Solar Power Mojave Desert
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Is it true that we could set up a massive solar electricity plant in the Mojave Desert which could provide....?
power for the whole of the USA?
Bohemian_Garnet already covered the big bits pretty well. I just wanted to add that power generation is best kept local/regional. Sure we have a national "grid" but most power doesn't come from very far away. Why? "Line loss" is the term, and it has to do with the resistance of the wires. Transmission lines are made of aluminum (usually) which is a great conductor...but it isn't perfect. That low level imperfection become pretty significant when you start stretching out over hundreds of miles, so you have to put in substations to boost the power, and you lose much of the efficiency you were hoping to achieve. That is why most power stations are near big cities, because that is where the power is used. So, the big megawatt and gigawatt solar generation plants will pop up around (mostly) the southwest, and usually just an hour or two from major population centers, such as LA or Vegas or Phoenix.
Get a map and draw a circle around these cities representing 100 miles, and you will find almost all power generation stations (regardless if they are new solar, wind, or old coal or natgas, it doesn't matter) will be inside those circles.
[EDIT - for those folks saying how covering a house with panels won't supply enough power for that house, that only tells us how crappily designed and built our houses and many commercial buildings currently are. A lot of existing buildings can go through an energy audit and cut their consumption by 1/3 to 1/2, often with only a few hundred dollars of corrections that the designers and/or builders should have done. Also, we have the technology (and have had for about decades) to use fall less electricity than we do, and it is only out of ignorance we fail to do so. Lastly, much of our energy waste is for convenience, not for any real "need" -- we don't need lights that shine up at trees, or to light buildings from dusk till dawn, or run full building HVAC on weekends, and so on. We are operating on principals from the 50s and 60s that simply no longer apply, and cost us money. End rant]
Solar Powerplant in the Mojave Desert in California from SciHD's "Machines!". (2010)