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Originally Posted by Luggage
Actually I believe you might be wrong about your statement about solar cells not being able to run the country. There are many quotes as well as back of the napkin figures that state 100 square miles of solar cells can run the country. What would be needing would be additional distribution wiring as well as immense storage for night time . There is even a famous YouTube clip video of Elon musk talking about this. Of course it would be several billions of dollars and no one is willing to pony up and the fact that you'd have about 2,000 utility commissions that would have to agree to this. Solar cells are an important part of the equation to even off the demand capacity during the day when electricity you use the most for air conditioning
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It takes about 20 square miles of solar cells to generate the same power as a medium sized power plant so 100 square miles wouldn't do squat to cover the nation's electric power demands. A solar farm the size of Texas is closer to the truth. And don't forget that you need something to cover those frequent times when the "sun don't shine". Oh, and there is the little issue of the approximately 20 to 25 year lifespan of a solar panel with a loss of about 1 to 2% annual loss of efficiency. The point is that solar energy is a very, very diffuse energy source, and electric energy storage is problematic.