OK, that isn't a bad perspective to have. Most people are not aware of the realities (vs. the fantasy) of solar and go straight for variants of "save the planet", which is absolute nonsense.
Having and living with solar is very different from what people imagine solar to be. Here's a simple example from my 13 kW array:
https://i.imgur.com/SOr30bX.png
or
https://i.imgur.com/yvTdNX0.png
What are those massive dips sometimes causing a reduction of output of more than 50%? Clouds. Simple as that. This is what a "normal" clear-sky day looks like:
https://i.imgur.com/Fl8ARJd.png
Output like that is frequent but not the norm. Clear sunny days in Southern California. If you live somewhere with more weather than we have here, it will be more like the first example.
The consequences of weather are severe. Here's a look at January of this year:
https://i.imgur.com/bGuCH2F.png
And here's a look at all of last year:
https://i.imgur.com/EF2L3Hk.png
This is to say at least two things about the reality, vs. the fantasy, of solar:
First, the technology isn't reliable. Not inherently, of course, the power output reliability is a function of weather. And we can't control that. I can't think of a single place on earth where there aren't any clouds, rain, fog, storms, dust, etc. Note from the images I provided that my 13 kW array never really peaks out at 13 kW. I think the most I've seen is 11 kW. You would need an absolutely perfect day with perfectly clean panels to, maybe, reach a higher peak for a few seconds.
Also note where the annual production peak is located, May. Most people think solar peaks in the summer. Not so. Panels have a negative temperature dependency. Which means they make less power when they get hot. May, here, happens to be the balance point between incoming light and lower temperatures.
Having built and operated this system for a number of years, here's the biggest problem with solar as I see it (and this isn't something trivial):
A solar system built to deliver steady-state power 24/7 must be about
10 times the size of the required steady-state output.
In other words, if you want a solar power plant that can deliver 1 MW (Mega Watt) 24/7, you have to install about 10 MW of solar panels and a massive storage system.
I've done the math on this multiple times, it's undeniable. Some of it is very simple and some of it requires basic high-school calculus. Here's a couple of examples:
The area under the roughly parabolic shape of normal (ideal day) production is 2/3 of that of the rectangle that would represent steady-state power at the peak level for those 12 hours. In other words, you start to produce at, say, 10 kW at 8 AM and stay at that level until 8 PM.
That simple reality means that, in order to produce the same energy of a steady 12 kW power source you need to multiply your system size by 1.5. In other words, if you need 10 kW x 12 hours of energy, you need to build a 15 kW system.
The next easy to understand reality is that you need to double that system (at a minimum) in order to have that much energy available at night. Now we go from a 10 kW system to a 30 kW system plus the corresponding amount of storage.
Another easy one is inverter (and related components) average efficiency. I'll place that at 90%. That means you lose 10% just to make power you can use. It also means that we now need to add solar panels in order to achieve the required output. That means that we went from a 10 kW system to a 33 kW system. A multiplier of 3.3.
This super-simple analysis quickly got us to over 3x requirement for the system size. The way we get to 10x (or more in some cases) is to start including weather-related effects as well as time-of-year realities. Add to that efficiency calculations for large systems as well as statistical assumptions for failure rates (if you have tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of anything, failures are an unavoidable reality) and it is easy to show that you need to install a system that is in the order of 7x to over 10x the desired steady-state power delivery.
This is the solar problem. And this is where the idea of "saving the planet" or even perhaps reducing CO2, etc. can start to quickly fall apart. One of the simple implications of this reality is that you need a massive amount of land in order to achieve output at scale. The next reality --something most people never think about-- is that you'll need, again, massive amounts of concrete, steel and other materials to build something like that. And, finally, we have to account for the energy and fuel burned not just in manufacturing and transporting all the required materials and components, but for the construction process itself. You can't build a 1000 acre solar farm without probably thousands of vehicles moving things, digging holes, delivering concrete, etc.
Anyhow, not coming down on solar, just pointing out that there is such a thing as understanding that it isn't some magical perfect technology that you install at no cost (environmental and otherwise) and produce perfect power 24/7. It's far more complex and, yes, dirty, than most people might imagine.
I guess what I am saying is that we really need honest assessments of these and other technologies before jumping head first into continental-scale projects that could be truly detrimental when viewed from a wholistic perspective.
After my analysis I came to understand that our clean future pretty much requires nuclear energy at a massive scale. I don't think we can do it without nuclear. Solar and wind cannot achieve what we need.
What do we need? In the US, if we want to go to a fully electric ground transportation system (cars and trucks included) we need to DOUBLE the current power system. That isn't trivial. Imagine creating a full duplicate of our current power production system. We need somewhere in the order of 1200 GW to support a full transition to electric vehicles. Our current power generation capacity sits at about 1200 GW, hence the need to double it. This, of course, will also require a doubling in capacity of our entire power distribution system. We cannot currently carry twice the power.
In other words, this is far more complex than just installing solar panels.