So, I want to install a wind generator on my property. All my neighbors don't want their view destroyed, or the noise pollution, or their neighborhood birds chopped up. So they fight it in court. Bye, bye wind generator. Have you considered how much resistance there is to cell towers that simply stand there and are even camouflaged? Good luck with wind generators. Solar panels might have a better shot if they are all on an existing structure like a roof but no one is going to want to look at a farm of stand alone solar arrays either. Are these technologies truly efficient enough in this climate, without major subsidies, to replace commonly used energy solutions?
The article on using solar power and a catalytic reaction to generate hydrogen for fuel is interesting but it sounds like a Rube Goldberg device at this point. Let's see, we need Solar Panels and all the supporting infrastructure for that, a catalytic engine, a storage system for the hydrogen, a hydrogen fuel cell or other mechanism to "burn" the hydrogen and convert it back to electricity. Sounds pretty big, complex, expensive, and difficult to maintain (you aren't going to get service from your local oil company). Further there are multiple conversion steps; solar to electrical to chemical (hydrogen separation) to chemical (hydrogen burning) to electrical at least and probably other side conversions as well to make the whole thing work. Every conversion loses efficiency. When there is a commercial installation that proves viable for say 5 years without huge subsidies I'll consider that it is a viable technology. Until then it's an interesting toy.
By the way, most of the "alternate" energy schemes are just that, toys. Just like the "rich" buy themselves fancy houses, boats, planes, and jewelry the energy elite buy themselves sheek energy solutions. The only difference is that the rich waste their own money; the energy elite wastes ours. Consider for a second that most of these "alternate" energy solutions are heavily subsidized and would not even be considered for use unless those subsidies existed. A subsidy takes money from a large group of people, the taxpayers, and redistributes it to a small favored group, in this case the energy elite. Now project this out. If these "wonderful" technologies were put into widespread usage you would have to pay lots more taxes for the government to pay a subsidy back to you. You would be subsidizing yourself.
We have working, even if they are not perfect, energy solutions now; untapped oil reserves, nuclear, natural gas, coal, and in some cherry picked areas solar and wind. Unless we are all ready to return to the life style of 100 years ago let's get on with developing and enhancing these. Let's also allocate a reasonable increase in an across the board energy tax (2%?? on gasoline, jet fuel, electricity, fuel oil, natural and propane gas ) to fund energy R&D ONLY (lets not fund another highway tax to be raided). The projects to support should be selected by a scientific panel (NOT politicians!!) with impeccable credentials and a set of guidelines that bias toward developing energy for broadly usable, non-subsidized, commercial use or toward practical energy conservation technologies (improving car mileage, low cost lighting, appliance efficiency, industrial efficiencies). The more energy we use the more money that would be generated to learn to use what we have wisely and find effective and efficient alternatives to what we use now. The bigger the energy hog you are the more you pay toward better solutions.
Why is this so hard?