What to do with the resulting electric energy? (1) Smelt iron or aluminum? (2) Split H2O into O2 and H2 and use the H2 for fuel. (3) Convert water and coal t

What to do with the resulting electric energy? (1) Smelt iron or aluminum? (2) Split H2O into O2 and H2 and use the H2 for fuel. (3) Convert water and coal to gasoline. (4) Desalinate and/or purify water and use the water for humans food and drink, bathing, washing, swimming, lawns, greenhouse agriculture, or just to make the desert bloom? (5) Heat salt to store the energy, and then run water through tubes in the hot salt to generate high pressure steam to drive steam turbines and, then, electric generators and, then, transmit the power across the Mediterranean to Europe and sell it? Uses (1)-(4) have the advantages that get just to use the power while the sun is shining and don't have to store the power for nighttime use or transmit the electric power long distances. Would have to transmit the hydrogen or gasoline for those options. In the words of the skeptical mayor's wife in the movie The Music Man, "I'm reticent. Yes, I'm reticent." Why? The idea is not nearly new. So, I do have to suspect that a good engineering-economic analysis would show that we would need progress in: (1) Keeping desert sand off the solar panels. (2) In case want to use the electric energy to make hydrocarbons, a good source of coal near the desert. (3) Energy storage. (4) Superconductivity for the transmission lines across the Mediterranean. Might be able to pay for it if the world can agree on some huge carbon taxes. Nukes might be be cheaper. Might keep in mind that the spot, wholesale cost of electric power in the US has been under $0.01 per KWH and the full cost, say, ballpark $0.06. So, the cost to a consumer of 10, 12, 22 or so cents per KWH is mostly for distribution, not generation. But the panels in the desert handle only the generation part, do nothing for the short distance distribution costs where the consumers are and make the long distance distribution, e.g., across the Mediterranean, more expensive. Also on the money side, might want to keep in mind that the major oil sources in the Mideast pump oil for less than $1 per barrel. That price is tough to compete with. Right, might be shipping the power to France which is doing quite well with nukes. Then once carbon taxes start to take hold, people might watch 'The Great Global Warming Swindle' at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52Mx0_8YEtg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52Mx0_8YEtg and discover the evidence that CO2, methane, etc. from human activities has nothing at all to do with the climate or temperature of earth and, instead, changes in those two are driven by changes in the activity level of the sun, the sun spots, the solar wind, the blocking of cosmic rays hitting the atmosphere, the rate of formation of water droplets, the rate of H2O cloud formation, and, thus, the cooling effect of clouds. Then people will object to carbon taxes. Net, it appears that while the Watts of solar energy per 1000 square miles of desert are astoundingly high, for what people in the population centers want in electric power, motor fuel, clean water, etc., that desert solar power is just not very valuable.