The best way to judge any green energy policy

Energy policy is often judged by three criteria: cost, reliability and effect on carbon emissions. That makes good sense.
The energy sector is remarkably politicised. The current infrastructure could probably not be built under the regulatory regime, which may also hinder the development of tomorrow’s green-energy infrastructure. It is not easy to put wind turbines next to the homes of wealthy, well-organised homeowners. So maybe energy policy needs to start with the political questions first. Nuclear fission is green, reliable and (currently) expensive. With further technological advances and some degree of regulatory forbearance, it could become much cheaper. It works just fine in France, Sweden and some parts of the US.
Yet voters do not like or trust nuclear power, and Japan and Germany are shutting it down. The Indian Point nuclear power plant, which helped to power New York City, was closed prematurely two months ago, and only a few policy wonks complained. Not enough people profit directly from nuclear power to keep the sector up and running. For the public utilities it has become a political and public-relations headache. So which green (or greener) energy sources are the most special-interest friendly?
One obvious candidate is solar power, especially when combined with more effective batteries. Many people argue that solar energy isn’t powerful or reliable or storable enough, but few people hate the idea of it. Special-interest groups don’t have a well-developed critique of solar. The production of more batteries for solar power might in fact involve environmental disruptions, but they are relatively invisible and are not focal. They have not stopped the political elevation of solar power.
Electric cars also appear to be relatively special-interest friendly. Tesla now has a much higher valuation than any of America’s legacy automakers, and no government policies stopped this from happening. Electric cars even received government subsidies.
Removing carbon from the air and sequestering it also seems politically acceptable. There are debates over how cheap carbon sequestration will be, but that’s an argument for putting more research and development into this area. Storing carbon, either in plants or underground, does not create highly visible problems. It also might become a profitable line of business for fossil-fuel companies, which would mean one very powerful special-interest in favor of it. The politically powerful but carbon-dirty construction industry has few low-carbon options and likely would be inclined to support these approaches as well, were they to prove feasible on a larger scale.
A less obvious politically viable candidate is geothermal power. It is easy enough in Iceland, El Salvador and Kenya, where geothermal energy is readily accessible, but digging deeper for geothermal energy and sending it up to the surface would require further technological advances. On the plus side, geothermal power does not seem to irritate the Not-in-My-Backyard types, is popular where used, and could be run through a modified version of the existing energy infrastructure, thus minimising the stranded-assets problem.

—Bloomberg