One of the issues with Cape Wind, the off-shore wind farm in Massachusetts, is their cost of electricity. Depreciating the cost of a wind farm over 30 years still required special payment terms to compete against the low-cost coal and natural gas power plants in the free market power grid of Massachusetts.
When libertarians claim “let the free market decide” they refuse any support for advancing technology with alternative energy incentives, regardless of the long-term non-economic gains such as cleaner air and less use of water to generate electricity. Phrases like “cleaner air” or “less clean water used” have no value in the equations of libertarians and free market economists.
“Cleaner air” and “less clean water used” have value beyond a market price. There should be investments in promising technology that have long-term social and environmental benefits. Clean air and less demand for water are essential for our long-term existence. Just “letting the market decide” stifles innovation. It could be possible to tax the polluters and reward the “cleaners.” Where “cleaners” would include generating energy from solar, wind, geothermal and others.
The most efficient way to develop breakthrough technology is for the government to cover the up-front cost of Research & Development. We’ve done this before with the atomic bomb, the space program and we need to do it again to develop Hydrogen Fusion.
How is a Hydrogen Fusion Power plant, expecting to cost tens of billions of dollars going to compete in this free market? The barriers to entry are prohibitive for new technology, but these barriers will only delay the inevitable. We know more and more alternative technology will be deployed. Investing it the technology up front will accelerate the outcome.