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The U.S. is obviously capable of providing a LOT more power from renewable sources than it does presently, between its open lands, offshore territories, and more than a few rooftops. Storage certainly needs to be worked out for almost all of those (though tidal is essentially constant, and could be a "base load" without storage), and it's an area where research has been lax for a very long time.
But even if storage adds financial cost, it could still be cheaper than coal or oil-based power, given that those technologies are already heavily subsidized, and most significantly, their costs to the environment are presently "hidden"... remove their subsidies, and make those plants pay for their environmental cleanup, and we'd be looking at a much more even playing field.
Waste products from coal and oil plants do so much environmental damage that, although it may be harder to quantify than a bird carcass at the base of a windmill (and it isn't always harder to quantify that damage... ask someone in West Virginia), it may be easily as significant... I could easily believe it to be more. When we take into account the total cost of oil- and coal-based power, we will see that the costs to go renewable aren't as high as we think... in some cases, would be significantly lower than staying the course.
Although traditional windmills are certainly a threat to birds, the problem has recently been reported to be exaggerated (not completely wrong, just exaggerated). A few new windmill configurations being experimented with, however, are designed to minimize the hazard to birds... the "standard" field-based windmill design may turn out to be very different than the "big propeller" we are all used to.
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