What we get from the Sun in one hour, is how much we use for the whole year.
All our energy needs can be covered if we can tap into just 0.00001% of energy received. About 100km2 worth of solar panels.
If every residential and commercial building was covered with solar roof - we’d have all our energy needs covered during day time.
It’s free energy if we know how to use it. Plants do and they make up >99.9% of biomass on this planet.
The problem with C02 is it traps the heat. All useful work is done when high energy packets from sun in ultraviolet and visible light get dissipated into heat (infrared).
If we don’t solve greenhouse gas problem, we can’t use more energy since we’d be out of equilibrium.
Plus solar panels are actually MORE reflective than forests, so if we cut down forests to place the solar panels we'd be directly helping out against climate change, by lowering the albedo of the surface.
(forests are only a little less of a "heat island" than an asphalt surface is, and that makes sense, doesn't it? Forests actively try to maximize what they capture from the sun. That tress is capture more is why trees exist in the first place)
