Its also worth noting concerning solar panels that they are propped up in many parts of the country with massive government subsidies, and even with those are still only economical in areas with the highest priced electricty. So yes if you are in California and can get the massive subsidies and your goverment has a defacto ban on coal and a law against nuclear causing your electricty prices to be twice the national average then its can get to be a winner. However I find it ironic that usually enviromentalists and liberals are the ones decrying large government subsidies to industry but here they are all for the government heavily subsidising an industry which cannot stand on its own. Also like was mentioned before we are talking about California where coal and nuclear are banned, a LNG terminal is banned, and power comopanies are viewed as the enemy. Basically California has the most poorly thought out and regressive restrictions on the electrical industry hence the incredibly high electricty prices (I mean being against coal is one thing and acceptable, but their views on nuclear and LNG along with electrical industry regulation are just sad). Just to rag on California some more, I remember before this whole Enron thing most people probably didn't know much about their regulations or about Enron as a compnay, but my dad who works in the electric utility business was telling me months before Enron ever came in and raped California about how California's new laws were going to completely fuck them over and the people where he worked has already figured out tons of ways the system could be games to make huge proffits (which Enron eventually did). I mean their laws on the electircal industry are all political garbage some of them are misguided attempts at enviromentalism others are just bordering on socialist.