Furthermore, pretty much every non-renewable fuel source is heavily subsidized by the government, so why then must RE be forced to compete on the same level with 10x less funding?? Don't you support the free market? For RE to actually compete on the same level, one of several things would have to happen: remove government subsidies for non-renewables; add subsidies for RE; implement some kind of carbon tax; implement some form of feed-in tariff.
Of those options, the feed-in tariff requires no government money whatsoever except to create the system and enforce it. The increased costs paid out for renewables is borne by the utility companies, who then pass on the costs to the consumer. Ideally, you would couple a FIT with the implementation of smart metering and time-of-use pricing (rather than pricing by volume of energy used).
Aren't all those things you support in some form? Decentralized, market-based, clean energy that encourages innovation as a means to further improve profit margins. Innovation can come in two forms: improving the technology itself, and also improving efficiencies of devices using energy. All of this innovation and investment, generated by the market itself, can only lead to one things: jobs.
Right?
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@NuEM: It has been shown through real-world, though admittedly smaller scale modelling that communities on the scale of several thousands can exist purely on wind and solar. I don't think it needs to be restricted solely to those two technologies. A robust, resiliant energy grid needs a lot of different options. Biofuels have a place, but it should be minimal - we will need most of the shrinking arable land for food production.
I personally support nuclear power as a kind of stopgap, medium-term solution. Nuclear power generation is safe (with the exception of 9.0 earthquakes and huge tsunamis...) and the actual 'burning' of the fuel doesn't produce any emissions. There are problems with the disposal of the nuclear waste, of which we have not yet found an adequate solution. But nuclear power could feed us for hundreds of years, on current, proven reserves.
In the longer term, nuclear power should be phased out, on the 50-100 year scale. I really believe in the decentralized model that renewables offer, and I can't see any downside to the consumers of power also being the producers of power.
In Ontario, which has a FIT very similar to Germany, we have also experienced problems with expansion of the transmission grid, with a lot of power producers coming online, but lacking the infrastructure to take the power to the people. This is natural, as the paradigm shifts to decentralization. Ontario has had a love affair with power mega-projects for over a century, and now suddenly thousands of small scale producers are coming on to the grid, and it takes time to reorient the system to handle the new loads.
We are fortunate, in that over 50% of our baseload comes from nuclear, and we will phase out the last coal plants in 2 years.
As for storage, I think there is tantilizing potential in Electric Vehicles not named Volt, which again supports a decentralized, distributed model for power.
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We have not inherited the Earth from our parents, we have borrowed it from our children.
