Clean Energy Cheap Versus Dirty Energy Expensive

Predictably, the international climate talks in Durban, South Africa yielded little if any real progress, but some truly wonderful rhetoric. In his article Australia Wants Clean Energy Cheap Rather Than Dirty Energy Expensive, Alex Trembath quotes this piece in the Canberra Times:

Our goal should be to create a world with abundant, clean and cheap energy for all. This is an objective that reconciles progress and planet. This is a challenge that can bring rich and poor countries together in a common goal. If we are to address climate change, we must turn to humanity’s familiar benefactor – technological innovation – and apply it to developing better clean energy.

ZZZzzzzzz. Oh, sorry, must have dozed off there.  Yepper, innovation is a good thing, all right.

The question is, pragmatically, how one drives it. As long as we have cheap dirty energy, we’ll have dirty energy. If we don’t have a problem burning coal and generating electricity for $0.03 per kilowatt-hour, why on Earth would investors throw their money away on clean energy?  Now apply this to the United States, where we’re rapidly deregulating everything we can get our hands on.  Is it really that hard to understand why investors are staying far away from the U.S?

ZZZzzzzzz.