The money is same scale as oil & gas investments so it's not exactly something that isn't being done already - the layout can one big area, many smaller areas, the panels can be raised in the air to allow for crops | animals underneath, etc.
Roadsides would be good, poor quality agricultural land, lake beds that are drying up in the midwest and circa Utah, etc.
But yeah, you're right - too hard for the USofA that used to be great. /<sad>
Meanwhile, we're doing that here already - scaling up to power billion tonne per annum mining operations to deliver resource to the rest of the world .. where do you think China gets it's iron, lithium, mineral sands, etc. from?
Maybe that says something about the business model, hm? About how easy or how useful or how successful such an attempt would be.
Armchair energy experts can say anything, claim anything. But follow the money, that tells you what can work and what can't.
Not saying it will never work. But for now, largescale solar is fraught with landmines. But I said that already and been ignored because it's easier to make wild claims than address hard realities.
What you are just talking about there is that negative externalities are not controlled by market forces, but have to be regulated.
Now, to find that level unobstructed ground-level stable dry cheap tracts near grids, with access for maintenance. Near where folks need the electricity. And the land isn't ecologically significant. And remember, storage or it's not helping for shit.
There are so many obstacles left! So many reasons it will slow down once the enthusiasm and price supports have dried up. Like everything else we've ever done.