Solar Is Cheapest Electricity in History, U.S. DOE Aims to Cut Costs 60% by 2030

This is good to hear. I assume location must play a large part in this? Solar must be more cost-effective in, say, the Mojave desert, than it is in Alaska.

I sometimes wonder if the widespread adoption of solar is going to have an environmental impact that isn't immediately apparent. Every solar panel you put on the ground is going to take up solar energy that could otherwise be absorbed by a plant, which in turn means that plant can't absorb carbon from the atmosphere. So unless we just limit ourselves to rooftop solar panels there's sure to be some sort of environmental impact if we just switch all our energy to solar.

I've wondered about that too (competing with nature for the sun) but I think just putting panels on the roof or over the parking lot would probably address 95% of the problem.

Along similar lines, I've wondered if solar panels will start to look like pine trees at some point.

>I've wondered if solar panels will start to look like pine trees at some point.

Interesting thought, but I'm not sure there same factors that led to plant evolution will play out with solar panels. Plants reaching up into the air was a direct response to competition with other types of plants. Presumably the same sort of competition won't be necessary with solar panels. I'm sure nature still has a lot of inspiration we can draw from for creating new types of solar panels, but my guess is that the most efficient surface for collecting solar energy is the flat square design we see today.