@adam

> would be able to power the entire United States

Actually, no. This kind of naive calculations are very misleading as they do not account for PV variability. Here's a good paper that explains that, the bottom line is in the screenshot:

https://kencaldeira.wordpress.com/2018/03/01/geophysical-constraints-on-the-reliability-of-solar-and-wind-power-in-the-united-states/