The Price of Solar Plummets, Vindicating Visionaries

Written on 02/24 at 10:34 PM by Andy Posner 0 comments

Filed under: environment Renewable Energy

Ever since Bell labs developed the first working solar photovoltaic cell in the mid 1950s, people have both lauded the potential--and indeed the poetry--of solar power, while others--the “realists” and “pragmatists"--have derided it as a niche technology whose costs and inherent limitations would always prevent it from overtaking good ol’ fossil fuels and nuclear power as the dominant source of energy for the world. Unfortunately for the naysayers, the geopolitical, social, environmental and economic impacts of both fossil fuels and nuclear power--which require massive subsidies, cause billions of dollars in health issues, and are tremendously expensive to regulate and clean up after (see my recent article on the spill of coal sludge in the Tennessee Valley)--have begun to far outweigh the supposed affordability and abundance of traditional energy sources.

So while countries like the United States avoided implementing strong subsidies for solar energy and other renewable sources, visionary leaders in Germany and Spain enacted powerful subsidies for renewable energy and compelled utilities to buy that energy at higher rates in order to stimulate the market and create jobs. Sure, the pragmatists might have argued--and probably continue to argue--that the money being spent on these subsidies, which amounts to roughly 20 cents per month per utility customer in Germany, could be better spent elsewhere. But in the meantime, Germany has developed into a leader in solar energy, creating tens of thousands of jobs in the process. Now, according to the New York Times blog, Green Inc., it seems that visionary leadership has begun to bear fruit. In fact, “On Tuesday, First Solar, a global photovoltaic cell maker based in Tempe, Arizona said it had reached an “industry milestone” by reducing its production costs to the point where making solar cells that produce one watt of power costs $1.”

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