Sadly, it’s just not. Looking at just the price to generate is just too one sided. Renewables need a lot of expensive infrastructure due to being decentralized, land which you might not have, and experts that are already in huge shortage. Energy storage especially is hard and expensive with current technology due the massive amount of rare earth metals you need for it, and even the current largest storage facility can’t even provide enough energy for 2 million people let alone 8 billion of them.
TL:DR; currently, renewables + nuclear + storage is the closest we can get to carbon neutral. With just renewables and storage you don’t get anywhere close and are still forced to fall back on either fossil, (stored) hydro, or nuclear. Of which the only really viable green option for most places is nuclear. When the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing, when the alternative is the exact pollution we are trying to nullify, that should be more important than paying a few cents more per kWh. In that moment the cost for renewables might as well be infinite if they’re not producing anything and we don’t have enough batteries to store it.
Sadly, it’s just not. Looking at just the price to generate is just too one sided. Renewables need a lot of expensive infrastructure due to being decentralized, land which you might not have, and experts that are already in huge shortage. Energy storage especially is hard and expensive with current technology due the massive amount of rare earth metals you need for it, and even the current largest storage facility can’t even provide enough energy for 2 million people let alone 8 billion of them.
I calculate it and explain it in even more depth here: https://lemmy.world/comment/13508867
TL:DR; currently, renewables + nuclear + storage is the closest we can get to carbon neutral. With just renewables and storage you don’t get anywhere close and are still forced to fall back on either fossil, (stored) hydro, or nuclear. Of which the only really viable green option for most places is nuclear. When the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing, when the alternative is the exact pollution we are trying to nullify, that should be more important than paying a few cents more per kWh. In that moment the cost for renewables might as well be infinite if they’re not producing anything and we don’t have enough batteries to store it.