> If you will indulge me the geopolitical fantasy of putting a suitable planetary-scale transmission system in place, is there any particular reason we couldn't switch to all-solar?

Just how much would such infrastructure cost? How much resources would we have to mine to facilitate such a massive overhaul to a non-centralized grid?

I think when renewables are presented as the only answer it is underestimated how much it would cost in investment in storage and the grid, to a point that I feel nuclear is a fine solution for base-load.

I have no numbers though so I cannot back this up or anything.