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While this seems to be a minority view in peak oil circles, its one I agree with - "energy descent" is either a deliberate choice or a foolish mistake - its certainly not inevitable - there is more renewable energy out there than we could ever usefully harness.
Glad to hear you say this. It is time we stopped whining and get doing.
Guys the problem with diffuse forms of energy such as solar is the low EROEI, and this will make it expensive, that is take a greater proportion of our wealth.. To make it easy imagine a coal fired power station going from going from an EROEI of 20 to 5.. and what that would do for your power bill...
Cabbages used to sell 30 to 40 years ago for a cost that would now amount to $20 to $35 each - abundant and cheap oil, fertilizers and chemicals pulled the price down.
Soon we will return to high food prices while at the same time paying more for energy - we will have less resources to use at will therefore we will be poorer... not that this will necessarily be a bad thing as we will have less resources to fill garbage tips, and push CO2 into the atmosphere, and we just might be healthier with better food full of natural phyto-nutrients, more exercise and a better relationship with our fellow citizens.
The low density argument against solar should take this less form the guy who made electricity a high density source.
... said Edison as we sat at lunch... "Some day some fellow will invent a way of concentrating and storing up sunshine to use instead of this old, absurd Prometheus scheme of fire. I'll do the trick myself if some one else doesn't get at it. Why, that is all there is about my work in electricity--you know, I never claimed to have invented electricity--that is a campaign lie--nail it!"
"Sunshine is spread out thin and so is electricity. Perhaps they are the same, but we will take that up later. Now the trick was, you see, to concentrate the juice and liberate it as you needed it. The old-fashioned way inaugurated by Jove, of letting it off in a clap of thunder, is dangerous, disconcerting and wasteful. It doesn't fetch up anywhere. My task was to subdivide the current and use it in a great number of little lights, and to do this I had to store it. And we haven't really found out how to store it yet and let it off real easy-like and cheap. Why, we have just begun to commence to get ready to find out about electricity. This scheme of combustion to get power makes me sick to think of--it is so wasteful. It is just the old, foolish Prometheus idea, and the father of Prometheus was a baboon."
"When we learn how to store electricity, we will cease being apes ourselves; until then we are tailless orangutans. You see, we should utilize natural forces and thus get all of our power. Sunshine is a form of energy, and the winds and the tides are manifestations of energy."
"Do we use them? Oh, no! We burn up wood and coal, as renters burn up the front fence for fuel. We live like squatters, not as if we owned the property.
"There must surely come a time when heat and power will be stored in unlimited quantities in every community, all gathered by natural forces. Electricity ought to be as cheap as oxygen, for it can not be destroyed.
"Now, I am not sure but that my new storage-battery is the thing. I'd tell you about that, but I don't want to bore you..."
Edison led an effort to make electricity usable. We can accomplish a task he identified as also achievable, stop burning the fence.
A key aspect of solar is to use the power where it is generated. The first solar powered mobility networks will start commercial operation this year.