As our world slowly runs out of energy humans must seek new sources, solar power might be an extraterrestrial source that we are looking for. Solar power has a lot of obstacles to pass before it is able to take the reigns as the most powerful fuel source. Coal is the king of energy production. Coal maintains its powerful throne because of its financial status. Coal has been important to human civilization for such a long time that its extraction and use are nearly perfected. Humans have studied and worked with coal for centuries, while solar power, in its modern interpretation, has only be around for a few decades. Some civilizations have built themselves around the process of mining and refining coal, these people would suffer great economic struggles if coal’s power is usurped. Despite these many handicaps from the start of its career, solar power is making an attempt to compete with coal. Solar systems are making many economic advances in a short amount of time. As an industry, it has the potential for many jobs and investments, while product it can provide lower prices. Solar power is on the rise in the United States, though the support for solar power comes from several aspects, the economic boon that solar power supplies to the nation is an undeniable factor in its future growth.

The future economic growth of solar power comes from a few different factors. Environmental columnist Stefanie Spear gave five major reasons for solar growth in her article “5 Reasons Solar is Beating Fossil Fuels” that she wrote for her website Ecowatch. Spear’s 5 reasons are available jobs, low prices, power capacity, investment opportunities, and environment impact, the first four of those reasons specifically deal with economic potential. While many people, including Spear who created the eco-friendly website she publishes on, and nations consider the environmental impact of energy production to be the most important aspect to switch over to fully solar and renewable power grid, it is difficult to for a nation to make such a big change without heavily considering it impact on the economy of the country. This sentiment is best summed up by Gary Price his book, Power Systems and Renewable Energy: Design, Operation, and Systems Analysis, when he says “Any capital investment should be analyzed for economic feasibility. “Going green” is not the only reason for investing in a renewable energy system”. 

 Spear states that while the fossil fuel industries, which includes coal, as lost 4,000 jobs in 2012, the solar industry grew by 14,000 new jobs. This loss of jobs could be related to the rise of solar power. Washington Post author Chris Mooney approached the diminishing employment in his 2015 report “Study: Coal Industry Lost Nearly 50,000 Jobs in Just Five Years.” Mooney discusses the fears of many counties in Kentucky and West Virginia about the economic collapse of mining towns due to downsizing coal companies. Mooney shows that as solar power grows, coal power withers and with it many low education, well paying, jobs in America are lost. The loss of these jobs are not ultimately a problem, because as Zachary Shahan said in his article, “Low Cost of Solar Power & Wind Power Crush Coal Nuclear, & Beat Natural Gas”, “when we pay for solar and wind power plants, we pay for human labor and often help create or support local jobs.” Shahan points out that solar plants have to be built and operated. This point was stressed in the lecture by Eric Daniels, contained in the book The Future Of Photovoltaic Manufacturing In The United States. Daniels, who works for the BP solar division has noticed that in the recent years there have been events that are “good indications of things to be concerned about” (Wessner, 61). Daniels shows that increase of power consumption by the American people and the cheap prices of photovoltaic panels are clear signs that a lot of solar cells will be made. Daniels goes on to point out that this manufacturing of these panels with create man jobs in the US. As a senior member of BP, a company that is directly related to the production of energy, Daniels discusses the corporate point of view behind a possible switch to solar power. Many of the jobs that are lost as coal mines and refineries are shut down can be found in the construction and continuous upkeep of the solar arrays and power stations. 

Mooney, in his Washington Post study, states that one of the main causes of the downsizing the government regulation that favors environmentally friendly fuel sources, including solar power, and penalizes fossil fuels. This struggle with government regulation causes a serious issue for the economy. It is not directly related to the growth of solar power; however as solar power grows or is helped by the government there will be more lay-offs in coal communities. This dilemma adds another possible barrier for solar to pass; just as one presidential administration creates policies to help its growth another can protect coal. While, as Mooney points out, Barack Obama was president he had a focus towards environmental protection; now the president, Donald Trump, wants to shift to focus more on policy that creates jobs, according to the Bloomberg video “Why Wind, Solar May Survive Under Trump Administration.” In the video reporter Joe Ryan discusses the idea that political changes can lead to harmful policies for solar power.  Ryan says that, though President Trump will support the coal industry it will not cause a problem for solar power, because of the low, and decreasing, prices of solar power. Shahan also talked about the involvement of government in her article. Shahan showed that cost per megawatt hour for utility scale solar power is between $50 and $60, while coal can cost anywhere from $60 to $150 per megawatt hour. However, when subsidized by the government the price of solar power drops to $40 to $50 per megawatt hours; government subsidize can help solar power but if they don’t it can still keep its prices low. The low prices of solar power can make it much more appealing to the possible investors and will create many jobs for those who lost them with the dying coal industry. 

Government motivation is very important to the roll out of solar power, according to the study ”More Than Costs: On the Fit Between Solar and Renewable Electricity Policy Motivations and Energy System Models” by the Federal Swiss Institute for Technology. The study from Johan Lilliestam et al, attempted to analyze motivations of government programs that promote solar power “to find out whether this cost-focus reflects actual policy priorities” (Bailey, 24). Five European nations were studied, Germany, Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, and the UK, the study looked into “policy motivations and constraints for expanding renewables” to see how well a countries renewable electricity system works if it was created to be environmentally friendly or for economic reasons. The three most common reasons for renewable policies are climate change, European Union policy, and energy security, the two most common constraints are short term costs and consumer costs. The study showed that, while environmental concerns such as below average amounts of sun light, the most important issue that policy makers must attempt to overcome is short term cost of changing power systems. Karl Mathiesen, a writer for The Guardian, mentions this problem in his article “What is Holding Back the Growth of Solar Power?”. Mathiesen said that the main struggle for solar power is the necessary infrastructure shift, he that “the infrastructure investments are huge and the work is slow”. Mathiesen’s diagnosis of the problems is very close to that of Lilliestem et al. Both describe the problem with the roll out of solar power to be that the cost and work required to move a developed nation away from fossil fuels and on too renewables is too much for a country to handle. Lilliestem et al points out that unless the nations motivation to make a switch have strong financial returns then the nation’s switch will not be effective. However, both authors offer solutions to the problem of infrastructure price. Lilliestem et al suggest that the policies must specifically approach the price of short term changes, while also giving strength to the long term boost that renewables provide. Mathiesen’s solution contains and important observation for the global future of solar power; that solar power can thrive in less developed nations that have little infrastructure. Though the construction of solar grids in less develop may have little to do with the US power grid, it allows for a real-world example of how a fully renewable system may work. Mathiesen’s solution for more develop nations, is to take it slow and diversify. He suggests that the near side of long term power for the US may come from a combination of different types of power created across the country. Along with combining energy sources Mathiesen also prescribes that solar power make a slow change in the infrastructure and not try for a big switching in a few years. Solar power requires a strategic government process for it to take over the power grid in a developed nation, a strategic process that included focus on short term costs and other energy alternatives.

Dolf Gielen, director of the International Renewable Energy Agency’s Innovation and Technology Center in Bonn, Germany, said that a better solution is “too combine solar with other renewable technologies … (to) provide either consistent power or vary on different rhythms to the sun” (Mathiesen). Gielen suggests that solar power in the short term will not alone be able to over throw coal, and that it must work with other new innovations to support it growth as its builds strength in the grid. In his video with Bloomberg, Joe Ryan also touched on the topic of solar working with other power systems and waiting its turn to take over.  When asked about the decline of coal Ryan responded that that “natural gas plays a tremendous role in this” and that “coal has been on the ropes the past several years, [since] fracking has made natural gas so much cheaper”, Ryan goes on to note that wind and solar have been the largest new sources of power in the US as the growth of coal steeply declines. Ryan is showing that, as happens in a capitalist system, the low prices of natural gas drives competition that coal cannot compete with and so coal’s monopoly fails. As coal’s strength diminishes it makes room for the currently weaker energy sources, including solar, to grow and claim pieces of the market that coal losses. Ryan’s observation, while about natural gas and not a renewable source of energy, supports Gielen’s suggestion that alternatives fuels sources can begin to make in impact if they work together to become economically significant. 

Before solar power can move in to the space that natural gas opened it will have to have low prices that can compete with other sources of power. As Shahan pointed out, government subsidizes help solar lower its prices to be more competitive, but subsidizes can only take the price so low. Spear looked in to the price per what of solar power over the last few decades. She points out that from 1977 to 2013 the price per what has gone from $75 to $.75, and she adds that from 2008 to 2013 that the price per watt of coal has increased by 13%. That is a great price drop, it shows that how fast solar power has improved in a relatively small amount of time. The numbers that Spear use, show two large decreases in the price of solar, one from 1977 to 1987 and the other from 2009 to 2013. The price of solar power is still going through revolutions and is still dropping. Shahan’s data show that the drop-in price from 2009 to 2013 continues onward towards 2016, further supporting the idea that solar power is getting cheaper. The book Power Systems and Renewable Energy: Design, Operation, And Systems Analysis by Gary Price, looks in to the price of solar panels. Price looks into the price, he calculates the actual prices and savings of solar power installations on residential scales. Price’s numbers reveal that on a consumer scale solar panel do not provide much money back. Prices data returns to the point of Mathiesen, since solar power is a new system it requires much more work to be put in to get it working; this is seen in prices calculations since the cost of installation is the most expensive piece. 

While Price shows that individual solar power is not cost effective, this idea can be placed on a large scale. Price’s data gives further justification that solar power should be in the hands of the government. Solar power has made a large amount of growth in the past few decades, making it a nearly a possible alternative for the US. The large cost of labor that Price predicated becomes the manufacturing jobs that Daniels talked about. It has been creating more jobs and has lower prices than its main competition, coal. As natural gas becomes cheaper along with the renewable resources, coal will eventual be no competition to the rest of the power systems. The switch from coal to these alternative sources are also reflected in Prices calculation. He said that most of the savings come from a lack of reliance on the coal powered grid. By switching over to the cheaper sources a nation can save money, just like a citizen who no longer requires the corporate grid.  It is, however, a long way away from being the most powerful energy source in the United states. Once it has a strong enough positive impact for the economy that the nation begins switching all of its infrastructure to support solar power instead of coal, then solar will quickly rise to the top and provide many jobs, lower prices, and high capacity storage of power. Just like Prices model of a residential system, a country that uses its own renewable system is independent for power. The individual no longer needs the grid and the country no longer needs to import coal, oil, or uranium. With the current United States president, a government forced solar take over seems to be very unlikely, and it is much more likely that coal will make a rise to what it has lost. Even if coal makes up ground, solar power will have time to catch up, because even at its fastest speed it will be more that few presidential terms before solar takes over. There are many obstacles along the way, and the economy will be the final say in the fate of solar power and other renewable energy sources. Solar power has many reasons why it will eventually become important to the United States, but its most important reason is the great advantage it provides to the nations that adopt it. 
