So in 25 years solar may match that, if we don't run out of acceptable places to put it.
No, we won't just put solar anywhere; we don't have unlimited room for them. Takes agricultural land out of production; ecological disaster to put it in deserts; cities already objecting to solar farms, trying to zone them out of existence.
https://elements.visualcapitalist.com/how-much-land-power-us...
> How Solar Could Free Up 29.8 Million Acres of Prime US Farmland
> Corn is a Shitty Solar Panel: 160x more energy from an acre of solar than an acre of corn ethanol
~30 million acres (~46,875 square miles) of corn is currently harvested for corn ethanol. There is a material amount of ag already wasted today for energy, that could be utilized more efficiently.
https://leahy.substack.com/p/how-solar-could-free-up-298-mil...
Forward looking renewable projects:
https://www.interconnection.fyi/ [My note: There is currently 979.12 GW of solar in interconnect queues]
https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/images/figure_6_01_c... (yellow = solar, green = wind, gray = batteries)
But I get it; we did it for ethanol (valuable as a mobile fuel) because it was commensurate with gasoline, not because it rivaled the electric grid.
Using expensive land to make solar electricity may not rival other forms of electric generation, which is the real measure of solar's viability. Grid energy is cheaper, and needs to be generated by cheaper means.
So again, not all land is suitable for solar generation, not so it would pay.
http://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/chart-gallery/chart-de...
https://www.terrainag.com/insights/examining-the-economic-cr...