Maybe I’ve been playing too much factorio, but if the main ingredient is silicon it seems like we should be easily able to turn out TW worth of solar panels every year.
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In the real world there is more than just making sure there are enough belts and trains.
Each process takes time, space, and capital to produce.
Mining the silicon, smelting, crystalizing into wafers, forming it into panels, coating them to reduce reflection, and wiring them all take steps and labor.
Eventually there will be a bottleneck.
Theoretically, it’s possible to do crazy things with manufacturing. It’s been seen in war time economies like during WWII where factories standardized designs, setup their tools to make specific products as fast as possible, and focused all efforts into making ships, planes, rifles, etc.
So if a powerful nation just really wanted to absolutely print them, and had the political will to point a bunch of resources at the problem it’s technically possible. China often will “direct” its economy to produce things it wants. Command economies have their benefits and drawbacks which is an entire other economic discussion. It’s not perfect though, like during WWII when factories retooled to make war materials, consumer good production fell and quality of life suffered, or if the central power makes an inefficient decision you end up producing a bunch of products that simply aren’t needed.
Plus factorio has the benefit of centralized command to vertically integrate the entire process.
Factorio, not enough red science? Well just work on that copper production. You’re in charge of it, you can work that problem.
Real world, not enough circuit boards? Well… unless you make your own factory then you’re kind of just waiting like everyone else. And making a new factory cost money and expertise. Not enough aluminum in real life? Well unless the solar company owns an aluminum mine, the rail company to transport the ore, and the smelter, they can’t really do much besides ask nicely.
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