You've got the right idea, but I doubt it will happen this way. The pattern is for companies to wait until government takes the big risks and makes the initial investments, then they move in and cream the profits off the top. I worked for years in the remote sensing/image processing industry and that's what happened there when the Reagan administration "privatized" the technology. It was essentially a giveaway to the private sector, and to add insult to injury, the companies lobbied to have their profits guaranteed by the Fed. Something very similar happened with nuclear power, not only did the Feds do the initial research and funding, they turned over the technology to the utilities and even subsidized their insurance costs, as well as provide regulation and "public relations" to reassure the public. The companies never did make the investment to manage the wastes, they kept on demanding the government do it, and that has pretty much finished that industry in the US.

Sometimes the government has to bite the bullet and make the initial investment and risk to get a vital industry rolling, but that should be done up front and under public scrutiny and congressional oversight. What we have now is just welfare for the corporations under a disguise of a lot of free market rhetoric.