We have been hearing that claim for years - ‘lower costs are on the horizon’.
Comparing it with ICs is bogus. I am in the semiconductor industry, that’s my expertise, I have a PhD, and know this: The cost reduction in ICs, that has followed the ‘Moore’s Law’ curve, is all about our ability to put more and more transistors *in the same area*.
The cost of the same square centimeter of silicon wafer has *not* gone down at the same rate. Now, PV costs may come down as non-silicon substrate, eg thin-film PVs improve, but they too are far from competitive.
The article you link says that solar thermal is ‘most promising’ and that ...”Solar thermal costs around 15 to 17 cents a kilowatt hour.” Meanwhile, you can build a new nuclear power plant today and get energy for 4-5 cents a kilowatt hour, one-third the cost.
Did it occur to you that if we can develop solar technologies for lower costs, we could dothe same for *other* technologies?
we can increase thermal efficiency at nuclear power plants, use combined cycle techniques and boost the cost-effectiveness. Plants have figured out how to run fuel assemblies longer, reduce the outae time for re-fueling, and increase and ‘uprate’ the power of plants. All these cut the cost per kilowatt. it’s possible nuclear power could also get cheaper, especially if we figure out how to build nuclear power plants for less money, which is the main cost of them.
Solar power is too diffuse to enable the kind of low-environmental-impact high-and-reliable energy generation that we would need to power the lives of millions of people in a city. Nuclear power can do it today in an environmentally responsible and economical manner.
“You can ignore tha facts if you want, but the future is solar.” - I am aware of *all* the facts, not just a few. The future is not with one form of energy alone, but this much is certain: Only a fraction of our energy will come directly from solar. We cannot afford it to be any more.
Why do you think the largest company in the semiconductor-equipment space (Applied Materials) is getting into the solar biz? Because they believe they can lower the costs of solar similar to IC’s.