Solar Based Energy Savior for US?

I had a great conversation with a friend of mine that sits in the "more hopeful" camp of our energy future in it's current fashion (perpetual growth). He sent me an article as an example of how we'll be able to solve our energy issues.

Article Link & Excerpt:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/hardware/07/10/14/2129233.shtml

"The Pentagon issued a report indicating that space-based solar power 'has the potential to help the United States stave off climate change and avoid future conflicts over oil by harnessing the Sun's power to provide an essentially inexhaustible supply of clean energy.'

I went and read the actual report as well as the article. The report does lay out the immesnity of the problem .."energy and environmental security are not just problems for America, they are critical challenges for the entire world. Expanding human populations and declining natural resources are potential sources of local and strategic conflict in the 21st Century, and many see energy scarcity as the foremost threat to national security."

Not quoted here but also in the report, they use the term "Conflict Prevention", which is their way of saying "sustained militarization"

The report also states "The magnitude of the looming energy and environmental problems is significant enough to warrant consideration of all options, to include revisiting a concept called Space Based Solar Power" .... It would be wise to consider all options.. I tend to look at any publication that smacks of "This is THE solution!" falls into the "Saving Hero" mode of thinking. The solution will be mult-faceted. Working at the same time, differnent sources in different regions.

In looking at what's being said about SBSP, it's a "call to support & funding". Which means as a concept, it's Billons of dollars and decades away from being a feasible replacement. Further reading I find "SBSP will in turn also open space for a host of other activities that include space tourism, manufacturing, lunar or asteroid resource utilization, and eventually settlement to extend the human race." Ok Flash Gordon. This all presupposes a solved 'free energy' paradigm and is the kind of thing one finds in Venture Capitalist speak.

What other, perhaps more effective ways, can Billons of dollars be put into with the timelines we have? Where are we spending our efforts, assets and capital that could be better spent right now? Each of these questions produce different answers on the national, local, and in-home levels. All contribute to the whole.