So what I'm getting here in a nutshell is: You like solar best (and, full disclosure, I do too), for reasons that largely translate into "It's the best and cheapest." To me that implies that's naturally what the market will select if it's forced to move away from things like coal with a carbon tax.
Meanwhile, me I live in corn country. And yes, biomass is a total crapfest, but it's extremely popular with the legislation around here because a lot of moneyed interests stand to make a whole lot more money by convincing legislators to subsidize it. And it's easy enough for them to complete the deal and sell it to the public by choosing a green color scheme for those "10% ethanol" stickers they put on gas pumps. Witnessing those shenanigans firsthand is what makes me extremely suspicious of any forms of subsidy. Excise taxes certainly aren't manipulation-proof, but they seem to be much more resilient to it than subsidies are.
You know what, upon pondering it further and reading your rather excellent case-in-point from your last post, you have totally convinced me.
Fuck subsidies. I believe solar/Nuclear/fusion(heh) will rule the future with or without them. Subsidies tilt the market to and fro without a care about reality, often supporting the wrong ticket.
That's not the political reality we live in though. You can push for some subsidies and tariffs or push against. There is no mechanism to eliminate all of both, even in one country (let alone all countries).
Which means that if there is a market distorting subsidy to one market that you hate (e.g. coal/fracking at the federal level), often the only way to deal with it is create a subsidy or tariff in another (e.g. solar at the local level) as a counter-distortion.
It's also worth bearing in mind that "fuck all subsidies and tariffs" and "let free markets rule" are ideas pushed by carbon-industry funded think tanks (e.g. CATO) when it serves their agenda, but is swept under the carpet when it doesn't (the only solar panel tariffs CATO complained about was the feed in tariff).
To further your point, it wasn't clear (maybe still isn't) which of solar concentrated and PV was going to be more cost efficient. It's not clear which of wind and PV is more cost efficient. These things change year by year as R&D happens. Why should we re-legislate subsidies every 12 months?
Meanwhile, me I live in corn country. And yes, biomass is a total crapfest, but it's extremely popular with the legislation around here because a lot of moneyed interests stand to make a whole lot more money by convincing legislators to subsidize it. And it's easy enough for them to complete the deal and sell it to the public by choosing a green color scheme for those "10% ethanol" stickers they put on gas pumps. Witnessing those shenanigans firsthand is what makes me extremely suspicious of any forms of subsidy. Excise taxes certainly aren't manipulation-proof, but they seem to be much more resilient to it than subsidies are.