We have opportunity for economy of scale with solar or wind, without doing giant, but strangely photogenic, solar/wind farms...
If they would encourage outfits with lots of roof space (factories/warehouses/retail) to do on-site installs... Plus, we've got a lot of locations that could hook in as microgenerators.
But politicians like BIG things. Like railroads... Fixing a pothole? Not that big... Nuclear and hydro could do a great deal of picking up nighttime/calm slack. But a single windmill, not even all that high-tech, could keep Farmer John's barn running to pump well water, etc...
Back before Mother Earth News went and got off the rails political, they had so many small projects...