I wonder this as well - it seems the most strategic path forward for any nation or community is to localize the supply chain as much as possible, but like oil before there's some things that are just impossible or super difficult to get locally. And unfortunately to find new ways to turn sun into electricity costs money to do and won't happen because the cost of the current method is too low to justify trying to turn sand into solar panels or whatever other thing you might try.

I dream of a solar punk future where basically any community can generate power without any horrifying pollution anywhere in the supply chain. Mirror powered smelters, sand batteries.