"it didn't get there under its own power" Existing power infrastructure has already paid its capital costs, meaning they have a massive incumbent advantage. Co

"it didn't get there under its own power" Existing power infrastructure has already paid its capital costs, meaning they have a massive incumbent advantage. Coal and gas power also haven't historically had to pay for their externalities, which is another distortion in their favor. This means that without extra incentives, you're stuck with coal until the plants need to be replaced, which essentially means until something truly magical happens or forever, whichever comes first. So, you can look at the subsidies for solar as offsets for the incumbent advantages and externality subsidies enjoyed by fossil fuels. Meanwhile, the LCOE of solar has improved exponentially with scale and semiconductor improvements, which gets close to the 'something magical.'