Question of the Month: Which of the following do you think is the biggest barrier to moving to use more renewable energy sources?

The same happens in Italy, It's quite impossible to install  solar panels or wind turbines  

shabaz said:

"lack of political will"

I like to translate that into "lack of everyone's will" in most countries.

We all have political parties that want to move faster. We don't vote them into power. (Because we know it 'll hurt?)

Overall I think PoE saves energy, because it provides the granular visibility and control, super-easy to switch off power when it's not required!

From my analysis of the situation, renewable energy has a place within the energy space, but is not yet ready to supplant traditional sources of energy.

The debacle in Texas a couple of years ago aptly exposed the current weakness of the renewable capability.

People died because the Texas grid did not have emergency power generation capability and the glaring fact that Texas did not have a compatible grid with any of their neighbors.

These glaring errors were very predictable given their lack of risk analysis and adequate backup capability.

You have to understand that it takes time to mature a new technology so that it can supply reliable energy.

I have faith that renewable energy will eventually get to a level of maturity where it can indeed supplant the fossil fuel sources, but we are talking decades, not a few years.

A lot of people are pushing this technology into production, and it is just not ready to deliver on its promises.

Please lower your expectations, there are no immediate miracles.

Everybody just stop, take a deep breath, and then use some common sense.

It was decades before coal generated power was reliable enough to build out a power grid and it took decades before everyone who wanted power had access.

Fifty years ago, I knew a local family who had still not connected to the power grid, even though it had been available to them for decades.

So stop trying to put this horse into the race too quickly.

We will get there eventually, patience is required.

The #1 problem is our power grid can't handle the load and would cost trillions to update so it could.. it's almost impossible and would take decades.

decades would be nice.

Not necessarily.

People are blaming fossil fuels for an issue that they are not guilty.

Humans are predictable animals, they continue to use what is cheapest until it becomes too expensive.

Renewable energy is significantly more expensive than currently used fossil fuels.

Most systems that use fossil fuels can change to use hydrogen, which is relatively easy to obtain.

All of the infrastructure for fossil fuels is adaptable for hydrogen use.

Therefore, the logical and most cost effective way forward is to begin integrating hydrogen as a fuel in combination with renewable energy sources.

That solution enables the world to take advantage of existing investments and keep energy costs to a reasonable level while maintaining reliable energy.

Politicians follow votes and money.

They pander to the renewable crowd to get easy votes.

The deal with the energy companies because they have money.

When the system breaks like it did in Texas, they always find someone else to blame.

Face it, if you had their job, you would do the same.

The grid is being gradually updated every year.

As you point out, the time to replace everything that needs fixed is long as the cost is high.

Change requires patience and money.

I chose unreliability but it's really about power density and storage.  The technology isn't there and the cost is high.  Not a good business decision.  No ROI - as robogary stated.  Not dependable - as my battery storage system here at work has proven.