Renewable energies need to be subsidized, if there is a collective consensus around their necessity, and if technologies are not mature enough, Vincent Schachter, Head of Renewable Energies Dpt at TOTAL, affirmed at the Conference "Debating responsible innovation in Built in renewable energies and architecture" organized by the Observatory for Responsible Innovation on November 16th at MINES ParisTech.
It is completely normal to substitute emerging new technologies to old ones, the same happened for technological revolutions in the past such as the IT revolution in California, and new techs, that all came from massive subsidies to the emerging industries that help tiggering them. But it is necessary to act on the level that we can act on, norms, regulations, to think where countries subsidize, and how, in order to create leverage and maximum value for the involved partners. How do we consider the value chains in the photovoltaic industry for example. Do we want to subsidize the production of manufactured cells, or massive subsidies distributed in the production of downstream technological products would create more jobs? The necessity of rethinking those objectives and balances is the top priority
More information on http://www.debatinginnovation.org/