Something for nothing

[Spongebob]

Please correct me if I am wrong, but, I have read that if the United States would harvest every photon of light from the Sun that such energy (in Joules) would only meet 50% of that which we consume.

This is easily refuted.  In general terms, the sun bathes the earth in more energy in one hour than humans consume in an entire year.  Read sources below for details.  Of course we would never be able to capture all of those photons, nor would we want to.  But the point is, there's plenty of sunlight.  What you probably read had something to do with the limitations of solar panels to collect/capture photons and store them as electrical energy.  Of course there's also the possibility of collecting solar energy from space in the future, which would be orders of magnitude more efficient.  We just don't have any extension cords long enough.

sources:
https://www.businessinsider.com/this-is-...wer-2015-9
https://www.need.org/Files/curriculum/gu...tGuide.pdf
https://old-www.sandia.gov/~jytsao/Solar%20FAQs.pdf