Just think of it. The U.S. could be the new Saudi Arabia of electricity. Though admittedly, transmitting that power to the rest of the globe could be a challenge. But not an insurmountable one. I will show you a picture of the U.S. with an area of solar panels it would take to power the world. But they don't have to all be in one spot. Or in the spot where they are shown. I think we have more than enough useless desert area in the U.S. to equal that amount of space. Also, I will show you another picture of the U.S. and the total area of solar panels it would take to just power the U.S. Again, they don't have to all be in the same spot. The second picture shows a square area about 140 miles per side. Elon Musk thinks it could be done with a total square area of just 100 miles per side. And having become a multi billionaire from his engineering skills, it would be unwise to discount out of hand what he has to say.
solar panels to power the world 2.jpg
Solar to power the U.S..jpg
Bulletbob (10-20-2021), cancel2 2022 (10-21-2021)
What it would cost to build so many solar panels would have been a better argument. But as for transmitting power, maybe Tesla was on to something when he wanted to do it. But his funding for a prototype was pulled by J P Morgan. After all, how can you charge anybody for something they receive for free. Also, masers bounced off satellites might be able to do it. Though it would have to be done in a fairly diffuse way. So as to not harm wildlife or heat the atmosphere.
Time to raise the bullshit flag again.
The world consumes right now about 69 terawatts a day. The average watt density of sunlight is about 1.4 kw per square yard. There are a billion kilowatts in a terawatt.
The best, most efficient PV solar panels are about 20% efficient in converting sunlight to electricity. That means for a one square yard panel you get about .3 kw at most.
Any single panel at any single location on the planet would only produce that (with 2 axis tracking) maybe 12 hours a day at most. Let's say 8 since with clouds, sun rise and set, etc., there's going to be some loss. That means a single one yard square panel would produce about .1 kw day worth of power or about 100 watt days of power. Now, to supply the world's energy needs, we need 69 billion kilowatts a day.
69^9 / .1 = 69^11 square yards of solar panels. There are 3,097,600 square yards in a square mile. This works out to about 2.23 million square miles of solar panels to supply all the planet's energy. This is the equivalent of paving over the entirety of Australia with solar panels (or about 2/3rds of the US). Of course, you'd need some extra on that to make up for poor weather and other conditions that limited production due to weather.
In addition, you'd need a grid of some sort to move all that power around to where it's needed, then add in land for being able to get at each panel and service it, along with inverters to turn DC into AC power...
We can do this for the US too. US consumption is about 3900 terawatts a year, or about 10.7 TW per day. That requires about 35,000 square miles of solar panels, or paving over the entirety of Indiana in solar panels solid.
Basically, solar is easily the stupidest, most insane, least efficient, most ridiculous way to generate large amounts of stable and predictable power there is. It's a fucking waste of time!
Last edited by T. A. Gardner; 10-20-2021 at 11:51 PM.
Bulletbob (10-20-2021), cancel2 2022 (10-21-2021)
chainbreak (10-21-2021)
I choose my own words like the Americans of olden times........before this dystopia arrived.
DARK AGES SUCK!
chainbreak (10-21-2021)
cancel2 2022 (10-21-2021)
Tesla wanted to transmit electricity wirelessly. Who are you to say it couldn't be done. Tesla even tried to build a prototype power transmission tower. But as I said, JP Morgan pulled the funding. Now you can disagree about powering the world. But would you call just powering the U.S. fantasy too?
I showed you the pictures. They were created by people probably more expert than you. And as I said, Elon Musk thinks it could be done with even a smaller total area. His engineering skills made him a multi billionaire. Who are you compared to him. Nobody I would say. Also, the actor Ed Begley Jr had been using them for decades. Apparently he fairly recently built himself a nice rather large house. With a swimming pool. He also drives an electric car. They may have more than one electric car. I don't know how often he runs his air conditioner or whatever. But he probably charges at least one electric car at home. His monthly utility bill is around $10.00. So time to face the facts. Solar panels work.
Solar panels exist all over the place. The technology is proven. It just needs to be scaled up. The biggest problem with the whole thing is that the power you get from solar panels is free. And there isn't much money to be made from free. But if you want to destroy the planet through human caused global warming, there is tons of money to be made from that. For as long as it lasts.
Prove my math wrong. Everything is correct. It works, and solar sucks. A 100 square mile area as you propose has an area of 309.76 million square yards (100 x 3097600). That is an indisputable fact. The watt density of sunlight is 1.4 kw per square yard on average.
https://hypertextbook.com/facts/1998...utbundit.shtml
That too is an indisputable fact. That means that AT MOST 433,664,000 kw falls on that area from sunlight.
The efficiency of solar panels right now is around 20% at best.
https://www.linquip.com/blog/efficie...-solar-panels/
https://www.greenmatch.co.uk/blog/20...e-solar-panels
That means at most PV solar panels covering 100% of that area would produce 86,732,800 kw during the mid-day hours. They would produce ZERO at night. That equals .0867 Terawatts. The US alone uses 10.7 Terawatts a day (24 hours). Those too are indisputable facts. That means a 100 square mile area of land completely covered in the most efficient PV solar panels available would produce .8% of the daily US consumption. That too is an indisputable fact.
SOLAR SUCKS AND IS USELESS!
As for your appeals to authority, they're meaningless. Ed Bagley Jr. has a friggin' high school diploma. That's it. Some authority there. He probably can't even do the math I just did. And Bagley didn't build his house, some contractor he hired did. He wouldn't know what he was looking at during construction.
Elon Musk is a very good businessman. He has a BS in economics and a BA in physics. He's not an engineer. He's good at selling but he's also controversial and has gone against science and engineering in more than one endeavor. He's wrong here. Solar sucks.
Last edited by T. A. Gardner; 10-21-2021 at 05:43 PM.
You can choose to be misinformed if you want. But if you think you could handle otherwise, try this.
https://www.freeingenergy.com/how-mu...power-the-u-s/
https://modernsurvivalblog.com/alter...united-states/
Your source says exactly the same thing I stated. It takes an area the size of Nebraska, about 22,000 square miles. Whether those panels are on rooftops or elsewhere is irrelevant. The area required doesn't change.
What that article leaves out is how to power stuff when the sun is down. The batteries required for that alone would be economically crippling running easily into the 10's of trillions and needing replacement and recycling every 7 or so years. Pumped hydro is worse as it requires adding in the energy to pump the water.
Then you have to figure in a "smart (stupid) grid." Germany's attempt at this is close to a trillion already and not done. That is, Germany is about the size of Texas, and they've spent a trillion (give or take) on a grid to shift energy around and it doesn't work yet. That's a fraction of the size of the US.
Solar is absolutely idiotically stupid.
Isaiah 6:5
“Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”
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