Agreed, there are bad examples and good examples. Government trying to hold the leash and control companies: bad. Government using massive purchasing power and

Agreed, there are bad examples and good examples. Government trying to hold the leash and control companies: bad. Government using massive purchasing power and national and international leverage: good. With more direct government involvement we could have a Manhattan project for renewable energy, or apollo program. Instead we get crony capitalism and talk about the free market, when entrenched industries have a clear advantage. With regulated monopolies providing power nationwide, I think it is far too up to the individual power companies to implement renewables. I imagine the day that we find out we did too little too late, and have to look back and wonder why the hell we more or less left it up to purely market forces (which don't factor environmental damages in almost at all). We might wish that we had put some of the money we wasted in the middle east into reforming our power grids.