Can Solar Power Ever Replace Fossil Fuels?

There's definitely been a substantial growth in the Photovoltaic Solar Power industry in the last decade, but many so called 'experts' question whether or not electricity generated strictly from the sun will ever be able to replace fossils fuels as our chief source of energy.

There's no doubt that revamping our entire electrical infrastructure would require a MAJOR overhaul that might last decades. The national grid is complex, and switching energy sources completely would bring up many issues that would need to be solved.

One such issue is space. At the current efficiency level of your average solar panels in Southern California, for instance, some studies show that we'd need to have a surface area of about the size of Austria collecting all of that sunlight or approximately 165×165 miles to power the US! Of course, these panels would be spread across the entire nation and not focused in one place, but it's still a lot of space to consider.

Another issue would be cost. If we take the above example of the pv solar power needs of the US, the price of implementing such an infrastructure could be as much as 32% of the GDP of the world, or close to $17,500 billion. That's a pretty large undertaking. What you have to remember though, is that this cost will pay for itself eventually in the form of monthly utility bills!