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The moment solar energy can exceed efficiency of fossil fuels this all but becomes a moot point. In my mind, every other "alternative" energy source (read : Not fossil fuel or coal) is a shitty band-aid.
A large Nuclear power plant, for comparison, will put out approximately 1000 Megawatts consistently, 24/7, with a much smaller physical footprint.
I say we endeavor to take over a city in America or Europe then re-name it "Future City" and let peoples build awesome in it. Basically, just take over and be flaming liberals.
You're playing Civ 4. You need some military. You can build a pikeman in 5 turns, but you'll have gundpowder in three turns. Do you build the pikeman, or save for a musketeer?
If it wasn't urgent, you'd wait since the upgrades are expensive, but you need the unit ASAP if the situation is analogous.
The real problem with solar (and wind) is evening out load and production (water does it via reservoirs), for large scale installation compressed air is a good option and for consumer scale deployment batteries are already good enough (and getting better in a hurry).
@lackofcheese - I only think space is a factor at this point because of the present inefficiency of solar cells. Once that efficiency ramps up, the answer to the space concern becomes a no brainer.
What I consider a much more promising avenue of investigation is fusion power, which has none of the problems that fission has regarding the obtaining, enriching, and cleaning up /storing waste, of fuel. Sadly the US withdrew from the most promising international effort during the recent financial crisis in an effort to save some pennies.
Also, I don't think you're taking into account how efficient breeder reactors are - unlike normal reactors, which consume about 1% of the initial fuel put into them, a breeder reactor, with some re-processing of the fuel, will consume almost all of the initial fissionable materiel given to it.
Cost? Well, Tell me, from Dirt to end of life cycle, how much do solar panels cost? Significantly more than Uranium or thorium fuel for reactors, I'd wager.
As for fusion, we have the problem that the tech simply isn't there. We could start building breeder reactors tomorrow, if we wanted, but fusion reactors? Not so much.
What irks me in the debate about nuclear power's price is that the costs of doing it right are seldom taken into account. What is the price of safely storing nuclear waste for a year, ten years, fifty? It is very basic physics that nuclear decay can not be accelerated on an industrial scale yet, you may be able to do it in a lab but not for the 27 tonnes of waste generated yearly. Then there are concerns about how much area a nuclear power plant needs. In the US you have all the space you want, but here in Europe population density is quite high and studies such as these Show clear increases in cancer rates due to vicinity of nuclear power plants. So in order to be safe, a nuclear power plant should occupy much more land than they currently do. Then you have even more studies of the effect on the local biotopes, which again raises the question of nuclear plants not cooling waste water sufficiently, etc. etc.
Not only are all these costs and the risks associated with storage hard to estimate and usually absent in cost analysis, but the overall hypocrisy of claiming nuclear to be clean energy boggles my mind. I mean, I like nuclear power, it is possibly cleaner than other fossil alternatives but the fact that it may be limitless for all intents and purposes should not stop anyone from trying to find even better solutions.
Comparing incredibly unreliable price estimates and even more unreliable carbon footprints in the debate about nuclear vs renewable is ultimately a red herring. I base my preference on the simple fact that one produces waste and the other produces highly toxic waste.