Tax oil, subsidize renewables and nuclear construction (but not operation). That'll do a lot towards building in the incentives that are currently being lost to free-rider and tragedy-of-the-commons.
Renewable and nuclear power today, consume more energy in the making of them, then they produce (over 10 to 20 years).
Subsidizing them won't help - there isn't enough energy available.
If you take the long view, more then 20 years, the picture changes, but few renewables last that long. Only nuclear does.
But since no bank wants to loan money with a payout of longer than 20 years, nuclear doesn't get built. That's why they talk about loan guarantees for nuclear power.
There is no free-rider or tragedy-of-the-commons going on here.
> Renewable and nuclear power today, consume more energy in the making of them, then they produce (over 10 to 20 years).
I don't think that's true. [1]
> But since no bank wants to loan money with a payout of longer than 20 years, nuclear doesn't get built.
That's an oversimplification. There are numerous reasons why nuclear isn't being built, not the least of which are the various NIMBY and other environmental concerns, and the fact that things like Thorium reactors have yet to regain popularity due to the push for weapons-grade-yielding nuclear technology over the last several decades.
Energy is the input to every single thing humans do. If you tax energy then the price of _everything_ will go up.
You can't build a wind turbine without energy. If wind turbines produce less energy than it takes to make them, you are stuck.
As it turns out wind turbines produce more, but not a lot more. Solar cells produce less.
Even nuclear power just barely produces more than the energy used to build the plant (at least in the first 10-20 years).