I'm just listening to some podcasts about Fallout, and what none of them seem to mention when talking about the resource war is why the world didn't just build solar panels. HELIOS One powering Archimedes II proves that pre-War solar panels are much more efficient than the ones we have, so my question is if the USA could power a (seemingly) orbital laser artillery device with a fairly small solar farm, why could they not completely phase out nuclear and oil energy with solar power when oil and uranium supplies started to run out?

The only other place we see solar panels (to the best of my knowledge) is Nellis Air Force base. Maybe it was a technology that only started to gain traction right before the war, hence why we only see them at HELIOS One and a military base. Basically, my guess is they were still experimental technology.

It seems the writers are confusing solar-thermal and photovoltaic power with each other. You can salvage parts from heliostats (mirrors that auto-track the sun)... to repair the photovoltaic cells in Nellis. Oops.

Sad as it is to say, but while we can look at this and say "logical inconsistency!!!"

....we live in a world where 95+% of our world's scientists say "uhm ya you should probably get on that 'alternative energy sources' thing or we're all going to die," and yet does it happen? Not really, or at least it's an incredibly half-hearted attempt. Even when gas prices become more and more difficult to cope with, people continue to drive gas-powered vehicles. Why? Corruption and greed. Oil companies have power.

Not to bring real-world politics into this, but my overall point was regardless of your beliefs on global climate change or what-have-you, we see this sort of thing occuring in real life. So while we can sit here and say "why didn't the fallout universe do this, omg stupid fallout universe..." Yeah, pot calling the kettle black.