Here is the thing with investments into Green Tech. The economically proper thing to do would be to have Pigovian taxes on pollution, and let the market sort out how to achieve the lowest pollution levels. I think > $1 trillion in new taxes, even if they were offset by reductions in income tax, etc, wouldn't really go over well. But that's the Right Solution (TM).
So we're stuck with things like subsidizing Green Tech.
Why can't we just build new, safer nuclear power like India, China, Japan, and basically everyone else are building right now? Whoops, the left has demonized nuclear power so much in this country that people fear it more than coal!
It always sounds great to be "investing" in infrastructure or energy or whatever. But pols don't invest, they cater to voting blocks. Politics can't solve these problems.
The right has been just as much of an impediment. All the places it makes sense to store nuclear waste are red states who don't want it in their back yard. And their going apoplectic at any country trying to develop nuclear technology doesn't help the public perception.
The reality is that the market left alone won't solve these problems, and politics can't solve them perfectly. What you're left with is the state of human existance: muddling along.
Taxes are dodge-able, additionally, they have a long lead time (accountants have to establish that YUP THIS IS PERMANENT and make recommendations to the business departments) then and only then do prices definitely stay in the place that makes green tech cheaper.
Additionally, if no green tech change occurs, then you're stuck with the job losses by lower consumption of the good you're taking, but don't get the job gains of the good you're hopping will spring up to replace it.
So from a economics perspective, seems like it might be the pure way to go. From a policy perspective, it's iffy.
Subsidizing never, ever created a good solution.
It always makes poor solutions, that cost more than they are worth.
Compare to subsidizing medicaments.
When they are subsidized then they cost more then when government lifts the subsidy.
If you want a good solution then make it fight for life in the current market, eventually it might win - in this case you will really get a good solution.
Ideological handwaving never results in a good argument.
Here is the basic problem with the market for energy. Say I give you the choice of two candy bars: one costs you $1.00, the other costs you $0.75 and also costs some random third party $0.75. Which do you pick? The latter, of course. Everyone always picks the latter, and the end result is economically inefficient.
This is the same choice when it comes to energy. A Harvard study found that the externalized costs of coal range from $350-500 billion: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/16/us-usa-coal-study-.... Fully half the true cost of coal power is externalized to people outside the transaction of power producers/power users. The market doesn't yield efficient results when costs can be externalized like this. That's Econ 101 level knowledge. There are only two ways to fix this market failure: either tax coal power to reflect the externalized costs, or subsidize green tech to compensate. In our political system new taxes are pretty much impossible, hence we adopt the latter solution.
Gasoline prices are already subsidized. We spend megabucks on aid to the middle east, wars, etc there that isn't paid for by the users of the oil pumped from there.
So we're stuck with things like subsidizing Green Tech.