For one thing, not all subsidies are created equal, and the government actually has a good track record in promoting new energy technologies. New developments often face two market gaps that can potentially delay or even kill them: the “technological valley of death,” in which promising advances hit a technical brick wall, and the “commercialization valley of death,” in which an effective technology can’t get to market. Government research labs and subsidies have supported a number of forms of energy — from nuclear energy, to hydraulic fracturing, to photovoltaic solar — through these troughs.

And there’s nothing unique about the government’s support for solar. According to the Congressional Research Service, total government support for the oil and gas sector over the years dwarfs the amount of support for the solar industry.

Furthermore, the solar investment tax credit is pretty smart. It’s structured so that as solar power becomes more efficient, the effect of the credit on each watt produced becomes smaller. Ideally, we would let markets decide the winners on their own, but so long as government is intervening in markets, it should do so in an evenhanded way. Similarly, any government support for the solar industry should be impartial, rather than having government bureaucracy pick and choose favored companies as it does through its loan guarantee program. The solar investment tax credit comes close to that ideal.

And there’s nothing in free-market economic theory that precludes government support. Markets tend to underproduce what economists call positive externalities — that is, the broad social benefits, like a cleaner environment, that aren’t captured on a company’s balance sheet.

Solar panels, and the companies that make them, are replete with such benefits: They eliminate redundant power plants that otherwise lie idle, empower consumer choice and have fewer negative consequences than most other forms of energy. But markets don’t always reflect these, which is why it makes sense for subsidies to enter the picture.

The kerfuffle over the Solyndra collapse aside, many conservatives already agree, and have for years. When I was at the Council of Economic Advisers under President George W. Bush, we believed that an across-the-board energy policy was by far the best approach — and that included solar. From both a market and an environmental point of view, supporting the solar industry should make sense, no matter which side of the aisle you come from.