Re The Wacky World of Green Energy Power (April 10):

Margaret Wente is half correct. While it is bad economics to distort the market by subsidizing green energy, it is equally unfair to ignore the hidden health-care and climate-change costs of coal-fired electricity and the externalized costs of nuclear power.
 
It should be acknowledged that subsidies to dirty electricity are hidden while green energy subsidies are fully costed, giving green energy an unjustified bad rap as uneconomical.
 
If consumers paid the true cost of coal-fired electricity, as reflected by a carbon tax, and if the accurately costed nuclear power included the hidden liabilities of limited insurance liability, reactor decommissioning costs, stranded debt charges and opportunity costs, then conservation and renewables like wind would become economically viable without subsidies.
 
Frank de Jong, past leader, Green Party of Ontario