> - Investing in alternatives has led to massive new industry that is improving the economy of those countries that do it

That's a baseless claim. For example, Germany has invested massively in solar but its electricity prices went up, not down.

> Gas is the only thing still competitive with solar/wind

That's false. Coal power is cheaper than all of those. Solar and wind include costs for expensive battery backups since they are highly volatile.

And to make it clear: Climate change is very bad so coal plants are very bad. But that doesn't mean you can go around and claim that coal isn't cheap compared to things like solar+batteries. The fact that something is good doesn't imply that it is cheap.

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importantstuff an hour ago | parent | next [-]

This price of electricity is high because gas, which is still expensive, sets the price of electricity most of the time [1]. The levelized cost of electricity for solar (including batteries) and wind is cheaper than coal [2].

[1] https://www.carbonbrief.org/qa-why-does-gas-set-the-price-of... [2] https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/en/press-media/press-releases/...

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consensus1 an hour ago | parent [-]

I will believe it when I see it. The only countries with both cheap and clean electricity are those that built out extensive nuclear or got lucky enough to have access to other forms of cheap base load like hydro / geothermal.

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tapoxi an hour ago | parent [-]

Australia would disagree: https://www.energy.gov.au/news/new-energy-plan-daily-window-...

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phillipinman 41 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

As an Australian I can say that for me personally the free energy periods have been amazing and are an example of the functional free markets making life better for the average person.

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PorciiVorbesc an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Australia hasn't shot itself in the foot like EU's self inflicted policies.

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mjmas an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Becaude, as we all know, taxpayer-funded == free.

And we banned nuclear, since it's scary.

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tapoxi an hour ago | parent [-]

It's not taxpayer funded, the grid has an overabundance of daytime solar that exceeds their capacity to store it.

	▲	mjmas 41 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Here in Queensland the state owns the regional electricity company, Ergon. ∴ most of what they do that doesn't generate money (such as doing free electricity rather than charging for it) is taxpayer-funded.

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tadfisher an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Germany's decommissioned nuclear, and subsequent concentration of base load in Russian gas-fired plants, is certainly a lede your post is doing its best to bury.

	▲	3eb7988a1663 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Or that Germany shares electricity with the EU, so that everyone is getting subjected to those pains with fuel sources being cut.

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XorNot an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Coal isn't cheap. Specifically coal powerplants are not and it's got nothing to do with emissions. One of the pinch points in the Australian power grid has actually been that a bunch of coal plants are aging out and no private enterprise wants to even bother financing their replacement because it's a money loser compared to renewables build out.

Fortunately this is well on it's way to being solved by the massive battery build out which has happened which means evening peak electricity usage has declined enormously[1] - i.e the primary "sun not shining" point of the day is rapidly turning into an energy use low point for the grid (which makes sense: business powers down, people go home and their batteries which have been charging cover cooking - I have an induction cook top and a 10kw inverter covers everything).

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/sep/15/austr...