There Is No Free Market In Energy
/Remember, if you ever hear a politician preaching an "all of the above" energy policy and that we can't "pick winners and losers" - what they're really advocating is business as usual. And they're advocating for avoiding difficult choices.
Because our policies absolutely prioritize certain fuels over others.
If someone ever, really, advocated for a true free market in energy, where no one receives subsidies, tax breaks, or special deals - that's a deal the renewable energy lobby would accept in a heartbeat, and a deal the fossil fuel lobby would violently reject.
That's the tradeoff. We subsidize fossil energy because to do otherwise would raise the cost of fossil energy. But the higher cost of fossil energy would make renewables far more competitive and speed their adoption.
As is the case for many policy decisions, it's a choice of if you want the pain now in terms of the economic damage of higher energy prices, or the pain later in terms of greater energy transition challenges and climate impacts.
