You're thinking in very broad terms. "Society uses this much energy, it would take this many solar panels to generate that much energy." There's a lot of nuance you're ignoring. How much of that energy is consumed in remote places away from any power grids? How much of it is consumed for transportation, by vehicles that have to have on-board power? Solar won't produce it at a constant or even predictable rate, and it isn't consumed at a constant or predictable rate. In the UK for example, the power grid has to coordinate with broadcasters of soccer games because they have to cope with millions of kettles being turned on simultaneously during commercial breaks.

1.43% of the ocean doesn't sound like much in those terms, but Earth is a pretty big place, you're talking about covering more than 5 million square kilometers of ocean. I take it you plan to do that relatively near land, shallow water which would decrease the massive amount of steel and/or concrete you'd have to use to mount all those panels, so you're going to shade millions of acres of estuary and tidal ecosystems from sunlight...and then scatter them with debris during the next hurricane.

Question: How much concrete and steel are you going to have to manufacture and install to support a couple million square miles of solar panels over the ocean? I mean, it's not like those are energy intensive, carbon releasing industries, right?

Further question: Do you think you're helping anything? Jeremy Clarkson had this dismissive term he would use for the "cars are bad for the environment" people: Ecomentalists. That's as good a term as any for the kind of thinking you've displayed here.

Energy sustainability is a valid concern and photovoltaic generation is one of several technologies we should be using to address it, but it's not going to do it alone. "Let's cover tens of millions of acres of the ocean in solar panels" says "I want to solve the actual problem" less than it says "I really like solar panels."

I have a different proposal: Let's cover the Panama Canal's lock reservoirs in solar panels. If you're not familiar, one of the newer additions to the Panama Canal is a set of reservoirs that water from the locks is drained into rather than directly from lock to lock. What that does is allow some volume of water to be re-used more often before being released out to sea. Covering those in solar panels isn't going to disrupt an ecosystem; they're artificial reservoirs. Support structures aren't going to be as massive; they're surrounded by land. The shade from the panels would cool the water in the reservoirs and prevent at least some evaporation, preserving some water for lock usage, and the energy could be used to actually pump water uphill. Every gallon pumped uphill is a gallon of Lake Gatun's water preserved, which serves as drinking water for the million residents of Panama City. Also, if the lake level is maintained higher, the canal can remain open to more traffic, drastically reducing the distance of travel for ships. Every voyage that goes through the canal rather than around the Horn is millions of kilograms of high sulfur bunker oil that isn't burned. That, and projects like it, is much more realistic, fundable, doable, and will have real impacts.

1. I live in a forest, so no I can't. My property is shaded by trees I don't own.

2. Even if I could, solar panels work best when aligned perpendicular to sunlight, and fixed solar panels spend most of the day oblique to the light. Any panel that doesn't move will give you a bell curve of power throughout the day. Mine do. I can go out there, align them with the sun with a little sundial thing, half an hour later they're making 10% less.

Don't mistake me as anti solar. I have solar panels in the sun making power right now. They're useful, but they have limitations.

And yeah, you'll want to store it. We've got batteris for that.