Why isn't alternative energy more popular??

The short sighted nature of people is amazing. Solar and wind power has been around for decades. But no one will put investment into bringing it along like they should. During the Oil crisis in the 1970's, Jimmy Carter actually had solar panels put on the White House. Reagan took them down once he was in there. Because they made nice with Saudi Arabia by that time. The solar panels on the white house weren't producing much power at the time. But that wasn't the point. The point was to let the OPEC nations know that they were not necessarily going to be the only game in town forever. Everyone is against solar because its not to the level of efficiency they want yet. People just expect that they can put 1 panel in their back yard and that it should power everything in their house for free. All for a few hundred dollar investment. But the technology isn't there yet. So they just sneer at it and say its dumb. But if they would spend the time to learn about it, invest in it, and enhance it, it would be there. Its about "discovery" with this type of technology. You have to give it time and energy. We didn't go from the Wright brothers at Kittyhawk directly to the space shuttle. We didn't go from the telegraph right to the IPhone. For over 150 years there have been a lot of things "in between" that led us to the IPhone. Enhancement is a step by step process. But everyone is greedy for today and doesn't care about tomorrow. So instead of showing interest in alternative technology, we will just go along paying several hundred dollars a month to the Utility company for power and just assume it will never go up in price. Power prices are just like taxes. They can be raised at any time for any reason. And your gonna pay them. Or I guess you can see how fun it is to live like the pioneers did. When gas got too high 10 years ago, we started clamoring for electric cars. What happened??? Gas prices came down. Did we have less oil then or today? By showing that we have options when it comes to energy, only then can we be in a position to negotiate pricing.