For a very very long time, fracking was not economical, and only through massive government investment did it become cost effective.

Same goes for renewables, and electrolyzers. All evidence points to a future with renewable energy costing a small fraction of fossil fuels, and electrolyzers being cheaper than hydrogen from gas. But the future needs to be built. We can either lose out and buy the tech from others, or be leaders and reap the early rewards.

Fossil fuel being heavily subsidised kind of undermines both of your points.

Mostly because the carbon dioxide emission is not properly reflected in the fossil fuel pricing.

Basically, every single person on earth is subsiding the big oil by bearing the consequence/cost of the higher CO2 concentration.

The US is centrally planned to some degree, just in different ways and by different interests.

I suspect the interests/actions of lobbyists for certain companies/sectors had significant influence on things like taxes, and is a type of central planning.

It's different than most central planned economies because there are two entities operating in parallel (a quasi-private corporate state in addition to the usual government state), but I'd say it's still centralized/planned, even if it's not the state/government doing the planning.

Like it or not every, non-failed-state, modern economy is a centrally-planned one. The economy never lives in a vacuum, it's always a product of the institutions that govern them (regulations, subsidies, taxes, etc.) Something is always “the most cost-effective option” because the institutions made it so.

If you're not accounting for all the wildfire smoke costing billions of dollars maybe your calculations for cost effectiveness have some adjustments to be made

lol