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Years ago, during one of my stints advising a foreign government on their energy policy, I had to contend with a rather obstinate official intent on a single solution for his country's economic woes.

This jolly little fellow insisted that relying only on domestic production would benefit both an episodic unemployment problem and jump-start local factories.

In short, high protective tariff walls were the answer.

Now, I must always be careful in such situations…

If, on the one hand, I provide advice that turns out to improve the situation, usually that just advances the political prospects of the minister who steals the idea.

On the other hand, if my advice causes problems (usually because it's not correctly administered), there's the risk that the locals will read newspaper headlines proclaiming that an American advisor has just ruined their children's future.

Still, protective tariffs are rarely the answer to economic difficulties. They increase internal prices and inefficiency by depriving the market of an essential ingredient…

Outside competition.

My experience has always been that this sort of give and take – someone suggesting tariffs, me showing them in great detail why that'll just come back to bite them – plays out only in developing countries.

Whether you like it or not, the move toward renewable power is a certainty in the energy sector.

But as we've discussed here before, there are significant impediments to a continued and robust adoption of renewable energy.

The primary roadblock is cost – but not in the way you might think…

The expenses involved in generating solar and wind power have actually declined significantly over the past several years.

Additionally, these days we're talking more about "grid parity" – when renewables match the cost of generating and putting electricity on the wider grid.

In many parts of the United States, solar and wind have improved to a point where they cost about the same as more traditional sources of power.

As loyal readers saw last September, this improvement has resulted in solar reaching a federal milestone much earlier than expected.