I’ve often wondered if we did take it to the extreme and put solar panels over every inch of land what the end-effect would be. All those panels essentially robbing the solar heat and converting it at some reduced efficiency to electrical power. Would it reduce the heat load on the planet? Could a long term effect be cooling of the overall temperature?
I’ve also wondered about the same thing but with wind turbines. Millions of 100 ft blades sapping all the ground level wind energy. How would this affect overall global air movement? Would it change the jet streams? Create/reduce possibility for tornados?
Ha! Maybe if I were younger and wanted to burn some cash I’d get the government to fund some long term studies.... :0)
Not necessary...the full energy usage of the US can be done with an area of solar cells 50 miles by 50 miles (and that includes the day-night cycle). The problem is storage and transmission, not collection. I looked this up years ago, so the numbers have probably changed (cell efficiency up, cost down and so forth).