One thing I never understood about government policy with renewable energy is that surely it is a country's best interest to be as much energy independent and e

One thing I never understood about government policy with renewable energy is that surely it is a country's best interest to be as much energy independent and energy diversified as possible. Both from national security, geopolitical and economic point of views. Not even considering the environmental impact. For example, Brazil has a huge production of combustible-grade ethanol which, although subsidised by the government, helps stabilize fuel prices for everyone in the country. When oil prices go up, ethanol production goes up which smooths price fluctuation. In raw numbers the subsidies probably costs more for the economy than just importing oil when considering the years of cheap oil. But if you take into account all the business that don't collapse and go bankrupt because of that the math doesn't look so clear-cut. That on top of economy diversification. This is just the economic argument of one alternative energy source in one country. The national security, geopolitical and environmental impacts are even harder to quantify but are extremely important as well. For example, every country probably benefits a lot from having the ability of deploying more nuclear power plants, so it might be worth building a limited number of them just to keep the industry alive (especially if the industry is local to your country). That is even if you, as a country, decides against nuclear long term.