The Oil Drum: Local

I hate to be a party pooper on the solar cost business, but to say that solar is now at a stage similar to the computer industry in its infancy is simply wishful thinking.  Increases in computer capacity have roughly followed Moore's law, i.e., doubling processor throughput roughly every 18 months.   The outcome is that one can get twice as much computer power for the same price by waiting 18 months.  Solar hasn't behaved like this at all - it depends upon the surface area of the silicon, not how many transistors one can jam on a given piece of silicon.  Because of this, the price of solar has remained roughly constant over the past 5 years - see http://www.solarbuzz.com/ModulePrices.htm

Of course, this all could change due to thin films, nanotechnology, etc., but that is more or less the same as saying that cellulosic ethanol will save the day for oil depletion - the potential is there, but the devil is in the details (i.e., scaling up to the necessary levels).