Elon Musk’s latest idea, to deal with the climate crisis, supposedly, is to power the United States by a 10,000 square mile solar array. Clearly this would be good for Tesla, if it could be constructed. But, as John Klar details, even Musk grants that batteries will be a problem, which Musk believes can be overcome. But, apart from that, there is the outstanding problem of intermittency of power, when the clouds block the sky. And to get the ball rolling the solar panels would need to be constructed, miles of them. Such panels rapidly deteriorate at a rate of .5 percent per annum, and have a life of only two decades or so before being needed to be replaced.
The panels pose the problem of disposal, for after 20 years, one will have 10,000 square miles of junk to get rid of, no mean feat. And having a centralised power source would make it super easy for enemy missiles to take out the whole thing in one swift attack. But this sort of stuff never worries the environmentalist mind too much, and certainly not the minds of those like Musk.