[workingon]

It's pretty easy to point to a lack of government investment in renewables and incentives to get rid of fossil fuels. The US has had a leader for more than half those years that was pro-oil and anti-renewables.

Imagine a 1 trillion dollar investment into renewables in 2003 instead of the Iraq war. Imagine a carbon cap tax in 2008.

Additionally, technology has increased in that time. Its quite reasonable that the first few decades of development won't see very commercially viable products -- they are new and in development. Renewables becoming better than fossil fuels for many tasks will happen eventually and would be like flipping a switch. At that point, it just takes the government printing money and spending it on something that matters for a change.