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Originally Posted by Old Mechanic
If it seems way off then present your own calculations with linked information to support your facts.
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US electrical consumption (2009): 3.471e12 KWh
United States Electricity - consumption - Economy
Current PV price (approx): $1/KW
Darwin Effect Cuts Photovoltaic Prices, Abound Solar Says - Bloomberg
Hours generation per year, at 8 hours per day: 2920
Cost of PV panels to generate US electrical consumption: $1.19 trillion.
US GDP (2009): $14.119 trillion
Gross national product - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
So the US could (theoretically) replace its entire electrical generation in a single year for less than 12% of its GDP. Or in a decade for 1% of GDP per year. And note that PV panel prices keep dropping. At the link, you'll see that one company claims a current production cost of $0.75/Watt.
Of course there are installation costs on top, and for a pure solar system additional cost for storage, but it's certainly within the realm of possibility - especially if the panels are installed on existing roofs, parking lots, and other already built areas.
Then too, we would not want a pure solar power grid. Consider that the US currently gets ~20% of its electricty from nuclear power. Those plants were built over a 40 year period, at a cost which does not seem to have had a measureable effect on the economy. It should therefore be possible to build a mere four times as many in a couple of decades for only a fraction of GDP.
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Also understand the present employment in industries you will render obsolete and what your plan is to do for those who would now join the unemployment lines waiting for more handouts.
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Why do we need a plan, any more than we needed a plan for buggy whip makers, people who made record players, 8-track tape players, or any of the thousands of other products that have become obsolete in the last century? How about the tens of thousands of jobs made obsolete by on-line bill-paying? Old industries adapt or die: their employees likewise need to adapt.