And the profits grow

[Delc]

The earth receives more energy from the sun in a year, then the total amount used by all humans in history. But maybe you are capable of wasting all of it, just by yourself...

There is simply no viable way to collect the vast majority of that energy, and there never will be. We can't collect all the sunlight over the oceans, or the arctic. Most people are generally opposed to clear cutting the forests to make room for solar panels. We still need some land to grow crops, which can't be covered up. In the end we are left with the deserts. But, most cities aren't built near deserts, so now we have to transmit the power thousands of miles which has massive limitations. Most notably reliability. I can't imagine the people in northern Canada want to trust their heat to every power line in between them and Arizona being in good condition.

As for the obvious answer of solar cells on top of buildings. That would only work in suburbia. I doubt even the little office building I work in could get enough solar cells on top of it to run the building, let alone the much larger towers downtown.