NYT's Paul Krugman: Here Comes the Sun

[flpoljunkie]

During 60 Minutes last night, the Koch Brothers' (who own significant coal interests) Americans for Prosperity 501 (c)(4) arm ran an ad on President Obama's 'Solyndra' scandal. Emphasis mine.

And now for something completely different: the success story you haven’t heard about.

These days, mention solar power and you’ll probably hear cries of “Solyndra!” Republicans have tried to make the failed solar panel company both a symbol of government waste — although claims of a major scandal are nonsense — and a stick with which to beat renewable energy.

But Solyndra’s failure was actually caused by technological success: the price of solar panels is dropping fast, and Solyndra couldn’t keep up with the competition. In fact, progress in solar panels has been so dramatic and sustained that, as a blog post at Scientific American put it, “there’s now frequent talk of a ‘Moore’s law’ in solar energy,” with prices adjusted for inflation falling around 7 percent a year.

This has already led to rapid growth in solar installations, but even more change may be just around the corner. If the downward trend continues — and if anything it seems to be accelerating — we’re just a few years from the point at which electricity from solar panels becomes cheaper than electricity generated by burning coal.

And if we priced coal-fired power right, taking into account the huge health and other costs it imposes, it’s likely that we would already have passed that tipping point.

But will our political system delay the energy transformation now within reach?

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/07/opinion/krugman-here-comes-solar-energy.html?hp

[rfranklin]

1. Of course, the politicians bought by the oil companies will fight til the end...

and when the USA is hopelessly behind in solar and buying tens of thousands of solar panels from the Chinese, the same politicians and their followers will blame Obama.

[mmonk]

2. Recommended.

Thanks for posting this.

[n2doc]

3. Waiting for the inevitable "but but solar produces tons of toxic waste!" posters to arrive

There's always someone who loves the status quo. Or thinks the solution is for all of us to live in caves.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

4. K&R!!!!

[AngryAmish]

5. Like all economists, Krugman is full of shit

But if true this would be awesome.