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In a review conducted by a correspondent for The Economist, he/she found that even with state and federal subsidies, it is too expensive and too effort consuming to purchase solar panels. The correspondent found that not only was will, passion and determination needed to begin the project, the installing of solar panels did not save much money at all. Instead, it is a hefty investment for the sake of saving mother nature. The correspondent attributes much of the blame on technology, specifically, the inefficiencies of the solar panels. He argues that modern-day solar panels have not broken the technology curve like semiconductors did. Instead, the panels' efficiency only double every 30 years --a snail pace from a technological standpoint. Even commercial panels today have roughly 20% or less efficiency. The greatest efficiency are on satellites, and those only attain around 50%.

With the lag in technological breakthrough in mind (the correspondent does admit that proton-electron-electricity is hard physics), the prices of panels are naturally high. A 200 Watt module with 17% efficiency is a whopping 1500 USD on the market. Also, it is not only just the panels that costs financial mayhem --the rest of the gear digs deep into pockets as well. Switching over to solar requires the homeowner to switch modules, purchase fault protector, DC-AC inverter, cover installation costs and labor fees. For his house alone, he estimated that going solar would cost him 65,000. The government's incentives (aka subsidies) does help but not much, the most the correspondent could get was 12,000 from state government (which considering he resides in California is a VERY generous package) and 2000 dollars from the Federal government.To pay for the 51,000, he calculated that he needed to pick up a mortgage of 600 per month for 10 years, and all that to save 75 dollars worth of electricity a month. His answer? No Thank you.

It seems that the most important part of this article is about the technology curve. Solar energy is hard to convert, and it seems that the scientific community is having troubles making it more efficient. It is remains inefficient, it will never break out, and the costs of the panels will always be that high.