The Economist is running an unscientific poll on whether or not government should continue to subsidize renewable energy. Wouldn’t it be fun to see free market energy policy trump solar subsidies? On the “con” side, which happens to be the side of science and reason, is Robert L. Bradley, Jr. of the Institute for Energy Research. Bradley concludes:
The future belongs to the efficient. Efficient energies are those naturally chosen by consumers who know their needs better than an intelligentsia and/or central planners. Government-dependent energies, ipso facto, breed crony capitalism under which rent-seeking by private companies corrupts the political process.
We-the-people energy relegates renewable energy to niche applications (off-grid solar, for example). This is where it should stay in a world where more than 1 billion people need access to the most economic energy, and the rest of the world where economic growth leads to better living.
