"The best minds in energy keep underestimating what solar and wind can do."
Of course wind and solar becomes "efficient" when the state arbitrarily funds and supports it. I am certain there is an entire mafia behind this, from the energy companies all the way to the politicians, ensuring that our public funds flow into their hands and that other forms of energy are properly discredited and taxed.
In terms of financial efficiency renewable and nuclear are completely different to fossil fuels.
With a gas power station their is a point at which the fuel is too expensive to compete and the plant is turned off.
With renewable energy the cost is in capital expenditure rather than fuel. It makes sense to run the generator as much as possible, regardless of how little money it makes. In a market dominated by fossil fuels the effective price is therefore always slightly less than the cheapest fossil fuel available. It becomes more valuable as oil or coal prices rise and less valuable as they drop.
Of course that is a ridiculous situation to be in. The only real reason to ever promote renewable energy/ or nuclear is because it is a better product with less negative impact. It is perfectly reasonable that this would cost more than fossil fuel. The only way for a private company to pay off the debt is to charge more than market rates for the energy produced.
And just to add - there are a lot of areas where renewables are already way cheaper or conventional generation just is not appropriate- like solar for replacing diesel generators, offshore wind near large coastal cities(try building a large nuclear plant near NY), there are also a lot of remote places where grid is expensive to maintain etc, etc
Also PV is the simplest, least maintenance power generation source if you need <few KW.
You know those pipelines that carry the oil and gas? They got built using eminent domain to get a lot of their rights of way. That and the depletion allowance add up to fairly substantial subsidies for the fossil fuel industries.
This is exactly what is happening to discredit nuclear as a low-carbon wedge between fossil fuels and totally renewable energy, science and demographics be dammed.
Of course wind and solar becomes "efficient" when the state arbitrarily funds and supports it. I am certain there is an entire mafia behind this, from the energy companies all the way to the politicians, ensuring that our public funds flow into their hands and that other forms of energy are properly discredited and taxed.