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Originally Posted by ITD
You are right on the mark wifi. It's my hope that sometime in my lifetime there is a break through in battery tech that allows enough power generated by solar during sunny times to be stored to make it through no or low power times. But there is nothing on the horizon yet.
The life of the cells is looking much better than originally better thought but this technology is no where near ready to replace fossil fuels. Here in Massachusetts we've had politicians who have decided to shut down coal in the state, with the last massive coal plant slated to shut down soon. The problem is that there is no alternative large enough to replace the lost power. Solar does not make up the difference, in fact it is not even close. Natural gas has taken up some of the slack, but again, here in Mass, there is not enough pipeline capacity to run these plants during peak winter months so they must be shut down during cold snaps so that there is enough natural gas for heating customers.
I'm actually considering installing a large propane generator in my Mass home as it appears California style brown outs / black outs may be come a reality in New England due to the decreased generation capacity from fairly new environmental rules.
Solar is also not viable without the tax credits and carbon credits. Large alternative energy stake holders have said they will divest if credits disappear because the tech is not economically viable with out them.
I like the idea, but it is nowhere near ready to take over for traditional generation methods.
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I think it all depends on what you mean by "on the horizon", "replace", and "not viable".
While green energy is not able to provide 100% of our needs today, and it depends on various government subsidies, it's growing by leaps and bounds, and scale economies and other efficiencies have improved it's cost position dramatically. These trends are likely to continue.
It's also likely that batteries will continue to improve. You may have missed my link to Tesla's Powerwall above. There are also large scale systems being installed, easy to find via Google.
I'm not sure why you believe politicians have "decided" to shut coal plants or why they'd be shut if they are still needed. Plants are owned by profit-maximizing power companies, not the state, and there's a massive amount of info available that shows that the real killer of coal plants is the plummeting cost of natural gas due to fracking.