There is enough surface to put PV panels in many places, and the reason why I don't just say land is because enthusiasts will also consider rooftops (which aren't optimal in terms of tech and output as you surely know - the significant farms do require requisitioning actual land and it isn't insignificant in itself[0]). But there isn't enough surface for PV to preclude the usage of nuclear, which is what I've been saying all along. Reminder for the n-th time that it's not a XOR when it comes to using all the sources alternatives to fossil fuels, it's an OR in many places and an AND in some. I've been saying repeatedly that the OR wins in favour of nuclear for energy throughput, not that the OR precludes from having them and there isn't and AND in other places.

You haven't impeached anything by saying he lied about rare minerals, since earlier generations of PV did require those. You just brushed off the person because it's harder to brush off the argument.

The IPCC reports (btw if you had read the page you'd see the 2020 one is inbound so you've got to use the previous ones) have over decades highlighted the unpredictability of changes regarding habitability of places (i.e. typically related to RCP scenarios) and changes in weather patterns. The very same things that I've been mentioning multiple times as being factors that influence the ability to have steady renewables.

Let's take a look at that one[1] ("aeons ago" to you, as if the world magically changed since).

P5 Changes in atmospheric concentrations of greenhousegases (GHGs) and aerosols, land cover and solar radiation al-ter the energy balance of the climate system.

P13 phenomenon and directions of trends, just take the most likely ones and explain to me how your PV panels will handle those better than a nuclear power plant where the power production gives no qualms about rain, cloud cover and temperature (since they're literally built to handle terrorist attacks)

P13 again "Anthropogenic warming could lead to some impactsthat are abrupt or irreversible, depending upon the rateand magnitude of the climate change.", please do enlighten me about how well you can predict that your PVs are going to give you any steady power output at any given location over the duration of their existence

The rest of the IPCC reports tend to indicate shifts in patterns that we can barely predict, yet somehow again you feel entirely comfortable without a proof that PV can stand the changes in {cloud cover, fires (how's it holding up for the PV in California these days huh?), weather patterns, changes in irradiation, maintenance cost[note to not install them in deserts[5]]}.

It also hasn't escaped your mind that in a decent part of the world on the RCP scenarios we're headed towards we will encounter increasing amounts of deadly days - making those lands practically not habitable (and surprise surprise, those places happen to be exactly where sunlight would be most intense)[2]. Side note: climate refugees will go to places where infrastructures are, and those power needs will therefore increase. This is a time where the combination of nuclear and renewables can be a fantastic thing, but once again you're daydreaming if you think that solar (and wind) can carry that without nuclear.

Again, you ought to know that I have not once said that PV shouldn't be developed, but that I have said multiple times that nuclear is what enables steady controllability and necessary power output at metrics comparable to current days energy needs. You've been keen on trying to find a fault in every single sentence I've said without ever trying to refute that, why is it you think? Perhaps because you also acknowledge that very same thing? There's no point in you trying to advocate for solar using that same report because I AM ON BOARD.

However you bring forward literally nothing that shows that PV is controllable (as it is not and that is basically its biggest problem[2] - and yes that's physics and not spherical cows), that PV+storage isn't a smoke screen (quite literally - it reduces the fossil-fuel related emissions by 6 but is about 20 times more than nuclear due to the storage). I'll also stop waiting on a real refutal of [4](yes, again) because apparently anything that upsets you isn't worth proving wrong.

So yes, physics about spherical cows (i.e. imagining you get the solar output you design your farm for at any fraction in steady way without being forced to move, with a magically predictable climate and weather, and without involving more CO2 emissions for both moving the infrastructure - new land usage - as well as the significant waste due to the panels change that comes in within a couple decades), that physics about spherical cows does not hold up.

Solar (and wind) will be formidable sources to support a world that goes without fossil fuels, and in some localized spots it can even be the key element. For the world, it won't be nearly enough.

And if you are happy handwaving it all away, just do your own parallel benefit-to-cost analysis[6] then.

[0] https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/environmental-impacts-solar...

[1] https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ar4_syr_full...

[2] https://www.carbonbrief.org/billions-face-deadly-threshold-h...

[3] https://energycentral.com/c/ec/look-wind-and-solar-part-2-th...

[4] https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2018/05/08...

[5] https://sinovoltaics.com/technology/solar-panels-deserts-par...

[6] https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/cobi...