Good idea - last time I looked "anything" in my gas tank got me 0 mpg. When my local electric company put "anything" into their coal-fired plant we got "nothing."

Cheering the "free-market" as an ideology is all fine and good. But when it comes right down to it, the market we have now (and it ain't free by any stretch of the imagination) would offer us oil until its more expensive than coal and then it would switch to coal. That is the market's answer and I'm not sure that it is better than the 3-ringer in DC.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly

The problem with infrastructure is it cannot involve a totally absent of any regulation - in part because the cost of entry to add to the grid is way too high and the maintenance is “externalized” to government agencies.

I think that we need to remove all regulation regarding property owners with power generation – if someone wants to add a windmill then so be it, we need to encourage the property owners to view power as something they have to, in part, provide by themselves.

If Solar is economically viable than I'm all for it. We know that it isnt' and won't be in our lifetime, but hey, let the cards fall where they may.

I guess I don't know all that, but hey, maybe that's just me.

In certain applications, solar is viable today-- Passive solar, solar lighting, thermal solar, remote off-grid PV systems, PV power in Hawaii, Italy. (ref)

According to the DOE solar timeline: "Within 10 years, photovoltaic power will be competitive in price with traditional sources of electricity." (ref)

The National Renewable Energy Lab has a 2015 target price of solar PV of 5-10 cents/kWh, which would be viable for net metered grid-tie systems. Increased production, as from tax incentives, would get us to "grid parity" sooner. (ref)

Germany, with its financial incentives (feed-in tariffs) is competitive with commercial electric rates today. (ref)

The world is full of conventional wisdoms, things that will never come to pass in our lifetime, that do indeed come to pass. I can remember people saying that LCD displays would never replace CRTs, yet they did. And isn't there currently a very similar CW running around about peak oil?

If Solar is economically viable than [then] I'm all for it.

BRNM,

Your comment is so loaded with self-deluding propaganda that I don't know quite where to begin.

There was a guy on CSPAN this morning talking about how our government-propped infrastructure is at every level aimed towards supporting the car-centric life style.

On the local level, police spend most of their energy enforcing traffic laws. There are traffic lights and highway signs everywhere; etc.

On the Federal level, our armies are out and about the world to secure the oil over "there" because we plum ran out of it over "here".

There is nothing "economical" or uneconomical about oil versus solar. Our government entirely props up (subsidizes) the petroleum way of life and then accounts for it in whatever funny way is necessary so as to make it sound "economical".

I really don't know what kind of "economical" thinking you are engaging in. We as a society are sinking all our resources, time and energy into an infrastructure that is destined for failure. Have you noticed a couple of little things "collapsing" as of late? Any bridges? Coal mines? Dried out forests? Bankrupt cities? Off-shored jobs? These might be clues.