Solar Power

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0-0iBjLK7iaTqxPjy2dPCLTnUajzBvzyDd_nmdegw4NgeBiIYA-1n9iwfRNIcBCRh-gOusqJhxKFTGkIrz8h0Mnv3076nk9krHYZ7aEEReAA2GQy_ig5Mzc9uGxMtdZ6s3M2R5eCdeUY/s320/solar+power+area+on+globe.png

See that little black square in the middle of Saudi Arabia? It's 231 kilometres on a side, covering some fifty-three thousand square kilometres. The total area of solar panels needed to supply global electricity needs at its current rate of consumption, some 2 trillion Watts. Calculated by Professor Raymond Pierrehumbert of Chicago University, in an open letter that corrects global-warming denying innumeracy in Superfreakonomics.

http://unlikelyworlds.blogspot.com/2009/10/solar-power-footprint.html

The above is erroneous, a lie in other words. At noon you can generate loads of power usually, yes, but how do you store it? So you would need one of these in every other time zone. Also, solar panals don't work well when dusty (so maybe desert environment not so good). Also, they ware out - I read somewhere that the amount of energy needed to produce and transport and locate a solar panal was roughly equal to the amount of energy it produced in it's usfal lifetime - net gain zero - making it basically a battery used to transport energy produced elsewhere. Nuclear and burning stuff (oil, gas, coal) works, nothing else does... except maybe solar in orbit microwaved to surface where needed.