Notice I am talking specifically about solar energy, not energy "generated".
Solar energy comes in through whichever panels we are using, call this energy S, which has a maximum possible heating effect, H, if we do not convert any of that heat / energy to anything else.
We connect this via our lossy system dissipating some heat D1, to our computer, doing the lossy process of creating information, C, whilst dissipating more heat, D2
If we were creating nothing at all, just dissipating all the energy to the heat in D1 and D2, the worst possible heating effect is H. In that case D1+D2=H
But because we did do some creation, the actual energy dissipated is D1+D2-C
We are left with C, which is temperature reduction.
Yes it takes a computer a long time to do that amount of computation. But billions of computers doing that computation will make a massive difference.
The same thing applies to creation of hydrogen by electrolysis, and creation of food "Solein", all of them also define digital information, just by creation of structure. Plants do it too, by defining their structure. Look at the volume of plants on the planet, multiplied by the complexity of their structures. this has to all have the same effect when it is created, reduction of temperature, and the opposite when it is destroyed or reduced.
As for cost, the sun asked nothing for the joules or KWhrs that did the creation, so it is actually free. Materials of all descriptions, are all creations, all of it has to have reduced heat, and all of it was created by the sun.
The materials of the solar panels doing the receiving, are no different, although we might not know yet how to generate them directly from solar energy, no reason why we won't learn how to do this also. So in the end, even the facility to receive solar is for free, and creation of all of it reduced temperature, in this scenario of an actually creative existence.
We can't do it by continuing to do the opposite, which is what we are doing by all forms of energy extraction from the planet.
