[verite]

The USA power usage is actually closer to 4x10^15 W-hr per year, not per day. Source: http://www.eia.gov/state/seds/sep_sum/html/pdf/sum_btu_1.pdf ; 1 btu is 10^3 joules so 10^5 tbtu = 10^19 j ~= 4x10^15 W*hr. So your land coverage requirement is off by a factor of a few hundred.

For battery space, the same factor of a few hundred still applies. Also I'm not sure where you looked up the volume of the Trump tower but wikipedia claims a floor area of 240,000 m^2 and I doubt people can walk in an area a foot tall. With a more realistic ceiling height of 3m, you'd be off by another factor of 10 there.

--> Closer to 1/1000 of land area for coverage and 100 trump towers for storage.

Your claim on it taking more energy to make a solar panel than it produces is likely untrue, but I don't have enough scientific background to quantitatively refute it. (http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy99osti/24619.pdf claims a breakeven period of 2-4 years)

[vectorwhat]

From your document it seems that the researchers ignored the most energy intensive part of the process!

From your document:

"Purifying and crystallizing the silicon are the most energy-consumptive parts of the solar-cell manufacturing process."

"To calculate payback, Dutch researcher Erik Alsema reviewed previous energy analyses and did not “charge” for the energy that originally went into crystalizing microelectronics scrap."

The way I understand it, the calculations don't charge the most expensive part of the process by arguing that, being scrap of the semi-conductor business, its already been paid.

[vectorwhat]

So instead of 1/3 the land area 1/1000. That's insane. That's absolutely insane.

Yellowstone national park is 1/1000 of the US' surface area.