I’m thinking about it differently, considering how much life lives in direct sunlight and depends on it for survival.

There’s a reason we don’t use sunlight to sterilize surgical instruments.

Wait... Unless the sterilizer is solar powered, or used coal power, since coal is just compressed plant matter, which basically exists because of sunlight...

We basically do use sunlight. Medical instruments are sterilised with ultraviolet radiation, which is a component of sunlight.

Exactly. UV sterilizers are sunlight simulators. Per Wikipedia, without our atmosphere blocking a lot of the sun's UV, there'd be little or no life on land.

You can say the same of Wind and Hydro, and even Oil and Natural Gas are just compressed plant matter to a larger degree. Only Nuclear is truly sun-neutral energy.