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I think another idea that we should be seriously considering is having every new house built, be built with solar panels on them. The show stated that it was expensive to put on houses right now, but it usually pays for itself in about 5 years! DAMN, just imagine never having to pay the electric company any more money after 5 years!
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Always ask yourself: "who benefits?". In this case, who benefits from centralized energy systems? Oftentimes the government does either through direct control or through taxation of private energy production. If everyone built solar panels that would pay themselves off in 5 years, the government loses a large chunk of money.
And it's highly unlikely that solar panels alone can totally (or even mostly) replace your energy usage of your current lifestyle in 5 years unless you live in a cave. The efficiency of solar isn't that high yet.
In short, the government forcing us to use these technologies right now would cost us more money because the technologies can't stand on their own against the current field. When they can, the government won't need to force us.
If your interested in renewable energy news, check out
http://peswiki.com/ . They've got a lot of interesting info on emerging technologies in this area.