Hasbeen: 10 years ago I would have agreed with you. I've lived with a couple who tried and gave up...alas the story is common. Early adopters used old car batteries (shallow cycle), cruddy inverters and very early PV cells. It is also unwise to try and "rough it" in an old weatherboard home without modern passive solar design and insulation.
Electric cars also suffered from the "hype curve": folks got excited before the tech was really viable (my father, an engineer was one of them). I won't touch e-cars for a while yet, but they will get there.
Times are changing, modern electronics and materials makes systems viable that once were not. It also helps that there are experienced pro's (instead of passionate amateurs) around now to help with design and maintenance.
As for cost: With economies of scale and new tech bring prices down and rising "traditional" costs, the future viability is assured.
For setting policy ask yourself: Do you want your kids to be 100% on Chinese companies for their power, or should we get in and have a go?

Shadow Minister: I can send you pics of oil tanker wrecks, oil well fires, transformer explosions, petrol explosions and "black lung" cases from coal mining...but this kind of point scoring is pointless. It will come down to viability and economics in the end.
The massive infrastructure of oil exploration, capture, transport, refining, transport, storage, distribution, seems pretty unlikely to be viable given the cost, risk and waste...but it works, sorta, with lots of taxpayer assistance and ignoring environmental costs.
BTW. Household wind systems solved this problem a few years ago with tilting towers...big scale systems use other methods but being built by humans, still fail spectacularly from time to time.
I wouldn't build a house under *any* big structure...even high rises and steep mountains give me the willies...seen too many shots of villages swallowed by mud, failed bridges, falling glass, etc

Ozandy,

The pic was simply to show that wind power was not as safe and infallible as the greenies would have us believe. 2x as many die per MW of power generated with wind power than with nuclear.

But as you said, it will come down to cost and reliability, which is the Achilles heel of all renewable generation.

Energy independence is possible.

I have a $22,000 stand alone solar set up which is self sustainable; I have proven this with a 10Kw solar system that is off-grid, with a carefully selected suite of energy efficient appliances. I have 32 x Showa/Shell BX-65 Advanced thin film, CIS panels. 2080 peak Watts, temperature stable, enhanced Infra-Red response under cloudy conditions. Integrated circuit construction, 1 x Solar Master 80 Amp Maximum Power Point Tracking regulator. 8 x BSB 12 V 250 A/H, 24 Kilowatt-hours, state of the art, Hybrid Nano GEL batteries. Safe, clean and maintenance free. 2000 cycles to 50% discharge and a Solar Master VULCAN 6000 Watt, true sine wave inverter. Low frequency design with massive toroidal transformer. 7500 watt 30 minute rating. 18,000 watt 5 second surge.

I will be adding a new French designed wind generator, not the normal propeller type, this is a curved conical design that picks up wind from 5kmh, runs virtually silent and has a 25 year design guarantee and will work with wind coming from multiple directions and speeds.

I am also in the process of purchasing a SolarVenti and a Solar Whiz, both very cheap to buy, see http://www.ges.com.au/ these are brilliant cheap additions that should be on all Australian homes.

I also collect all of my water into a 247,000 litre rainwater tank which has a solar powered/Gel battery mains pressure pump attached.

I use my microwave a lot, have a gas oven and cook-top, don’t use a dryer and can state that you can be energy self sufficient, contrary to what some are saying above, if you work hard towards getting these items being installed. I do agree some are not cheap but over the long-term will more than pay for themselves!

Except for your gas oven.

Shadow Minister: I'd argue that *all* power generation has the issue of reliability and cost. The oil spills in US from drilling and the slick from a ship grounding in NZ are examples of the costs and weaknesses in petroleum...there are many more such costs that are almost invisible: pm10s from diesel is a public health issue, most ocean pollution is "out of sight, out of mind", and of course there is the fact that it too needs massive taxpayer subsidies...even now.
New technology surely is pricey and unreliable...just look at cars 50 years ago compared to now, same with computers, metallurgy, aircraft...
I agree that some folks have completely unrealistic and idealistic ideas, but not *all* "greenies" are radical ignorant ranters waving flags.
Not pooing in your own nest is the essence of environmentalism, and that should be sensible enough to make us all "greenies" to some extent.