> - 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.
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/...
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.
Australia would disagree: https://www.energy.gov.au/news/new-energy-plan-daily-window-...
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.
Australia hasn't shot itself in the foot like EU's self inflicted policies.
Becaude, as we all know, taxpayer-funded == free.
And we banned nuclear, since it's scary.
It's not taxpayer funded, the grid has an overabundance of daytime solar that exceeds their capacity to store it.
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.
Even though the power here (North Central Queensland) isn't too expensive, Ergon is run with an aim to make a profit [1] [2] even if the last few years more infrastructure seems to be needing repairs due to changes in weather conditions and or replacing ancient old or relatively new poor quality wooden poles.
Given the power here has periods where it barely goes a day without blinking out, or line repairs that can take almost 2 days now after a somewhat mild storm, there's been a large uptake of solar power panels, those that knew hooked up Island style where they can feed in their own small generator to take advantage of the panels during the day if there was no grid power, more recently batteries have become more affordable, making installation worthwhile.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergon_Energy
[2] https://www.energyq.com.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/20658... [pdf]
>Operating and financial review
The Company’s profit after income tax equivalent expense was $80.919 million for the year (2023: $225.754 million loss). Revenue from sales of electricity is higher when compared to 2023 due to an increase in notified prices as published by the Queensland Competition Authority in 2024. Residential and small business tariff rates increased significantly for 2024 with price rises of 29 percent and 27 percent respectively. Large business tariff rates rose between seven and 17 percent. Expenses are marginally lower compared to 2023 predominantly due to a reduction in fair value losses. More stable electricity trading conditions contributed to lower market movements on forward electricity derivative contracts.
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.
Or that Germany shares electricity with the EU, so that everyone is getting subjected to those pains with fuel sources being cut.
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...