Hello,
Have you folks seen the proposal in Scientific American? It uses a large amount of solar PV and heat systems in the southwest of the USA to generate up to 69% of all the electrical power for the entire contry:
A Solar Grand Plan: Scientific American
High voltage DC transmission lines would connect the generators to the large city nodes. The excess power would be used to compress air into underground caverns, and then when needed, the air pressure would be used to spin turbines and generate it near the consumer.
Also, molten salt could be stored underground near the solar heat plants to store excess heat for days of power w/o the sun.
Add to this, dispersed wind farms from Texas to the Dakotas, and add biomass, geothermal, offshore wind power, tidal power, wave power, and we could have a huge amount of power -- WAY in excess of what we would need.
So, mix and match, disperse, diversify, distribute, conserve -- this alone could cut our needs in half! Almost zero carbon emissions, and zero mercury, and none of the myriad of other pollutants, no fissionable or radioactive materials to leak into ground water or terrorists to covet -- we don't ave to import anything, and we don't fund unfriendly governments. We provide jobs that cannot be globalized, and we have no need to fight over oil, or natural gas.
Lessee -- it pretty much solves at least three major problems: energy, security, and economic stress.