[2ndclasscitizen]

Originally Posted by Matra et Alpine

[extreme nitpick]
Depends on the crop
Also, nothing stops the panels being 50ft off the ground
[/extreme nitpick]
Granted, it can't be farmed like the vast plains of Canada/America, but beets woudl be feasible

Fair point.

Wouldn't a downside to doing this 10000 square km solar panel field be that while it could generate enough power for Europe, it would be difficult to send all that power to Europe?

The thing that always gets me is that the Middle Eastern oil states, UAE etc etc, have so much money from oil, they could put a heap of that into developing non-oil dependent energy sources, then continue making money from those technologies when the oil runs out.