Why Not Solar Energy?

Without any details of the type infrastructure used a significant distraction is the big bang issue...

When something is related to people's pleasure or entertainment, they will expend any amount of effort.

A few years ago, some people were caught in floods in the Northern Territory, so stayed at the closest cattle station.

Another group were caught over the flooded creek.

The station hands shot a kangaroo to give the stranded people some food as they didn't seem able to cross the creek.

Next day, one of the "stranded" men swam the creek. He had run out of cigarettes!

A similar mechanism seems to operate here with solar power. Until it is cheap enough to make economic sense, people won't expend the money or effort to install it, whereas they will spend money on a satellite dish for TV.

On the research front, apparently several groups are working on "paint on" cells which can be cheaply made and screen printed to any substrate.

When this makes solar power cheap and easy to install, we will have so much of it generated privately that we will probably have to start isolating them from the grid because the grid will become unstable otherwise.

I doubt that government subsidies will be effective in getting it installed.