[eloff]

Sorry, it's 10,000 square miles in the article I linked. I can't edit my post anymore, but my point stands.

Energy consumption is actually dropping in the US currently, but I don't expect that trend to continue indefinitely, eventually we will get to 100x energy usage. And you're right, at that point solar wouldn't cut it.

But that's a far cry from your original post saying it won't work for a developed nation, when it clearly can work for the world's richest and most energy intensive nation.

As for the very far future when solar won't cut it? I'm sure we'll use a lot of nuclear, and by then probably a lot of nuclear fusion. Or maybe we won't have those crazy energy requirements because we've moved most industry off the planet like per Jeff Bezos' vision of the future. It's enough to get ourselves sorted in the present, so we can have a bright future, and solar and wind power can help us achieve that. There's no reason nuclear can't be a part of that picture, but they have a hard challenge ahead because current nuclear is not competitive cost wise with renewables plus energy storage.