Back in the hoary days of Clinton's first term I did alternative energy design. We ran some numbers - a solar panel 100 miles on a side parked in the middle of the Nevada desert would provide all the energy the United States was currently using. Now all you gotta do is buy the panel, right? Well, and string it up. Makes a point though. What if, instead of spending a billion a week for three years killing Iraqis, we'd spent a billion a week on solar panels? Problem is the wrong republicans get rich then.
Although stringing it up is non-trivial, as I'm sure you're aware. If there were a such thing as a long range, superconducting wire, our energy needs would be solved in short order, since we could turn the bottom of the ocean into a thermal pump. Unfortunately, concentrated energy just doesn't work right now. I think for this reason (among others), materials science is going to be a great field for young engineers to get into in the coming decades. Sure, it's boring to work in materials science research, but the end products are well worth the effort, if successful.Well, and string it up.