Policymakers and green energy advocates insist wind and solar are the future—cheap, clean, and limitless. The reality is far different. These sources displace some fuel costs but deliver no on-demand power. They force utilities and ultimately ratepayers to maintain a full-time, reliable full-time system while subsidizing a part-time, weather-dependent one. The result is double the capital expense for half the reliability, a financial blunder on a national scale.
Consider land use alone. A recent analysis of “reliable” solar measured by accredited capacity during peak demand, not optimistic annual averages reveals a footprint far larger than claimed. In the MISO grid, serving about 44 million people in the center part of the country, solar now requires 19.29 acres per megawatt of accredited capacity during peak demand, balloons to 257 acres by 2030 and 579 acres by 2043.
Why? Because solar often doesn’t produce electricity when it is needed and when they do make electricity, they overproduce the needs of our grids. This is the reason more land and panels are needed as more is added to our grid.
That is nearly 20 times more land than a comparable natural-gas plant. To meet even half of America’s 2025 electricity demand of roughly 2,215 terawatt-hours, the U.S. would need approximately 1,000 gigawatts of installed solar capacity with realistic, perhaps optimistic 22-25% capacity factor. Capacity factor is how much electricity they actually produce, not the nameplate value, which is what they produce under ideal conditions when the sun is just right. When they are new and clean.
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