Australia and UAE would be quite ideal for the solar part.
Edit: So changing our energy needs to be reliant on hydrogen is, as Elon says “dumb”?
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They do. But it is still expensive. The cost is measured on cost of electricity. Even if you build more and more renewables, if the cost of electricity goes up the cost of hydrogen goes up. Another issue is that some times there is no sun or wind. The idea of hydrogen economy relies on using excess energy from renewable sources when they aren’t needed for other things. But if there is no wind or sun today, people still need power. Even if you have batteries, after the wind and sun picks up you need to recharge those. Currently gas is used to deal with the fluctuations but that is not renewable or green (no matter how much Germany wants to pretend it is).
If you really want to make hydrogen, you should make it using nuclear reactor and with a catalyst in high temperature. (I don’t think this has been done yet, but the test theory is there.)
Problem with hydrogen is that it is REALLY hard to transport. It just doesn’t want to stay contained or in a pure form or it needs a medium to be stored in. So it is only a local energy solution.
Hydrogen economy as an idea requires there to be reliable peak points during which renewable energy + base load, produce more than is needed.
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