Solar power cheaper than coal by 2020
- Posted by Alex Ion in Solar energy
Jun 4,2008
Imagey by drawdenizlop
The US government, along with many investors such as Chevron, Goldman Sachs, and Google, is confident that solar power could become much cheaper than coal within the next 12 years. Taking into consideration tax incentives, carbon-capping legislation and the rising prices of natural gas, experts think that solar power is going to be more economical than coal by 2020.
“Chevron, Goldman Sachs, FPL, PG&E and other companies have filed more than 50 applications with the Bureau of Land Management to lease government-owned desert property for solar power systems. Google’s philantropic division put $10 million into eSolar, a start-up in Pasadena, California.” –Greg Chang, Bloomberg.
Along with the good progress of photovoltaic panels towards becoming cheaper and more efficient, investors are getting more excited about the potential of solar thermal technology. Implementing mirrors to direct sunlight to power turbines in desert areas could cover at least 50-percent of the local power requirements.
In the Mojave Desert, Sun Microsystems developed a thermal solar plant which contains 550,000 mirrors that tie together the sun’s energy and convert it into enough power to supply about 112,500 houses in the Los Angeles area. Though the costs are much higher than coal, this power station certainly shows the effectiveness of solar energy.
Sooner or later, it is going to happen.
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9 Responses to “Solar power cheaper than coal by 2020”
I’ve heard Ray Kurzweil say that this will happen in 2013. His theory that every innovation speeds up the next (law of accelerating returns) would suggest that we overestimate what we can do in a year, but underestimate what we can do in 5.
About time too. For far too long our governments have hesitated over providing incentives for the development of solar power. It’s clean and free.
If this is true, then maybe we have a way out of our dependence in foreign oil. I am involved in franchising, and have written extensively about a new Solar Franchise Concept..unproven, but cool.
Joel Libava
The Franchise King Blog
now this is a timely post indeed.
will all this solar gathering cool the planet to some degree? And then comes the zombie apocolypse – http://www.zombierepellent.com
I doubt it. There would have to be a large percentage of earth covered.
South Western deserts of USA will soon be all mirrors. Solar thermal projects now feed to the nation’s power grid, and will have to be increased in size as oil gets further out of reach. The coal folks are going to have to do extensive research to market their relatively dirty product, but the guy who figures out what to do with the CO2 resource stream they now callously discard will make billions! Science will catch up, we will fill the energy gaps, no one single idea will become the silver bullet energy cure-all. Solar has the advantage that it is renewable, forever, like an oil well that can’t go dry. My kinda energy!
Solar is a very viable energy source and only some tiny fraction of the sun’s light needs to be harnessed to produce enough power to satisfy our ever growing needs. We WILL have electric vehicles AGAIN, within 18months, and they will need to be charged. Solar will save the day.
My company, SolarUniverse.com intends to bridge the gap between manufacturers and home owners. Education, proliferation and installation. We aren’t alone, many states and utility departments are going solar, even in this unsure economic climate.
Why are they cluttering up the dessert with these panels? Why do they insist on centralizing power generation? Wouldn’t it be more energy efficient to outfit individual houses with solar panels rather than make some solar power plant out in the desert where energy is then lost in transmission to the city? Maybe I’m wrong…Still it is exciting to see the progress in solar technology.
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