But Sunil and others are naive if they think it is likely that subsidies will flow to alternative energy sources as well. The in-place oil/nat. gas/coal industries have no interest in spawning competitors, and it is easy for them to keep the money from flowing. (Look, for example, how oil and coal have co-opted the DOE, and gotten billions of Federal dollars to be spent on the worthless “hydrogen economy”).

No. If you really want to introduce a new energy technology, (and not just make a bunch of money off your hapless investors) then you need to develop a strategy that does NOT include subsidies. If the subsidies are there, fine, but the business plan needs to be viable without them as well. I guess that would probably eliminate wind, PV, ethanol, and several strategies as well. A few good ideas do remain, but they are few and far between.

Yes, wind was built on subsidies. And wind was killed when the subsidies dried up. But by that time the entrepeneurs had moved on to other things, leaving their investors holding the worthless stock they sold them.

I hope Sunil and others who follow in his footsteps make huge gains on their risky investments, and soon. And here’s to Exxon and the rest following their lead.