the problem with solar power is that there is always the chance of having a streak of clouds for a week or longer. What will you do then, when you produce almost no energy?

You would have to find a method which can store the output of a week or even longer.

The easiest method would be to use electrolysis and turn water into hydrogen, then burn the hydrogen back into water whenever the sun is not shining.


I am not sure how feasible this is but from the wiki page, hydrogen production can be highly efficient if done properly.

With increasing efficiencies of solar panels combined it seems even more rational.


And why only fill 10000 square miles with solar panels and not double or triple that amount?
That way you would have overproduction and would turn the overproduction in summer times into hydrogen for cars and heating in winter times.


The manufacturing cost of a 10kw solar system is less than $10000.

Above calculations showed that you need roughly 400 million such systems to power all of the US. That's 400 million times $4000 = 4 Trillions

4 Trillions is peanuts for the US. Just a fraction of the debt.

Triple that and you'd end up with enough hydrogen to heat homes and fuel cars (or some hydrocarbon based fuel)

An investment which would power the US for at least 40 years on just solar panels, including fuel for cars and winter heating.


And because solar panel power plants can be scaled almost arbitrarily, one could create a solar power grid that is as immune to failing completely as the world wide grid(web). Instead of one big 30000 square miles area, you would have 3000 ten square miles(~3.3 miles x 3.3 miles) areas plastered around strategic locations with about 10-15 people per area working on maintenance. That's 30k new jobs right there.