you called it (beat me to it, in fact)! Zero pollution or no, there is no way the envirowackos will let this thing be erected w/o hell to pay. It may get done, but you may as well add half a billion just to fight the fight those bastards will wage over it. The very idea of making MONEY off the sun! Well! Harumph, harumph!
BINGO! You win the prize. I have only heard once on TV and once in a magazine article the real reason this stuff won't work. To generate enough electricity to do a small town takes more land mass COMPLETELY covered with solar cells, than the city it provides for. The windmills are killing over 100,000 birds a year right now. How many of those are Spotted Owls, or rare woodpeckers or something, we don't really know. You can imagine the carnage if we went with wind farms all over the country. Besides the land masses involved, they are still impractical economically. If it made sense, we would be doing it already. There is enough wacko money(aka Soros, Buffett, etc), already out there if it made sense. What they want is you, the taxpayer to fund their boondoggles. If solar could triple in efficiency, or even double, maybe it would be worth the loss of land mass, but just think what land is going for in So California.
If every house had solar shingles covering the entire roof, maybe you could watch TV and run a fan and a couple of lights for free. But that 60 amp double breaker that runs the AC will still be fed by the light company.
Why the MSM keeps this myth alive about the greedy oil companies stopping progress beats me. If solar was the future, Exxon would buy the panel makers. GE is already big in wind. There is no money in it, ergo, it won't make it in a capitalistic economy.
Course, with the recent Supreme Ct decision, maybe we could just eminent domain California, Oregon, and Washington, and cover them with solar and windmills. That way we get rid of 3 blue states, and get some juice to boot. Put the people on reservations in Utah and Nevada or something so we can keep track of them and re-educate them. Maybe a special place for San Francisco in Kansas or something. Excuse me, my mind is wandering.