this post was submitted on 01 Dec 2025
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So, "green" energy is only cheaper if the government pays for it?
Not really a great argument.
sure it is. governments have more leverage than private actors when doing projecting and costing, and can amortise things more economically.
See also: accessible health care. When the gov is the only consumer - ie no private monopoly and no dual-market slippery-slope - then healthcare becomes accessible and supported by regular income tax.
No, you have it backwards. Fossil fuels were only cheaper because the government was heavily subsidizing it.
*is
That's what holds US gas prices down, subsidies. Helping large scale things be possible is what a government should do. There's many things that wouldn't have happened without the government paying for it.
The kicker is that if they switched to green and took away paying for petroleum, things would collapse, as green alone isn't going to support our society. That's the dead end we've walked ourselves into. It's not one or the other, it's what can we supplement or phase out with a better solution. And that kind of work needs government support, from subsidies to regulations to a supervisor that directs the change vs. relying only on free market.
Let’s find out. When I started advocating for increased renewables, the expected limit was the grid destabilizing at 30% renewables. Now many places are there. I recently read a piece expecting the limit to be about 95% renewables based on scalability of todays grid storage. Were a long way from that, so let’s work toward it and see what improvements we can make along the way
Note: one of the more difficult areas to greenify will be the military, but imagine instead shrinking that as we no longer have to defend petrostates or fossil fuel trade routes
Sure, let's keep going towards the goal of better solutions. Even this meme doesn't say or imply that it has to be all green, and it simply can't. Some things need a high energy density or other features that unfortunately only petroleum has. It really is an amazing substance. That causes problems. Everything has a cost.
Plastics
When the government subsidizes the shit out of the alternatives, yes. But also investing in research for better things means you get better things faster.
Why? The government has better purchasing power than any private corporation and most things, but especially infrastructure become more economic at a greater scale.
Another point is that utilities are natural monopolies, and that the government building and controlling the infrastructure would cut out the profit motive that is currently driving up the cost.
They're already paying for fossil fuels (7$ trillion worldwide)
A government's concern is not in a single area.
For example some counties have free public transport, in part because it's better for the economy as a whole. That wouldn't make sense if public transport is privately owned.