Inertia.
Going back to the old TVO
Eureka! cartoons (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6snX4M2_8U&feature=related), inertia is described as "Things like to keep on doing what they are already doing."
But inertia applies to society and people as well. It takes
energy to change the state of inertia in a very large rock.
People may be willing to pay a higher price for energy if it comes from renewables, but they are expecting someone else to actually do the work of installing those renewables. It's very hard to get the average home owner to get off their butts and install solar panels and a small wind generator, or to hire someone to install those things for them. The act of installing or even trying to find someone to do the installation for them, requires work. Work requires energy. But before you can even start working, you need to apply enough energy to overcome the initial inertia.
How to do that? Opportunism within a free-market is one way but it has only a small impact. Desperation is another way. When people become desperate enough, many, but not all, find the energy to overcome their inertia. But some just get so depressed about their desperation, they cannot summon enough energy to overcome their inertia.
The only method I've seen that allows a society to overcome inertia and move is strong leadership. History has given us numerous good and bad examples. Going to the moon required overcoming a huge amount of societal inertia, but strong leadership made it happen.
What's needed now isn't huge funds to make it happen. A FIT would be a good start but it won't make much of a difference. What is needed is for someone in a leadership role to stand up and tell the United States that it is time the U.S. stepped out of yesterday and into tomorrow.
