As far as I'm aware, going completely off grid involves some serious cutting back of energy usage, even in the best locations. I don't think it's achievable on current technology on a regular basis if you want to keep a first world lifestyle. I think the current technology is really intended to reduce dependency on the grid rather than replace the grid - it does need to get much better, the benefits at the moment often do not justify the outlay, which is what is needed to give it mass appeal. Although I do not have anything at my rented house, I believe the situation in the UK is the same, where you pump energy back to the grid and get credit for it, with some times of the day at least generating 'income'. Although I do support nuclear energy, this is seeing as many problems - it is too expensive to construct, and we are waking up to the responsibility of decommissioning (though to be fair, we are seeing this now in every industry). Whatever the solution(s) decided upon it will take a lot of support from governments to make it reality.
Yeah, the idea is to reverse the growing demand on the grid somewhat, and every little helps. However, in the UK at least, recent years have seen the paring back of incentives (simply due to the economic situation, rather than a turn against sustainable energy) means that the roll-out of these things will slow down. Working in the industry 25yrs ago, I can tell you that then the issue of waste management was a big issue back then. However, the approach was to reuse waste products as fuel for newer reactors, producing less (but more toxic) waste, and then to bury it in deep holes in the ground while we worked on a longer-term solution (which still hasn't arrived as far as I'm aware).
Yeah that's more what I was meaning in my statement which wasn't that definitive - public awareness of the issue has become much wider due to media, internet etc. and also the fact we still haven't got to a long term solution for it meaning the original stuff is still there. I used to work in a related nuclear industry myself, though we didn't concern ourselves too much with the waste issue!
Nuclear probably is the best medium term option if greenhouse gas emission is messing up the planet for humans. It's better to put nasty gunk in the ground and have a localised effect than nasty gunk in the air which will have a global effect. Or we could obliterate our power usage which would suck.
It's the satus quo of profits, unfortunately. Energy companies are still making absolute fortunes on coal and oil, and the heads of these companies know they'll be well in the ground themselves before those resources run out or the problems associated with using them become unmanageable. It's also a fight against the people who want change, but only if it suits their ethical compass. Lots of people don't want nasty, smog spewing fossil fuel generators, but also don't want a wind farm spoiling their views or greenbelt land taken up with fields of solar panels... much less nuclear waste generating reactors.