The future of solar power is linked to the cost of the medium for generating it. If it is too expensive, then the cost savings do not come into play fast enough to make it attractive to the greed instinct. A possible future breakthrough lies in a thin film that absorbs sunlight and generates electricity. It takes far less material to build photovoltaic cells from high grade silicon that is over US$500 per pound. Solar power is therefore a whole lot cheaper to generate and once you have established a solar farm it works without moving parts for 30 years. Instead of adding to global warming, nuclear waste dumps or using a finite resource, maintaining large scape solar power batteries becomes more possible when it is seen in a social context. Every roof in a city for example. It is time to evolve away from dependence upon a resource that is always going to be available for free. Unless we pollute the atmosphere with too much soot from burning coal, or worse a 500 year nuclear winter.