Scientific American: Fact 1: The primary ingredient of most solar panels is purified sand. Fact 2: Enough sunlight hits the Earth in an hour to provide all of humanity's energy needs for a year. So why isn't solar power cheap and abundant?
For starters, building a device capable of turning incoming photons into electricity isn't cheap. Add in installation and the cost of a solar system can still be more than $10 per watt of electricity produced. That's much higher than the cost per watt from burning coal or natural...