The Economist has long been a bastion of liberal economic thinking, with an honourable history of arguing for free markets and free trade dating right back to the Corn Laws. So it's perhaps not a surprise to read the magazine's argument that governments have wasted vast sums in subsidising solar "energy" companies.
Europe’s solar subsidies have proved not just expensive, but also unreliable. As so often happens with such regimes, their excessive generosity has led to a glut of output, and their cost has risen, leading governments to cut rates. Capacity will probably shrink as a result, discouraging innovation.
But then they blew it. Their preferred solution is as follows:
Above all they must fix a price of carbon that gives innovators the confidence that competing with fossil fuels for the long term will be a rewarding, and perhaps hugely profitable, undertaking. If politics prevent them from setting a substantial carbon price, they might consider requiring utilities to have a carbon-free component to their generating portfolios, as happens in many American states.
Yup, let's pick some "winners". It's straight out of the pages of the Guardian.