3: Is Solar Power A Cost Effective Way of Running the World

Recently I've been given the chance to write a research paper in English class. We had to choose a topic that would interest us so I picked solar energy. this is an awesome topic because the world is constantly looking for new ways to replace fossil fuels for two reasons. First, the fossil fuels are a non-renewable resource that will run out someday. Second, the new movement is for everybody to go green. When fossil fuels are burned and carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere temperatures can rise slowly and take with them species of plants and animals. Solar energy has the advantage of being completely free of pollution and its an unlimited supply. The sun can produce enough energy in one hour to power the whole world for a year. This is amazing considering the fact that solar energy only accounts for fractions of a percent of our energy use today.
I am setting out to try and find out why this is. What are the draw backs to solar as a main source of energy for the world. I have realized that the possiblity of solar becoming the only osurce of energy or even a main source is diminished alot with the fact that the sun only produces this energy during the daytime. During the night time when energy is used alot how will this be able to power the world. Also, there is a lot that goes into installing and maintaining solar panels and it might even offset the positives from this sort of project. The direction I am heading in to show that this can be done is by previewing Germany's recent boom in the industry. They do not have a lot of sunlight but what they do have is a political group that has passed laws and incentive that make solar a huge chunk of power in their country. What can we learn from this?