Good grief. There are 1 mil solar installs in the USA, generating
42 GWatts of power. You probably don't know it because you're in
TN, where there isn't as much subsidization as there is in many
other parts of the country.

I love a good sound bite as much as the next guy, BUT
let's dig below the headline.

Put that in perspective.
1mil out of how many total households?

Put some context on that 42 gigawatts.
Is that the peak power of all the installed systems?
What's the total generating capacity of the current grid?

Power is the WRONG metric for solar energy production.
We know that the power is approximately zero at night.
Energy is measured in watt-hours.

It's easy for people to read the headline and believe
that 42 gigawatts of installed panels have the same capability
as 42 gigawatts of evil nuclear.

Here in NW Oregon, in December, 42 gigawatts of panels would produce
as much ENERGY, averaged over the month, as 3.5 gigawatts of nuclear
or hydroelectric or coal fired sources. (source nrel insolation map
http://www.nrel.gov/gis/images/map_p...er_dec2008.jpg)
Difference is that conventional sources are reliable 24 hours a day.
Solar is at the whim of the seasons, the weather and the ~half of the
earth that's in darkness.

Raise your hand if you want your power to go off at night or when
the sky is cloudy.

Anybody???

Solar power is a great thing.
Solar power will be a feasible solution when storage technology catches up.
I don't expect anybody reading this will be alive when it does.