[abalone]

> Even just building a long powerline around the globe to fetch it from warmer regions would be cheaper.

Deserts have good sun exposure and land availability but extremely poor water resources, which is necessary for washing the sand off the panels. There are many challenges with scaling both terrestrial and orbital solar.

[PurpleRamen]

I wasn't thinking of going THAT far. Northern Canada/Alaska is in the arctic region, so build the line some thousand miles down to the sunny parts of Canada/USA and call it done. Not like this is particularly hard, probably not even that expensive, compared to a million satellites/future space-debris. Greenland would probably be also a good location.