More On The Cost of Solar

A friend passed along a notable blog post yesterday that presents yet another (but highly readable) cost comparison between solar and nuclear.

Here's a taste:

"Solar power, installed - not including transmission or storage infrastructure - costs about $7.0 million per megawatt of output; this equates to $7.0 billion per gigawatt. If this sounds expensive, it is, but to get a truly accurate price you have to also take into account yield. Even in sunny California, solar energy (in terms of full-sun-equivalent hours), can only be harvested on average for 4.5 hours per day, which means to get 500 gWh of solar generated electricity each day in California, you would need to install 111 gigawatts of solar arrays (500/4.5), which would cost $777 billion dollars."

The entire post is at:

Joe Romm and the Price of Sunshine [Energy From Thorium (blog)]