Tim Daneliuk wrote:

Go look at the viability of your beloved "renewable energy" sources
*without* massive government subsidies. Then go look at the *net*
energy required to produce the final output. You will be amazed to
discover that, while there are particular places where things like
solar make sense, on the whole, the whole "renewable energy" thing
has been vastly oversold to a science-ignorant public.

Yup. There's only so much energy that falls on the surface of the earth.

I once computed that it would take a solar collector the size of the Los
Angeles basin (1200 sq miles) to provide power just to California. The down
side, apart from the cost to build and mainatain something that massive
would be that all the Angelenos would live in the dark.

Which, when you think on it, may not be so bad.

The alternative is to move the earth's orbit closer to the sun.