Energy - Part 4: Solar (Again)

Yesterday I said that my ideal energy system would involve 100% on location solar production. Let me outline a little more why I say that.

1. Solar works well as a distributed system, meaning you don't lose efficiency having everyone generate their own power. In fact you can gain efficiency. Due to losses in the electric grid 8-15% of  electricity generated at any power plant is lost.
2. Distributed systems can be more robust than systems that rely on large central hubs (power plants) to operate. There are a lot of potential threats to large power grids. From weather, natural disasters, to hacking, and terrorism large and spread out infrastructure presents a big target for disruption.
3. Because of the nature of the technology solar is relatively low maintenance. Especially when compared to big power plants like coal or nuclear. Solar panel efficiency does degrade over time, but unless some external physical damage occurs they don't require regular maintenance except maybe cleaning.
4. Solar panels don't require fuel. You put them up and the work. No fuel prices to complain about going up. No mining operations to provide a continuous supply of sunshine. This means that solar becoming more accepted and used does not translate into a bigger negative environmental impact.
5. Solar panel operation doesn't produce waste. You don't have to find someplace to stick all the used up photons. It just makes electricity.
6. It really provides for a democratization of energy production. Maintaining neighborhood electrical networks is probably a good thing in order to provide electricity in case someone's system has a problem, but keeping the power generation very local allows individuals to have a much bigger say.
7. Very related to 6 if all power generation was local, and electric transportation was the norm the energy industry would be more or less out of business. There would be solar panel companies, but the energy industry would be mostly out of the business of supply/distribution/disposal. I don't have anything inherently against big business, but the fewer big powerful interests there are the better assuming we don't need them.
8. By eliminating the need for big electrical distribution infrastructure we won't have the ugly power lines all over and building new neighborhoods and communities will become cheaper because there is less overhead required.

We are not close to this being practical or happening. Solar is only ~2% of domestic electricity production. So we will probably rely on other sources for quite a while. I want the transition to happen, but it needs to happen in a natural way as the technology becomes more mature. I think the worst thing would be for the government to try to force a shift to solar. Good technology naturally takes hold and expands. We have a market driven economy. Let it sort out the timing and what the solar economy should look like.