Signed,
carbon copy commie

The figure that you would be interested in looking at is the Levelised Energy Cost. What you may also find to be of interest is the Australia’s Commonwealth Science and Industrial Research Organisation or CSIRO has determined that solar energy sources are also unviable here, in one of the nations with the world’s largest amount of annual sunshine. It would be cheaper to build, operate, and maintain nuclear power plants in Australia than it would be for any solar-thermal scheme, and it completely blows the cost of photvoltaics out of the water. Not only that, but coal and nuclear power can supply energy around the clock whereas solar cannot do that for obvious reasons. You can only get solar energy when the sun is shining. The reference is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levelised_energy_cost

One of the things that made an impression on me at World Youth Day in Sydney Australia in 2008 was that when it got to late at night, there was still sufficient generation to allow all the office block lights in the Sydney CBD to be on. Now, while that is a serious waste of power, it made a stark contrast to the almost total blackout in Auckland, New Zealand that was happening at the same time. New Zealand gets roughly 75% of its annual energy supplies from renewable resources, especially hydro-electric. New Zealand is also a world leader in geothermal energy, which is becoming more significant there. And there are constant water shortages in the catchments that supply the hydro-electric stations.

My point is really this: First of all, why do you think God put the coal, natural gas, and oil in the ground if he didn’t intend for it to be used? Second, I do believe that we need to do further research into renewable energy resources to bring the cost down as we still only have limited fossil fuel reserves. I am a strong proponent of research into the use of algae to create the oil needed to make biodiesel in a way that removes the necessity of the fuel vs food debate. We need to look at what can be done to reduce the total cost of ownership of renewable energy resources.

But I will say this: If solar power cannot currently be economically justified in a country with the amount of sunshine that Australia has, then I doubt that it is economically viable in any country anywhere in the world. I know people at my place of work who are looking into having photovoltaics installed on their house, but even there, they are looking at 10 years or longer to get payback on their investment as opposed to buying coal-generated electricity from the state grid. Where the power company subsidising the photovoltaics hopes to make their money is in selling carbon credits. (Go check out the inventors of the carbon market too: a company called Enron). So what you need to realise is that this whole thing at the moment is a money-grabbing scam.