If something can be said for Mr McConnell's methodology here, it's that he fully disclosed his assumptions, making it easy to identify the faulty one that sent his analysis hurtling 180 degrees in the wrong direction.<p>Why are you measuring the efficiency of energy sources in dollars, Mr McConnell? No, I don't mean to say Euros or Yen would have been better -- rather, that the reason you find yourself writing about the efficiency of energy sources in the first place is that their efficiency and availability has changed in recent decades and will change even more in decades to come, yes? Which will in turn affect how you and your readers think about your energy costs, correct? Ah.<p>But it will also affect how energy providers think about their energy costs, won't it? If one of those lines on your graph goes spiraling up or down, it will affect the other lines, won't it? And it won't affect them equally.<p>Solar panels can be as cheap as they want <i>while oil is cheap</i>. Will they still be cheap when oil is expensive? When the cost of transport for the many materials that go into their manufacture skyrockets?<p>There exists a better measure of energy efficiency than dollars per gigawatt. It's called gigawatts per gigawatt. Input-output ratio. By that measure, as everybody knows, oil kicks everything else's ass. Whereas solar power won't be even be net-positive until 2020 according to Popsci, which, adjusting for Popsci's track record on predictions, projects to around 2075-2100.<p><a href="http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-04/solar-panels-now-make-more-electricity-they-use" rel="nofollow">http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-04/solar-panels-n...</a><p>Yes, you read that title right. Only as of this month did new panels stop having a net-negative energy efficiency. If that's your idea of disruptive, well, I advise you to quit reheating your Domino's with hydrogen fuel cells.
I don't understand why the oil price is so flat. Between the lower and higher point the difference is like one "mouse-cursor" in my computer. The graph is logarithmic, and the difference between the 200 and 300 marks is approximately one "mouse-cursor". So we have a 3/2 variation in the oil price.<p>But, for example, in this graph <a href="http://www.wtrg.com/oil_graphs/oilprice1970.gif" rel="nofollow">http://www.wtrg.com/oil_graphs/oilprice1970.gif</a> (taken from: <a href="http://www.wtrg.com/prices.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.wtrg.com/prices.htm</a> ) the minimum price is ~$15 and the peak prices are ~$75 or ~$95, so the variation is at least 5/1.