I really liked this article on energybulletin.net that looked at the fundamentals of solar versus wind.
Currently, wind power is cost neutral (at least) compared with fossil fuels for power generation, but intermittent. Solar photovoltaic is 4x the cost of fossil fuels such as coal, and doesn’t work all the time – specifically at night.
So it seems obvious which one to develop…. Except for one thing. All wind power comes from solar energy. When you look at the total amounts of energy that actually goes into wind power, its a small percentage of solar.
Net result: There isn’t going to be enough wind power out there to really solve all the world energy problems. There is plenty of solar power however.
So – solar wins.
Michael