Without heavy subsidies, the solar and wind industries would be nowhere close to where they are today. Hell, most giant hydropower projects were at least subsidized by the government, if not outright government projects.

I'd love it if the private sector was delivering all of our energy today. Maybe if the government had stayed out of it we'd have a lot more decentralized solutions now, but that horse left the barn back in the 1930s if not earlier, and I don't have a Probability Broach.

The way I see it, if you have to have government encourage anything at all, why not an energy technology that can actually deliver the huge amounts of electrical power that will be needed for a growing country that will be fielding an increasing number of electrical solutions for things like transportation?

Power is prosperity. With enough power you can crack coal into fuel, desalinate water, and accomplish a lot more.

We do not live in a civilization that can survive on windmills, and frankly, I wouldn't want to.