I think the first step in designing a national energy policy is to realize the primary source of energy should be carbon based renewable energy. It is the safest energy on the planet. The byproduct of burning it is CO2 and water, both natural ingredients that we know how to use.

Nuclear, solar, wind, etc. are specialty fuels in the long term and combined with fossil fuel transition energy sources in the short term. Every one of those alternative "renewable" energy sources, produces "waste" that we have yet to figure out how to properly deal with other than fossil fuel.

Burning fossil fuels today powers the planet, but we need to focus on producing our own carbon fuels from CO2, water, sunlight and catalyst at a scale we can replace the fossil fuel we are extracting with carbon fuel we will be be producing.

And that is the wonder of carbon fuel, it is so stable it can be stored for millions of years. No other energy source we use matches carbon fuel.

My simple point of disagreement with you is the "end game". The end game is to return to carbon fuel. Only rather than fossil fuel, it will be manufactured carbon fuel.