Antinuclear

Energy in the 21st century is already turning out to be very different from energy in the 20th century. Coal plants that used to provide most of the country’s electricity are being shut down by the hundreds and renewable energy is becoming more cost efficient and prevalent by the day.

The trends are heavily in favor of renewable energy, and solar energy in particular is taking the U.S. and the world by storm.

Renewable energy becoming a big player
Since 2007, electricity generation from coal has fallen 24.9% from 2.02 billion MW-hrs to 1.51 billion MW-hrs in 2012. Meanwhile, over the same time frame wind grew 309% to 140.8 million MW-hrs and solar grew 607% to 4.3 million MW-hrs. That doesn’t include distributed solar on residential rooftops or any installations from 2013, which was a record year for solar, installing about 4.4 GW in the U.S………

The solar industry is where there’s high potential because solar power has the potential to provide enough electricity for the entire country and costs are still falling rapidly. You can see below that utility scale projects are less than half of what they cost in 2010 and residential projects are about one-third cheaper. If we go back even further, the cost of a solar panel 35 years ago was more than $100 per watt and today you can get one for around $0.65 per watt, a cost reduction of more than 99%.

To put today’s costs into perspective, a solar power plant will generate optimal energy about 20%-25% of the time, meaning that each watt will produce about 1.75-2.19 kW-hrs of electricity each year. A utility scale project with a 10% return on investment would create electricity for 9.3 to 11.7 cents per kW-hr without subsidy. That compares to an average price of 9.6 cents per watt overall in the U.S.

The driver of coal’s declining role in electricity and the growth in renewable energy — particularly solar — is economics. As costs continue to fall, we’ll see more growth for renewable energy and you can make money off the trend………http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/01/28/renewable-energy-is-winning-the-battle-versus-foss.aspx