The Distributed Energy Blogs

The problem with the energy analysis is that the author fails to account for the existing subsides for conventions energies he uses in his comparisons to "renewables." The same analysis is more than appropriately applied in the reverse; that is, the full costs of conventional energy must be taken into account, such as tax subsidies, credits, depreciations, write-offs, loss carry overs; use of the military and defense contractors to secure shipping routes for conventional energy sources, destruction of entire countries to secure access to conventional energy sources and transportation routes (i.e., Iraq and Afghanistan respectively), etc.
There’s actually already and five year study that definitively shows that just by calculating the direct government sponsored subsidies to the corporations who extract and produce conventional energy, the entire industries’ net profits are slightly less than the cost of the direct subsidies. In other words, in real dollars conventional energy sources are slightly unprofitable if all subsidies and price supports were removed. This is completely absent from discussion in the article.
So while your question on a conversation regarding this article is needed, the framing of the argument regarding subsidies as related to renewable energy sources is entirely false and the wrong questions are being asked.