The other issue is the margins are razor thin. Energy has to be cheap: so the issue is $1 billion going into this (1) might not be enough to have enough scale to make any money at all and (2) is competing with anything else you could do with $1 billion.

Which is why you need government subsidy if you want something to happen: but the you are also betting that you've picked either the right technology (it works at all) or at least you're accepting you're probably going to overpay.