[cyborg]

There's more open space in Zimbabwe for solar panelling. I'm not a fan of wind turbines, but the sun is free :)

[RightWhale]

Look at the cost of solar the same way--the units of energy required to extract a unit of sunshine.

Think of a resource as something useful that can be extracted at less cost than it is worth. It is a good definition of resources.

Solar panels require energy to be made, and they have to be maintained and have a lifetime. Solar is much more expensive than coal or oil right now. Eventually oil and then coal will rise in cost to the level of solar, and probably solar will become somewhat cheaper although it has remained at the same cost for a decade now.

When solar is competitive with oil and coal, energy will have become so expensive that the rest of the industrial economy will be in trouble.