system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Why have we not paved the deserts with solar panels yet?
gpt
People generally don't live in deserts; this means the solar power plants would be pretty remote. This causes a few problems:

* A great deal of energy is lost in transmission i.e, while travelling through the power lines. That loud hum you hear when standing under power lines? That is waste energy. More is lost as heat. The further the energy has to travel, the more is wasted. There is also the expense of building and maintaining these power lines.
* Power plants need people to maintain and operate them. With a solar farm, the main issue would probably be servicing. You'd probably also need to employ security, since all that copper wiring alone would be worth stealing. These people would either need to be brought in every day from somewhere they can live, or they'd need to be housed at the plant and have food, water, etc brought in.

Improvements are being made in the efficiency of photovoltaic cells (solar panels), and it may soon get to the point where it becomes cost-effective to put a shitload of them in the deserts of the world. As fossil fuels (coal, gas, oil) become more scarce, solar power may become cheaper by comparison.