Historic Report: Solar Energy Costs Now Lower than Nuclear Energy : CleanTechnica

[polaris93]

For ages, people have been saying: “Solar is a great, clean, renewable energy source, but it is just too expensive. Other energy sources, like nuclear, may have some (or serious) environmental risks, but they are cheaper

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[polaris93]

Keep in mind that solar energy costs must include the cost of the land purchased or otherwise allocated to mount the arrays, and that a national solar power system would drive up land prices around cities. Nuclear power doesn't suffer from the same problem, since nuclear reactors take up very little real estate per megawatt.

On the other hand, marginal land, the sort nobody wants to build on, use for agriculture, or make into parks, could be used for the arrays. Old quarries, desert areas that aren't picturesque or ecologically interesting enough to care much about, would be perfect. And floating islands could be established in the midst of the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian oceans for arrays -- you could, in fact, turn those floating oceanic mega-junk piles such as the East Pacific Gyre into such islands, tidying up the loose ends and tucking in the plastic tails so they don't mess up the sea life any more while you're at it. Just big floating islands providing shade and hiding places for little fish, and maybe a good place for barnacles and their ilk to grow. Or you could capture power from sunlight at the top of the atmosphere and beam it down to relay points that redistribute it to where it's most needed -- the capture-and-relay installations wouldn't have to be all that big. Lots of solutions.

Having said that, the 2000's have seen amazing advances in solar technology which have reduced the price far more rapidly than I hoped, and this is definitely good news! :)

Yes, it is. Now, if we can just use some of that electricity generated that way for those gorgeous monorails and flying cars we were promised in the 1950s . . . ;-)