You seem to be fixating on the word "market". I don't mean that in a liberal economic way. Electricity markets are natural monopolies and need intervention.

You seem to be fixating on the word "market". I don't mean that in a liberal economic way. Electricity markets are natural monopolies and need intervention. That is what subsidies are. The energy markets let you bundle up different issues into a single price per kwh. But that doesn't always work. For example in the UK there are capacity markets that give fixed payments for reliable capacity. Most of which are fossil fuel power stations. You are trying to simplify things too much. Unpicking a few factoids to make an argument. The advantage of this kind of energy market is that individual companies don't have to do that. Small developers don't need to worry about building backup for their solar panels. And nuclear power stations can take on a big risk. All bundles into the price. But all this is specific to particular markets. No idea what is going on in the USA and as a European I assume it is probably a mess.