I put on my hiking shoes, my Patagonia duds -- and go for a stroll here in the Northwoods. I have my hour or two of Wordsworthian eco-romance. Do I actually live in these woods? No. I live in a modern apartment building and eat "catered" (brought in by trucks to my Co-op from far away) food. And so I can afford a very idealistic, romantic view of Nature.

Similar, all the high-tech whiz-bang that will magically deliver us from fossile-fuel evil without so much as a hiccup. You live in a cheap energy Utopia and speak dreamily, romantically of alternative energies, having no real experience of trying to make due with one-tenth the energy. Oil alone provides us with some 550 million gigajoules of energy each day. We live on Big Rock Candy Mountain energy-wise and talk about reality as if it were our pet hamster. What will it look like if we really have to rely on all the "alternative" energies? So we'll just phase them in? That's a very long phase in if we hope to replace fossil fuels. And my point is, we will not be able to have anything near so big and global an economy running on alternative energy. We think we can play the VC game for solar energy because we still have a global economy floating on ba-gigajoules of cheap fossil fuel energy.

What if I actually had to live out in nature? What if I had to hunt and find shelter out there? I'm in contact with some who actually do it ... and they're not so romantic about it. They're downright hillbilly-ish. Since alternative energy (not counting nukes and fusion) will not give us one-tenth the energy we now have, how will we even be able to hold up the global, high-tech industrialism needed to produce all the high-tech whiz-bang alt.energy?

As I've said before, I'll be eating my hat if you can somehow run this huge global Bitch on one-tenth the energy. Everyone seems to be forgetting one key point: We have a global economy because we can ship to and fro as if real distance was just a curious topology theory. That will end -- soon. And with it will end 21st century industrial capitalism. What will come afterwards is anyone's guess. If we triage intelligently, we might be able to realign high-tech industrialism back into some semblance of what we now enjoy. But if we keep believing in mystical "invisible hands," your guess is as good as mine as to how far the Bitch will fall. As our energy diet loses calories, so will our capacity to float billions of people in modern materialist lifestyles. Growth? That's over....

I am delighted that PV power is beginning to receive the investment it should have had long ago. This means a great deal to developing countries, particularly in Africa, where there is no oil, natural gas, or for that matter, much of a power grid. Low-cost PVs in villages to run pumps, refrigerators and other people-support systems will be life-savers. The problem? The sun doesn't shine 24 hours a day. We need comparable investments and research in new storage battery technology, solar thermal storage for night-time generation as well as greatly-increased investment in other renewable energy systems, wind, tidal, geothermal, etc. Let us hope that President Obama inspires the best and the brightest of us to invest the time and resources needed to break the carbon habit. The Leader of the Republican Party sure as hell didn't.

The primary ingredient in solar panels is silicon, and silicon is hard to process from the raw material, which is why there are no silcion extracting plants in this country. Most of the silicon used in solar panels is recycled from discarded wafers. Most of the work is done in China. China has laws which encourage all new construction to use solar panels, reinforcing local demand. Additionaly China passed a new tariff this year on commodity exports, and repealed the tariffs on commodity imports, this also applies to intermediate goods as well, probably silicon.

The thin panels are potentially cost effective, at electric rates much higher than they are currently. Solar isn't ideal for industrial use, but would work with a home size hydrogen generator. If you buy into the wrong solar panel company now you run the risk of being on the wrong side of the VHS/Beta, Blue Ray, DVD competing design shakeout.

I'm not being an apologist for anything. I'm not saying what is right or wrong. I am pointing out why Ball could well be correct. I'm sorry, but the free market is amoral. That is why we as individuals and citizens of nations have to occasionally do the moral thing instead of the profitable, expedient, or easy thing.

Your arguments boil down to saying that solar has a lower cost but a higher price because the market is amoral. I know you are not a petulant teenager stamping his foot at the unfairness of it all. You are a thinking intelligent adult.

What actions does a thinking intelligent adult recommend? How do those actions effect the balance between supply and demand?

Oh yeah - educating others or thinking green without actually being green is the refuge of environmental hypocrites.

By the way, I type this from a 56 degree home (wearing a stocking cap) and paying a premium for electricity from a wind farm.

Most of the posters here then point out all the external costs for fossil fuels that are essentially subsidies for those industries.

Good points. They do not, however, effect the supply-demand equation. Sorry. Ball's analysis has substance. For all the goodness of solar, that market might tank because of those unfeeling balance sheet entries. Note: external costs are called external because balance sheets have no place for them.

And yet, they're still costs.

They do not go away just because they're externalized, or subsidized, or ignored. Those costs must still be paid. And our society does pay for them, directly or indirectly.

What you're doing is providing an apology for rigging the supply/demand equation. You should stop doing that.

Level the playing field and let honest market forces prevail, and solar power wins.