Renewable Energy

We’ve seen it with computers, now we’re seeing it in solar power. Down the track, the result will be be clean, green, safe, cheap solar electricity — years before carbon capture and storage and nuclear power is ever even ready.

The reason is “The Learning Curve.” It’s as powerful a force in economics as the force of gravity is in physics. What the Learning Curve means is that as research and development gears up in the industry, prices fall ever more rapidly. The compound effects are huge.
Take solar power. It’s expensive today. But it’s falling in price at multiples of other technologies — particularly “clean coal” and “next-generation” nuclear — which still exist only on paper. With expanding commercial deployments and ever lengthening operating records, we know what solar’s price is. We don’t know what nuclear or “clean coal’s” costs are.

American Chronicle