> As a rule, if you're tempted to begin any sentence with "they should just..." -- don't.

Strongly agreed.

> Electrical signal attenuation increases with the square of the distance, so you'll lose ~95% of the power to heat loss in the wires if you try to power Seattle from solar in Nevada

What? HVDC lines are usually estimated to have 3.5% power loss per 1000 km. Since power transmission is done using power lines, the inverse square law doesn't really apply here.

> There are a lot of very good reasons why we haven't covered the desert in solar panels.

That does remain true however. Cost concerns, grid access concerns, environmental concerns are all good reasons.