Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) tirelessly produces data points in lieu of simple rhetoric to steer the discussion on renewable energy onto a rational footing. Their latest levelized cost of energy calculations (LCOE) revealed that wind is cost-competitive with gas- and coal-fired electricity generation in the UK and Germany, after accounting for the cost of carbon through the formal European Union Emissions Trading System (which runs at lower levels currently than the range of social cost of carbon estimates that the US government assumes).

And last night, the Wall Street Journal concluded that a majority of players in the US electricity markets may not contest the latest Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) regulations for emissions and renewable energy quotas because economics will make renewables and lower emitting natural gas power generation.

Transitions and change are so much easier when what’s right to do overlaps with what’s economically optimal to do. Looks as if renewables are getting closer to that sweetspot.