainly brighter than ever – and not just for those in the developed world.

On the other hand, what you propose is the government deciding which research and which companies/universities deserve support. That is government picking winners and losers. Where did I hear that before?

So, if you are a free market enthousiast you should LOVE the ptc.

Our future grid will almost certainly be a combination of wind, solar and other renewables along with enough storage to make them work. The more electricity we can use directly from the source, the less storage we will have to install.

Market forces will see that wind plays a major role on the grid. Storage does not create energy, it’s an added cost to electricity regardless of what the generation source is.

As a student of the mythical free market you should have instantly recognized this. While there are no free markets, never have been, probably won’t ever be, there are market forces. And, when not too heavily interfered with, move activity to the lowest cost suppliers.

Solar-directly used and wind-directly used are cheaper than stored-solar and stored-wind. Even if solar were to drop a penny or two below wind the extra cost of stored solar would not make it competitive with wind used fresh from the turbine.

That’s your market reality lesson for today.

Chew on it.

High and rising price on fossil carbon, injected back into the wider economy as equally and broadly as possible (decades-long payroll tax holiday or simple monthly checks to everyone). Let the market figure out how to kill oil & gas. Let the market work.