Solar is within a hair's breadth of eclipsing most, if not all, other energy sources in terms of cost per kWh and, if innovation continues at the same pace, possibly only a decade away from eclipsing all other energy sources across every metric in the energy value chain.

Watching the duo Elon Musk and Donald Trump lay waste to everything in their path over the past few weeks, I wondered how the energy business might be affected, particularly those energy initiatives directly tied to climate change, which Trump has already decreed a "giant hoax". One assumes that anyone involved in green anything is unhappily watching jobs being shed, political support turning tail and funding drying up (not only in the US but elsewhere as the USAID money spigot is ruthlessly closed). It is not a fun time for environmental warriors right now.

This thought led me to take another look at the solar industry, to get a sense of how much wind will be sucked out of its sails (to wildly mix metaphors), or the opposite, given the energy demands of new technologies like AI.

My, my, how things have changed since I last looked.

But first, I had an argument. A friend of mine, a well-known curmudgeon, got wind of my preparing to write this article. He protested vociferously, claiming that solar power is the greatest energy boondoggle ever foisted on a gullible public, a massive waste of money inspired by misinformed optimism. He besieged me with...