Dinosaurs look down. The new IQ looks up.
As Justin Gerdes writes in the 5-24-12 issue of Forbes, Bloomberg New Energy Finance reports that:
"According to BNEF, the levelized cost of electricity (the cost distributed over a projects lifetime) for conventional silicon PV declined by nearly 50% from an average of $0.32/kWh in early 2009 to $0.17/kWh in early 2012; thin-film PV dropped from $0.23/kWh to $0.16/kWh over the same period. As of the first quarter of 2012, BNEF pegs the levelized cost range at $0.11/kWh to $0.25/kWh. Residential customers in the United States pay an average retail price for electricity of $0.115 cents/kWh."
The reason coal and petroleum remain in the conversation as "cosseted fossil-fuel incumbents" (Gerdes) is that vested corporate welfare interests keep taking $40 Billion annually from taxpayers and shoveling it into the front doors of fossil fuel miners.
