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Good post. But it should be added, a) if we did this, you can bet on vastly improved automation and efficiencies, and much larger plants. Solar jobs are vastl

Good post. But it should be added, a) if we did this, you can bet on vastly improved automation and efficiencies, and much larger plants. Solar jobs are vastly dominated by rooftop installation, which isn't at all what you'd get if you were powering a whole nation. b) After the solar output is built, you don't need to add much more, and maintenance is much less than the construction labor. You might need only 2 - 10 % of your estimate -- just adding solar at the electric grid replacement rate. Still, that's a lot of labor.

dredmorbius 12y ago
We've got a lot of building out of solar capacity to do, though with rates of growth, it could be a majority (not "significant", but "majority") component of electrical generation in a decade or so. High growth rates from a low base tend not to be sustained though. Regardless, we'll be building out infrastructure for a while. Once built, solar will need replacement at ~5% of installed base per year (based on a 20% lifespan). Yes, large-installation construction should be less expensive than rooftop retrofitting. I also suspect we'll see increasing amounts of integrated solar construction. As I note elsewhere, I haven't seen a good allocation of labor by phase of solar deployment (e.g., new rollouts, maintenance, ongoing replacement, support and administrative positions, recycling). Oh, and at some point, recycling of decommissioned panels will also be a thing.