The general story seems to be that coal power is on the way out and solar power is on the way in, with India in the lead; a country which presently burns lots of coal (a lot of it imported), has lots of space, lots of pollution and lots of sun. So with the price of solar power falling, on the sums presented here, to less than the price of coal power, new investment in coal power is falling rapidly. China is in a similar case, and smaller developing countries, many of which also have plenty of space and plenty of sun, will follow suit.
Inter alia, they will be able to avoid the huge capital costs involved in highly centralised (think of the French centrale) fossil fuel power generation. They will be able to cut their contribution to global warming.
There are catches. For example, there are plenty of loans out there serviced by the income streams generated by fossil fuel power stations. Do we continue to service those loans? And then, fossil fuel is a big industry, with even more political clout than the tobacco industry.
All that said, prognosis good. We are going to be able to get out from under the thumbs of all those fossil fuel producing countries, for most of which we do not care much at all. And I dare say the Hindus of India will be happy to get out from under the Muslims of the Persian Gulf - these not being peoples who seem to get on terribly well with each other, if partition and ongoing troubles are anything to go by.
But spare a thought for the Saudis. Are they rich enough and grown-up enough to make the transition from a one-product country - with 30 or 40 million mouths to feed?
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