I don’t think it is obvious which is the “throw money at it” solution. Energy utilities are already heavily regulated. Users aren’t really exposed to a market with transparent pricing to enable supply and demand. The folks who want smart grid stuff are the ones trying to let the free market actually work on the energy problem.

Currently, petrochemicals might be:

-Benefiting from consumer-focused subsidies, like heating or energy assistance.

-Subsidized by, like, actual intentional industrial subsidies

-Subsidized by infrastructure investments, like a road out to some hinterlands that is only needed to get to some mine, pipeline, or whatever

-Subsidized by allowing these companies to externalize their costs onto society by dumping them on the environment. All those greenhouse gasses, cleaning them up isn’t going to be free, and we’re going to pay for it.

-Subsidized by international relations. This isn’t a political site, so let’s not dig into the details there. But the long dependency chains for petrochemicals have made some odd international relations bedfellows. These constraints on our diplomatic options have a cost that is hard to capture.

We could start by making sure to price all that in to petrochemicals if we wanted to give ourselves a ton of extra homework (actually we shouldn’t try to run the numbers because it is big country-dependent mess, but we should at least have the size of the picture in our heads).

Renewables have fewer built-in, structural, or snuck-in by negligence subsidies like that. They don’t produce as many toxic byproducts to dump on the planet (though, semiconductors aren’t byproduct-free for sure), and energy falling from the sky is easier to just grab without any drama. So, I think if it were possible to actually run those numbers, renewables would look pretty good.

Then we add in the fact that renewables probably are the future (eventually we will run out of oil). So, subsidies for renewable R&D are an investment that should pay off with future manufacturing jobs.

Overall, sticking with petrochemicals seems very expensive to me.

You're not wrong, but all this amounts to wishing. At the end of the day, the majority only care about their utility bill. Telling them that X will cost more today but lower the bill for the next generation isn't enticing.

For that, you need forward-thinking politicians who can dance the subtle dance of planning for the future without making the current situation too onerous for the people. The recent election results in the USA is an example of getting that dance wrong.