ELI5:Dollar for dollar, how do various energy sources compare (for vehicles, houses, etc). Curious about solar vs nuclear vs others.

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There isn't a simple answer.

For example take renewable sources like solar, wind, hydro and geothermal energy. These are heavily subsidized by the government at every level from research, to product development, corporate taxes and consumer pricing. All of that depends on the country, state and even local government. It could be that solar is dollar per watt cheaper in California compared to say, coal in Illinois just because of government intervention in the marketplace.

It's also hard to research this because it's such a hot topic and heavily politicized. Every source is biased. If you research solar your incentive is to publish results that your developments are cheaper than coal. If you're a nuclear based business you want to guide studies in making nuclear look cheaper. Biases are everywhere.

But all that said there is something of an S shaped curve when it comes to technological development in terms of price and performance. Coal and natural gas plants are very cheap to build because the technology and infrastructure for those resources have been around a century. Solar is heavily dependent on recent advancement in the last ten years. Nuclear has been around awhile but it costs a ton of money to get off the ground because of regulation, but is virtually free once the plant is constructed.

There are other fundamental issues at play here. For example solar and wind require huge plots of land to generate the same amount of power as a nuclear or coal plant. That depends on the location chosen for the renewable sites.

Lastly these prices fluctuate. Solar is at the whim of silicon wafer prices, coal on coal prices, and nuclear on regulation changes. It could be that this month coal is the most efficient per dollar because a plant in Thailand making wafers burned down and solar panel prices go up. Or Argentina cracks down on lithium strip mining and battery prices go up.

So tl;dr it depends and it isn't simple. Everyone argues about it to and there's money involved so sources aren't always trustworthy.

Sorry, ELI5 is for complex concepts requiring simplified explanations, not for general questions of fact or information.

Unfortunately ELI5 is not the right forum for this question. Please see Rule 2. Another subreddit may be a better fit.

For a topic like this I recommend r/answers.