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You'd need to invent some special technology to radiate all that waste heat back out into space or your 'free energy from the sun' engines would bake you to death.

The problem with using space-based industry to send power to Earth has a very simple problem: heat. If we replaced all the of energy industries with space based solar cells we'd no longer locally generate power. But our devices would still inefficiently convert that power to work with waste heat. This makes the energy budget for the Earth even more fun to calculate.

Today "insolation adds 1366 W/m2 to the Earth. A lot of that trapped by the Atmosphere, rocks, water in the oceans and a non-trivial part in plants. Putting more solar cells on the surface of the Earth doesn't really change the heat budget. Trapping more of the light with greenhouse gases does, pushing the balance up a bit. Blocking out Sunlight with soot pushes it down a bit.

Focusing more light on the Earth does change the budget and quickly. Just to meet today's needs we would have to provide between 525 and 600 quadrillion Btu (source). Right now we do that with the sunlight energy either already stored up here or current sunlight falling onto the planet from space. (And some geothermal left over from radioactive material and the heat trapped from smashing a bunch of stuff together to make the planet.)

Right now, since we are supposed to be in an Ice age, this might be an advantage. Without the constant pumping of greenhouse gases to keep the temperature up this in-fall of more energy and waste heat could be used to keep the surface comfortable.

But what happens when we go past that point? Nobody wants to turn off their TV, air conditioning or cellphones for a few days to keep the heat budget in check. Just like today nobody wants to stop using the cheapest oil, coal or plasticizer no matter the cancer, coughing or smog filled skies.

The oceans are currently absorbing 7 billion tons of CO2 more than they outgas each year, with terrestrial absorption at 5 billion tons net per year.

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Library/CarbonCycle/carbon_cycle4.html (NASA's Earth Observatory site is currently offline)
(alternate link) http://www.visionlearning.com/library/module_viewer.php?mid=95

Solar irradiance does directly track historical temperatures; however, the past 30 years have shown increasing temperatures with steady solar irradiance.

Direct satellite measurements of solar irradiance find no rising trend since 1978, the start of measurements. Sunspot numbers have leveled out since 1950. The Max Planck Institute reconstruction shows that irradiance has been steady since 1950 and solar radio flux or flare activity shows no rising trend over the past 30 years.

An increase solar irradiance would warm all layers of the atmosphere as there would be more heat radiating through all atmospheric layers back out to space. An increased greenhouse effect would reflect more heat to the surface, thus warming the lower atmospheric layers and cooling the upper atmospheric layers. The second case is what is being observed.

http://www.mps.mpg.de/dokumente/publikationen/solanki/c153.pdf
http://www.pmodwrc.ch/pmod.php?topic=tsi/composite/SolarConstant
http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Sunspot_Numbers_png
ftp://ftp.ngdc.noaa.gov/STP/SOLAR_DATA/SUNSPOT_NUMBERS/MONTHLY.PLT
http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Solar_Cycle_Variations_png

Here's a better reference

We're talking about trade policy, and, wow, you managed to work in global warming, "the media" and George Soros. I salute you, winger.

Anyhoo.. you're totally wrong, or at least, at odds with the facts, since facts, truth, and debate in general occupy some fuzzy, extracranial space for people like you. The European Union numbers 500 million, or 2/3 larger than Am'rca, so there would most certainly be people to buy the damn imports. Europe's trade deficit with China is close to that of the United States, as you will find in this report by the Congressional Research Service dated January 4 of this year. Or you could just Google "china trade balance" and read the first 60 or so things that come up, it's all there.

Which brings me to what really tickles me pink about you, and others like you, viz. where do you get off being so self-righteous when you've obviously spent so little time actually reading primary source material and forming your own thoughts? Bill O'Reilly's talking points do not an argument make. Take that whole diatribe in the middle there, about global warming. Literally every point you make has been thoroughly refuted, and I'm not talking in a polemic, debatable fashion--you can go look these things up for yourself, and anyone who takes the time to do so (as I have) has to admit what you're saying is bunk. The 1970s Ice Age "consensus" consists of about 20 publications, almost all of them in the popular (not scientific) press. The notion that the medieval warm period compares to what we're seeing now is flat wrong. Solar radiation has been constant for the last 30 years, during which time the most significant warming has been recorded, so no correlation there. There is scant evidence that Mars is warming, and even if it is, human activity is a much more convincing explanation for our own warming. Etc. etc. etc.

That's not to say that convincing counterarguments to the anthropogenic warming hypothesis cannot be made, but these are not those, and you do not know them. Your slavish repetition of these canards makes it clear that you're not in the game for any sort of self-enlightenment, or desire to get at the truth, but simply to score points and massage your bruised ego by screaming at the George Soroses of the world. You're shouting at cars. Why? A mind is a terrible thing to waste.

Can you link to those studies? Every one I've ever read has pretty conclusively refuted this red herring. Above all, solar radiance has been constant for the last 30 years. I agree with you that there is uncertainty, and by that very logic, a rational being must begin to think probabilistically. By far the most probable culprit for what we are witnessing is our own behavior, and our response should be weighted accordingly.

Here's a newer study from the World Radiation Center that shows that solar irradiance has been constant.