I'll let a scientist tell you what the problem is.
I've referenced this interview before; PBS's Frontline interviewing physicist Dr. Charles Till, who was Associate Director of Argonne National Laboratory; and a LEADER among our best scientists in the field of energy at Argonne.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/interviews/till.html
Q: What about Solar?
A: Solar? No.
Q: Wind?
A: No. Small amounts. Small amounts only. The simplest form of pencil calculation will tell you that. But you know, energy has to be produced for modern society on a huge scale. The only way you can do that is with energy sources that have concentrated energy in them: coal, oil, natural gas. And the quintessential example of it is nuclear, where the energy is so concentrated, you have something to work (with). With solar, your main problem is gathering it. In nuclear, it's there. It's been gathered.
That kind of sums it up. Even if you have a bunch of energy, you can't use it unless it is thermodynamically available under the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. A bunch of energy at ambient temperature doesn't do you any good because it isn't thermodynamically available.
If you have a big chunk of iron sitting on your desk; there's a lot of energy there because the iron is a few hundred degrees Kelvin above absolute zero. But because that energy is at ambient temperature; you can't do anything with it. Unfortunately, the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics wreaks havoc with a bunch of ill-considered ideas for energy generation, and puts some real physical limits on what we can / can not do. Sorry about that.
The good thing about science it that it is true, whether or not you believe in it.
--Neil deGrasse Tyson
PamW
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